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The Story of a Drunken : Culture in Timurid Central

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio

By

Stephanie Honchell, M.A.

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2015

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Scott Levi, Advisor

Dr. Jane Hathaway

Dr. Thomas McDow

Copyright by

Stephanie Honchell

2015

Abstract

This project uses the context of alcohol consumption under the Timurid in fifteenth-century as a prism through which larger cultural and religious trends can be understood and explained. While the assumption that forbids alcohol is often repeated, the issue of alcohol consumption has never been as clear-cut as is often portrayed. In the context of Central Asia, facilitated rather than hindered the continuation of traditional drinking practices due to the proliferation and flexibility of the

Hanafi legal rite and the Maturidist school of . As a result, drinking practices did not represent a lack of regard for religious tenets, but instead reflected Islam’s interpretive adaptability.

By emphasizing long-term cultural evolution, this project shows how various historical trends converged up to and during the Timurid period and were then disseminated outward, specifically into with the establishment of the Timurid-

Mughal . In addition to shedding light on religious practice, the Timurids’ drinking culture exemplified the ongoing socio-economic shift in the away from pastoral nomadism. By exploring the changing contexts and occasions of alcohol consumption in fifteenth-century Central Asia, it is possible to identify the distinctive influences of Islamization and sedentarization in shaping cultural practice. As a result, it

ii becomes clear that the most significant factor in shaping Timurid culture was not Islam or a turn towards religious orthodoxy, but instead the ongoing shift away from nomadism in favor of a more sedentary lifestyle.

iii

Acknowledgments

As stubbornly independent and self-sufficient as I may imagine myself to be, I am humbly aware of and forever grateful for the many people and organizations that have offered their support and encouragement throughout the process of both my graduate studies and the writing of this dissertation. First and foremost, words cannot express my gratitude to my advisor, Scott Levi, for introducing me to Central Asian history and guiding me through this journey with wisdom, patience, and an inexhaustible sense of humor. Additionally, I thank my secondary advisors, Jane Hathaway and Thomas

McDow, whose insights, feedback, and recommendations have proven invaluable in shaping both this work and my perspective as a scholar. I am also greatly indebted to

Saeed Honarmand and Javad Abbasi, who both dedicated many hours to helping me trudge through Persian manuscripts. I would also like to thank Jim Bach and professors

Ousman Kobo, Carter Findley, Stephen Dale, Alan Gallay, Devin DeWeese, Maria

Subtelny, and Thomas Allsen for their support and willingness to offer advice and assistance at every turn.

The of this project required many trips to archives both in the and abroad. I thank Alan Beyerchen and Jennifer Seigel for supporting my project through awards from the Bradley Foundation, which financed research at Indiana

iv University in Bloomington and at the in and the in Oxford. I also thank Ed Lazzerini at IU, as well as my fellow graduate students Anjali

Vijayathil, Meg White, and Nick Walmsley for welcoming me in Bloomington.

Research in was funded by the Office of International Affairs at Ohio State.

In Uzbekistan I was enthusiastically welcomed and hosted by Gulchekra Sultanova and

Dilara Yunus. I am also incredibly grateful to Paolo Sartori and Thomas Welsford for inviting me to participate in the workshop “Towards a New Social History of 19th- and

Early 20th-century Central Asia,” in in 2012. The insights and perspectives I received from them as well as Florian Schwartz, Andreas Wilde, and the other participants, including my fellow graduate students Jeffrey Eden, James Pickett, and

Daniel Beben, were hugely influential in shaping this work. I also thank Thalien

Colenbrander and Kathy van Vliet-Leigh at Brill for granting me advance access to

Ulrich Rudolph’s book on al-.

I must also thank my colleagues and boon companions at Ohio State, especially

(though not limited to) Jason Drake, Dan Vandersommers, Karen Stringer, Abby

Schreiber, Libby Marvel, Saba Nasseri, Catalina Hunt, Isacar Bolaños, Hannah Ewing, and Brent Harbaugh. It is only through their friendship and patience that I have emerged from this process with any semblance of sanity, and for that I am forever indebted to them. I have also been blessed to teach an incredible group of students at both Ohio State and Fort Lewis College, whose enthusiasm and hard work continually reinforced my dedication to complete my Ph.D.

v My family has unconditionally supported me throughout my life, and they each had a hand in shaping me into the woman I am today. I would especially like to thank

Kay Honchell, Sue Lafferty, and Janet Day for inspiring me with their strength and encouragement. Todd Day for his dry sense of humor and quiet support and Amanda

Day for being the most amazing, beautiful, and supportive little sister I could ask for.

Lastly, the two men who have truly inspired me by shaping my understanding of the world and who have instilled in me a general refusal to worry about what other people think: my father Roger Honchell and the illustrious physicist and bongo player Richard

Feynman. It is to their memories that I humbly dedicate this dissertation.

That being said, any inaccuracies, inconsistencies, or errors of interpretation are the of an adorable little Tibetan spaniel named , who sat by my side as I wrote every page and gladly accepts responsibility for any and all of my shortcomings.

vi

Vita

2002-2004 ...... New York University

2006-2008 ...... B.A. History, University of Louisville

2008-2010 ...... M.A. History, University of Louisville

2010 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University

2014 to present……………………………...Visiting Instructor, Department of History, Fort Lewis College

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

vii

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..iv

Vita………………………………………………………………………………………vii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter 1: Rivers of in Paradise……………………….…………………………..16

Chapter 2: The -Limbed Drinking Tree……………………………………….…..33

Chapter 3: Alcohol in Transition…………………………………………...... 61

Chapter 4: Chastise me When you Find me Sober...……………………………….……93

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...127

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………135

Appendix A: I’ll Drink to That: Alcohol in Myth, Reality, and History……………….149

Appendix B: of Rukh’s on wine drinking……………………...168

Appendix C: “A Drunken Returns to Camp”……………………………………170

Appendix D: Translation of Babur’s Pledge of Temperance…………...………………171

Appendix E: Timurid Genealogy (simplified)……………....………………………….175

viii

INTRODUCTION

Drink up your wine and – as you do so – I Will a story from the days gone by, A story full of and trickery, Whose hero lived for and chivalry. (940-1020) 1

In the early fifteenth century, the last great nomadic conqueror, Temür, forged an empire spanning large parts of Central Asia, , and . During the century of Timurid rule that followed, a distinct imperial culture evolved featuring an amalgamation of the dynasty’s nomadic, sedentary, Turkic, Mongol, Persian, and Islamic identities. The interaction of these various traditions led to a shift so pervasive that the culture of late Timurid rulers such as Husayn Bayqara and Zahiruddin

Babur bore little resemblance to that of the empire’s founders. Timurid imperial culture is often presented as reflecting a turn towards Islamic orthodoxy during the reign of

Temür’s son and successor, . However, this interpretation represents a misunderstanding of both the nature of and of the Timurids themselves. By exploring the changing contexts and occasions of alcohol consumption in fifteenth-century Central Asia, it is possible to identify the distinctive influences that shaped Timurid cultural practice. By doing so, it becomes clear that the most significant

1 Abolqasem Ferdowsi, : The Persian Book of , trans. (New York: Penguin, 2007), 307.

1 factor in shaping Timurid culture was not Islam or Shah Rukh’s supposed turn towards religious orthodoxy, but instead the ongoing shift away from nomadism in favor of a more sedentary lifestyle. This project has three primary goals: to use alcohol culture as a prism to shed light on the nature of religious practice in Central Asia; to incorporate the

Islamic world more substantially into the growing field of alcohol history; and, perhaps most importantly, to reassess the legacy of the Timurids, particularly Shah Rukh.

The way Central Asians have historically understood, observed, and interpreted their religion is distinct when compared to in other parts of the Islamic world.

Islam first came to Central Asia during the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Eventually, the majority of the populace embraced this new religion, adhering to the legal rite in particular.2 Several factors contributed to the popularity of the

Hanafi rite, including the fact that it is generally the most flexible of the four legal traditions in reconciling religious doctrine with indigenous traditions, a major concern in

Central Asia. Thus, the adoption of Islam did not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional cultural elements, even those seemingly at odds with Islamic doctrine. Where alcohol was concerned, Hanafi scholars took a variety of stances, the most lax of which permitted the unrestricted consumption of all alcoholic beverages other than wine or, alternatively, allowed the consumption of any kind of alcohol so long as the imbiber did not become intoxicated. Within this context, a school of speculative theology arose, known as Maturidism, which argued that belief was not dependent on the observance of religious rituals or . It was the dual influence of Hanafi and Maturidi doctrine that

2 In , there are four accepted legal rites that espouse different techniques and methodologies for deriving religious rulings.

2 facilitated and legitimized the continuation of pre-Islamic drinking habits among both

Transoxania’s nomadic and sedentary populations. As a result, drinking practices in

Central Asia did not represent a lack of regard for religious tenets but instead reflected

Islam’s interpretive flexibility and adaptability.

Cultural history can obviously be approached and explored in a variety of ways and the choice to frame this study around alcohol arose from several considerations, the most significant of which is unquestionably the complicated and hugely misunderstood relationship between Islam and alcohol. The oft-repeated assumption that Islam forbids alcohol (and the corollary assertion that Muslims, therefore, do not drink) belies both the interpretive flexibility of Islam and the diversity of religious practice observed by

Muslims throughout history. Alcohol use can be viewed as a lens through which to examine the nuances and gray areas of Sunni orthodoxy and orthopraxy in sedentary

Central Asia. Therefore, in addition to exploring the Timurid era specifically, a study of alcohol culture in Central Asia allows for a move away from the monolithic and simplistic interpretations that have hindered the incorporation of the Islamic world into the growing field of alcohol history. Additionally, the ritual and ceremonial significance of alcohol in Turco-Mongol culture offers a clear way to measure both cultural continuity and change. This is not limited to the contexts and occasions of consumption, but also to the types of alcohol consumed as tastes and preference arise from and reflect complex cultural milieus.

In addition, I attempt to incorporate larger historiographical conversations regarding the processes and influences of Islamization and sedentarization in Central

3 Asia, such as those found in the works of Devin DeWeese, Nurten Kılıç-Schubel, Wilferd

Madelung, Ulrich Rudolph, Richard Frye, and Thomas Allsen. DeWeese’s work on the

Islamization of the provides important insights into the negotiations between religious doctrine and indigenous traditions allowed for by the Hanafi rite.

Kılıç-Schubel also explores this topic in her examination of the continued importance of both the Mongol and Islamic legal codes (respectively, the yasa and ) in post-

Timurid Central Asia. For sedentary pre-Mongol Central Asia, Rudolph’s Al-Maturidi and the Development of Sunni Theology in Samarqand, Madelung’s Religious Trends in

Early Islamic Iran, and Fry’s The Heritage of Central Asia examine the process and nature of Islamization, laying the groundwork for any detailed discussion of religious practice in the region, including during the Timurid period. Without understanding the brand of Islam popularized by the Samarqand School in the early centuries after the coming of Islam, it is impossible to make sense of later religious attitudes and interpretations.

The incorporation of the into historical studies of alcohol culture has been hindered by monolithic representations of Islam, which this study actively seeks to overcome. While there are many works about alcohol history and about Islamic society, the assumption that Islam forbids alcohol has limited the scholarly examination of alcohol in Muslim societies. Many studies of Islamic history make mention of alcohol; however, only a few engage in significant discussions of its role in culture and sociability. Discussions of why and how Muslims drank, the recognition of change over time, or analysis of the impact alcohol may have had on the history and culture of these

4 societies is notably absent. Studies on the global history of alcohol as well as those on alcohol and religion generally take what is best described as an ipso facto approach:

Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol; therefore Muslims do not drink and those who do have sinned.3 Monographs on alcohol culture in with significant Muslim minorities, such as and the , use these same assumptions as an excuse to exclude Muslims from their studies. For example, in his study “Living Water”: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation, David Christian explicitly states that in framing his analysis he chose to completely ignore “Muslim areas [where] alcohol was forbidden on religious grounds.”4 The exclusion of Muslims from both global histories and monographs on alcohol thus reinforces the assumption that as perceived non- drinkers, Muslims represent a sober “other,” fundamentally different from their western

Christian counterparts.

Even the various scholars who contributed to the recently published edited volume Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, which includes Central Asia as part of the larger Persianate world, present wholesale Islamic as a given and therefore proceed from the assumption that drinking by Muslims is always in violation of Islamic .5 Despite these difficulties, some scholarly works have challenged this trend and

3 See Griffith Edwards, Alcohol: The World’s Favorite (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001), 16-18; Taha Baasher, “The Use of in the Islamic World,” in Griffith Edwards, Awni Arif, and Jerome Jaffe, eds., Drug Use and Misuse: Cultural Perspectives (Beckenhem, UK: Croom Helm Ltd. and the World Health Organization, 1983), 21-32; Arthur James Powell, “Only in Paradise: Alcohol and Islam,” in C.K. Robertson, ed., : Sobering Thoughts (New York: Peter Lang, 2004), 95-110. 4 David Christian, “Living Water”: Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation (Oxford: , 2001),76. 5 See Stefanie Brinkmann, “Wine in – from Intoxication to ,” in Bert G. Fragner, Ralph Kauz, and Florian Schwartz, eds., Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond (Vienna: Verlag der ÖsterreichIschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), 71-136; Rudi Matthee, “The Ambiguities of Alcohol in Iranian

5 analyzed alcohol culture within an Islamic historical context and framework, thus laying important groundwork for the study at hand. These include Peter Heine’s Weinstudien and ‘ al-Muqri’s Al- wa-al- fi al-Islam. Heine’s study notes that legislation supporting prohibition has become increasingly strict during the modern period, a point exemplified by the protests al-Muqri’s work received when it was originally published as a series of articles in in 1997.6 The most significant

English- publications on the subject are Ralph S. Hattox’s Coffee and

Coffeehouses, Najam Haider’s The Origins of the Shi’a, Sami Zubaida’s Beyond Islam,

Kathryn Kueny’s The Rhetoric of Sobriety, and Rudi Matthee’s The Pursuit of Pleasure.

Though Hattox, Zubaida, and Haider do not focus their studies specifically on alcohol or intoxicants, they are of particular importance here as they contain the most substantial discussions of Hanafi attitudes towards alcohol to date. However, Haider reinforces many existing assumptions by asserting that Hanafi attitudes towards alcohol evolved from limited injunctions to wholesale prohibition by the twelfth century C.E.7 While this is true of many in the central and western Islamic world, as this study will show, it is not applicable to those in (or originating from) the eastern Islamic world, particularly

Central Asia.

History: Between Excess and Abstention,” in Fragner, Kauz, and Schwartz, eds., Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, 137-164; and Willem Floor, “The Culture of Wine Drinking in Pre-Mongol Iran,” Fragner, Kauz, and Schwartz, eds., Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, 165-210. 6 Peter Heine, Weinstudien, Untersuchungen zu Anbau, Produktion und Konsum des Weins im arabisch- islamischen Mittelalter (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz, 1982), xi-xii; ‘Ali al-Muqri, Al-Khamr wa-al-aabidh fi al-Islam (Beirut: Riyad al-Rayyis lil-Kutub wa-al-Nashr, 2007), 1-2. 7 Najam Haider, The Origins of the Shi‘a: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century (: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 145-46.

6 Zubaida’s work argues for a more holistic understanding of the diversity of

Middle Eastern society by moving beyond the adjective “Islamic” and exploring culture as a dynamic and ever-evolving process responding to various influences beyond religion. I borrow Zubaida’s definition of culture as a “process in flux in relation to other socio-economic and political processes and situations, rather than a distinct unit with an essential identity.”8 Additionally, in the course of researching and writing this project, I have come to appreciate Zubaida’s assertions regarding the erroneous tendency to attach

“Islamic” to every aspect of society – from science, to art, to law, as if religion is the sole defining characteristic. The heterogeneity of the so-called Muslim world proves that while Islam can be an undeniably important aspect of culture, it is not the only contributing factor, nor is its influence universal. Zubaida elaborates on various aspects of culture, using drinking practices in the and as an example of both the flexibility of Islam and the limits of its influence in the cultural sphere. My research supports Zubaida’s findings by showing that when viewed through the prism of alcohol consumption, the dominant force driving cultural change was not Islam but the transition from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles.

Of the works listed above, Kueny’s The Rhetoric of Sobriety is the only one to focus solely on alcohol (specifically wine). It should be noted, however, that Kueny’s is not a historical study, as her emphasis is on the development and evolution of theological discourse. Essentially, she examines the ambiguities surrounding the prohibition of wine as a reflection of larger questions with which the early community of believers grappled

8 Sami Zubaida, Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 9-10.

7 in forming their identity as both a separate religious confession and a project aimed at restructuring society as a whole. While Kueny’s work is informative and provocative on a philosophical level, she does not engage any sources on Islamic law or .

Therefore her study does not actually shed light on how the Qur’an and hadith have been referenced and followed (or ignored) by Muslims over the centuries. As such, Kueny’s major contribution for the present work lies not only in her compilation of references to alcohol from a variety of early sources, but also in the framework she proposes for analyzing the ambiguous nature of wine as a controlled substance within an Islamic context.9

As previously stated, the third goal of this study is to better understand the

Timurid legacy by reassessing the reign of Shah Rukh. Scholars have previously argued that Shah Rukh’s policies were representative of a larger societal shift towards religious orthodoxy. However, as this study will show, orthodoxy had a specific meaning in the context of Central Asia that is often overlooked, leading to misreadings of Shah Rukh’s policies and misinterpretations of his motives. By exploring the cultural life and legacy of the Timurids, this project directly engages the recent work of scholars such as Maria

Subtelny, Beatrice Manz, Stephen Dale, and Lisa Balabanlilar. In many ways, this project builds from Subtelny’s works on Timurid religious attitudes, and it draws similar conclusions regarding the nature of religious practice and the influence of sedentarization in shaping Timurid culture. Manz’s works on Timurid political life and social organization have also contributed greatly to this study, though my emphasis on cultural

9 Kathryn Kueny, The Rhetoric of Sobriety: Wine in Early Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), passim.

8 evolution has led to findings that are at times at odds with hers. Dale’s critical biography of Babur, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, as well as his other work on the later

Timurids, provided the foundation for the extensive examination of culture in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Central Asia contained in the final chapter of this work. Additionally, this project complements Balabanlilar’s Imperial Identity in the

Mughal Empire, which examines the cultural legacy of the Timurids at the Mughal court in , by further developing our understanding of the complex culture Babur carried with him to South Asia. While both Dale and Balabanlilar discuss alcohol culture, neither explores the ways drinking reflected Central Asian religious interpretation and practice.

The fifteenth century offers an excellent prism through which the larger discussions of alcohol culture in both Islamic and Central Asian histories can be viewed.

This is largely due to the abundance of literary sources – , memoirs, , and more – composed under Timurid rule. While Timurid took pains to present themselves as legitimate Muslim rulers, their drinking habits were far from abstemious, and the sources are sprinkled with tales of drunken adventures and mishaps, the occasional , and what can best be described as an acute understanding of addiction and the physical and psychological problems it can cause. What is perhaps most interesting and telling is that the Timurids had no qualms about recording accounts of drinking, whether casually or compulsively, for posterity. Thus, in the Timurids we see in microcosm a divergence between religious rhetoric and cultural practice, allowed for – if not encouraged by – the already liberal legal and theological interpretations put

9 forth by the Hanafi rite in conjunction with Maturidi theology and evidenced in the dynasty’s drinking culture.

In addition to shedding light on religious practice, the Timurids’ drinking culture exemplifies the ongoing socio-economic shift in the region away from pastoral nomadism in favor of a more sedentary lifestyle. While many of the Timurids’ imperial predecessors, the , were well-known for their love of drinking, the cultural meanings attached to alcohol had changed significantly by the fifteenth century. The primary alcoholic beverage of the , kumiss (fermented mare’s milk), held an important ceremonial role in nomadic society and was ritually consumed at such events as the accession of new khans and meetings of political leaders. While both the Mongols and Timurids engaged in heavy drinking bouts, Timurid drinking became largely devoid of ceremonial or ritual connotations. In addition, the relatively low-alcohol-content kumiss was eventually replaced almost entirely by the far more alcoholic wine – a drink of settled agriculturalists – as the beverage of choice at the imperial courts. While the story of alcohol use in Central Asia is marked by both continuity and change, the changes that did occur in drinking practices up through the Timurid period resulted primarily from this increasingly sedentary lifestyle rather than in response to the adoption of orthodox

Islamic attitudes towards alcohol. Indeed, the adoption of Islam, and specifically the

Hanafi rite, contributed much more substantially to the continuation of traditional drinking practices than to their elimination.

In its original conception, this project borrowed its theoretical framework from

Thomas Allsen’s Commodity and Exchange in the , wherein Allsen uses

10 the Mongol’s predilection for gold brocade fabric as a window into their worldview and cultural priorities. By doing so, he masterfully demonstrates that the Mongols were not passive conduits through which the achievements of other civilizations flowed, but were instead actively engaged in shaping international trade according to what they deemed

“meaningful in the context of their own cultural traditions.”10 Thus, where Allsen uses textiles to explore the dynamics of cultural interaction and overturn long-held misconceptions, I endeavor to use alcohol. However, during the process of researching and writing, this project diverged – both conceptually and semantically – from Allsen’s model, becoming much more focused on specific individuals and on uncovering the underlying social and religious constructs that evolved over centuries of cultural interaction and resulted in the highly syncretic culture expressed by the Timurids. By unraveling the disparate threads that contributed to the formation and evolution of

Timurid culture, the emphasis shifted specifically to Babur as the endpoint of one phase of cultural evolution (Timurid) and the beginning of another (Mughal). The recognition of this gave rise to the title of this work, The Story of a Drunken Mughal, which is meant to situate Babur’s life and times within a larger historical framework. This is not a biography of Babur, but rather the story of the long-term cultural processes, influences, and evolutions that shaped both the world he lived in and his conception of it.

10 Thomas Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A cultural history of Islamic textiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 106.

11 : Defining “Central Asia”

Today, the term “Central Asia” generally refers to the area encompassed by the five former Soviet republics of , , Uzbekistan, , and

Kyrgyzstan. Historically, “Central Asia” included parts of eastern Iran and northern

Afghanistan (Khurasan); western ( and inner ); the modern-day

Republic of Mongolia; and southern . Thus, for our purposes, “Central Asia” refers roughly to the land stretching from the in the west to present-day

Mongolia in the east. It includes Khurasan in the south and is bounded by the Siberian plain in the north.11 The majority of the discussion, however, focuses on the sedentary zones south of the Qipchaq Steppe and west of the Tien Shan Mountains. The Greco-

Latin term “Transoxania,” meaning the land beyond the Oxus () river, is also employed occasionally to indicate the exclusion of Khurasan. Though most of the arguments made herein are applicable to the majority of historical Central Asia, in some instances religious or cultural trends differed greatly on either side of the Amu Darya.

Therefore, while “Central Asia” includes Transoxania, the two should not be read interchangeably.12

11 Scott Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 1550-1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 8; Peter Golden, Central Asia in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1-2; Scott Levi and Ron Sela, eds, Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), 1. 12 For a detailed overview of the geographical terminology used to refer to “Central Asia” historically, see Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 8-12.

12 Organization of the Study

This dissertation is organized into four chapters. The first chapter examines alcohol in a religious context.13 Interpretations put forth by the Hanafi legal rite and

Maturidi theology are discussed in detail, as they were – and continue to be – the most influential schools of Islamic thought in Central Asia. In terms of understanding the history of alcohol in Central Asia, it is highly significant that Hanafism is the only legal school to promote a limited injunction against alcohol and drinking, due largely to the interpretive flexibility at the core of the rite’s methodology. Additionally, the assertion that belief was not dependent on works or actions put forth by Maturidi theology worked in tandem with Hanafi rulings to legitimize the continuation of pre-Islamic practices, even those potentially at odds with orthodox Islamic thought. The specific legal rulings and justifications embraced by the other three Sunni rites –Shafi‘i, , and – are discussed only in passing, primarily because they are not especially relevant to the specific goals of the study, and also because Najam Haider has already provided an excellent overview of the derivation and content of their rulings on alcohol in his book

The Origins of the Shia.14 However, as previously stated, my findings concerning the evolution of Hanafi legal rulings differ from Haider’s, as he argues that Hanafis embraced wholesale prohibition by the twelfth century C.E., which I will show was not the case in Central Asia. This chapter is not intended to promote one interpretation as more or less valid than others, but rather to clarify how Muslims at different times interpreted their religion and provide the context for studying Timurid religious practice.

13 An overview of the , pharmacology, and production of alcohol is provided in Appendix A. 14 Haider, The Origins of the Shia, 138-86.

13 After all, even if some interpretations are no longer in vogue in the Muslim world today, that does not make them any less legitimate for the people who adhered to them in the past.

Chapter 2 analyzes the role of alcohol in both sedentary and nomadic Central Asia from the initial Islamic conquests in the eighth century C.E. through the decline of

Mongol rule in the fourteenth century C.E. The early establishment of Hanafism as the primary legal rite shaped religious practice and the process of conversion in Central Asia, while also facilitating the continuation of traditional drinking patterns. In the thirteenth century, the rise of the Mongol empire and the subsequent dissemination of its imperial culture produced substantial changes in drinking practices, as new alcohol tastes and technologies travelled back and forth across . Following the collapse of central

Mongol authority, Central Asia fell into political disarray, and in that context Temür emerged and forged the last great .

The imperial culture promoted by Temür largely resembled that of his Mongol predecessors, not only in terms of the types of alcohol consumed, but also in the incorporation of scrupulously observed drinking rituals and the open participation of royal women at drinking . Following Temür’s death, his son Shah Rukh engaged in a complicated succession struggle, and as a means of gaining support and bolstering

Timurid legitimacy, he appealed to religious elites by promoting a populist version of

Islam and himself as the ideal pious leader. Part of his religious rhetoric included the issuance of decrees supposedly invoking the religious prohibition of wine, which has become a focal point in the of his reign. However, he made

14 little or no effort to actually enforce anti-alcohol legislation or punish imbibers.

Practically speaking, alcohol use did not decline during Shah Rukh’s reign. Timurid drinking culture did undergo a significant transformation, but this was largely unrelated to Islam or the supposed shift towards religious conservatism during this period. Instead, the changes that took place reflected the adoption of increasingly sedentary lifestyles as part of the replacement of Turco-Mongol imperial practice with Perso-Islamic court culture. As a result, traditional beverages produced by nomadic groups, such as mead and kumiss, disappeared from Timurid courts, while wine became their alcoholic beverage of choice by the mid-fifteenth century.

Finally, Chapter 4 draws together the various discussions from previous chapters to provide an analysis of drinking culture during the late Timurid era as expressed through Babur and his contemporaries. Babur and the later Timurids simultaneously exhibited a variety of identities; they were Muslim, Turco-Mongol, Persian, and Timurid.

At the same time, many, including Babur himself, were also unabashed drunkards. It is only by contextualizing the evolution of Central Asian culture as reflecting both

Islamization and sedentarization that we can begin to explain the complicated and changeable relationship with alcohol observed during this period. By incorporating these elements into the historical analysis, this chapter reveals the cultural dynamism of the later Timurids, which can only be appreciated once facile understandings of Islam,

Muslims, and alcohol are set aside.

I’ve talked enough; let’s drink, and may the wine Dispel all your anxieties and mine.15

15 Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, trans. Dick Davis, 391.

15

CHAPTER 1

RIVERS OF WINE IN PARADISE: ALCOHOL AND ISLAM IN CENTRAL ASIA

If the wine drinker has a deep gentleness in him, he will show that, when drunk. But if he has hidden anger and arrogance, those appear, and since most people do, wine is forbidden to everyone. (1207-1273)1

It’s a matter of creed for me: goblets of wine My love’s lips just like rubies, this is my doctrine I won’t forsake. Puritans, I offer you apologies. (1315-1389)2

It is the season for wine, roses and friends drinking together, Be happy for this moment – it is all life is. Khayyam (1048-1131)3

One of the major misconceptions about Islamic law is that a single legal code exists that all Muslims are expected to follow. In reality, the interpretation and application of Islamic law has varied and continues to vary greatly throughout the

Muslim world. For Sunni Muslims, the existence of four madahib4 (Hanafi, Hanbali,

1 Rumi, “Why Wine is Forbidden,” in , ed., The Essential Rumi (New York: HarperOne, 1995), 111. 2 Hafiz in Leonard Lewisohn, ed., Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 77. 3 , The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. and John Heath-Stubbs (London: Penguin, 1981), 80. 4 Legal rites. Ar. singular: .

16 Shafi‘i, Maliki), to be explained below, and two schools of theological discourse (Ash‘ and Maturidi) has contributed to significant differences in both religious interpretation and practice.5 To understand the religious identity of the Timurids, the nature of Islam in

Central Asia must be understood as reflecting the combined influences of Hanafi legal theory and Maturidi theology, the dominant schools of thought for both the region’s sedentary and nomadic populations. In terms of alcohol consumption, the Hanafi rite has historically supported flexible interpretations, and these have been used to legitimize drinking habits that were expressly forbidden by the other rites. Additionally, Maturidi theology deemphasizes the importance of works and orthopraxy, allowing for a greater acceptance of practices that might otherwise be deemed un-Islamic. This chapter will provide a context for understanding Timurid religious identity by exploring how the

Hanafi rite and Maturidi theology allowed drinking to continue to hold a legitimate place in Central Asian society.6

Since the death of Muhammad, Islamic law has never been uniform. Different interpretations were originally associated with regional centers; however, by the middle of the tenth century C.E. four schools of thought gained widespread acceptance, the

Hanafi, Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali rites, each claiming to build on the opinions of its eponymous founder.7 Within the Sunni establishment, these legal rites were recognized

5 Ian Edge, “Introduction: Material Available on Islamic Legal Theory in English,” in Ian Edge, ed. Islamic Law and Legal Theory (New York: New York University Press, 1996), xv. 6 Wilferd Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, NY: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 26- 27; , The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th-10th Centuries C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 48-51. 7 The eponymous founder of the Hanafi rite is (d. 767 C.E.). Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 2-3; Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, xviii.

17 as “equally valid alternate interpretations of the sacred Law.”8 Fanaticism notwithstanding, the orthodox legal rites have historically practiced mutual toleration, leading to a pervasive heterogeneity of legal practice within Muslim societies.9 Though

Hanafism gained an early and enduring foothold in most of Transoxania, including

Samarqand and , Shafi‘ism – the dominant Sunni legal rite in Iran before the sixteenth century – maintained a significant following in Khurasan and some parts of

Transoxania, including historical Shash ().10 As will be discussed in Chapter 3, negotiating between these different legal rites would prove fundamental in shaping

Timurid religious policies, especially in terms of alcohol, as rulers sought the support of the empire’s significant Shafi‘i minority, who embraced wholesale religious prohibition.

The first local Muslim dynasty in Central Asia, the Samanids (819-1005 C.E.), contributed to this heterogeneity by recognizing the legitimacy of the Shafi‘i rite, while still embracing and actively promoting Hanafism as their state’s official religious doctrine. The northward expansion of Islam to the Turkic nomadic tribes during the period also reflected the preeminence of Hanafism in Transoxania, as representatives of the Hanafi rite in Samarqand played a major role in the conversion of Turkic populations.11 Additionally, the development of Maturidi theology during the Samanid period encouraged the conversion of Turkic populations by arguing that one’s status as a

Muslim was not dependent on orthopraxy. As Wilferd Madelung showed in his

8 Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 3. 9 Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, 67; Jonathan Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the , 600-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 146; Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period (Cambridge, MA: , 1979), 81-86. 10 Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 26-27. 11 Wilferd Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the ,” in Actas do IV Congresso de Estudos Árabes e Islâmicos, Coimbra-Lisboa 1968 (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 123.

18 groundbreaking work on Maturidism, “the status of faith depended on the mere confession of belief in Islam, to the exclusion of all works,” meaning that when Turkic converted, their status as Muslims was not dependent on observing or even knowing the “intricacies of [Islamic] ritual and law.”12 In this way, Maturidism reinforced Hanafi attitudes, allowing for the continuation of pre-Islamic drinking practices even as many Hanafis in other parts of the Islamic world came to embrace prohibition.13

Jurisprudence: Alcohol and Islamic Law

The two broad questions that dominate legal discussions about alcohol concern the legality of alcohol consumption and the punishment meted out to drinkers. Three of the four legal rites agree on wholesale prohibition, with only Hanafis supporting limited injunctions. In determining the proper punishment for illicit drinking, means of discovery and establishing burden of proof were the primary concerns addressed by jurists from all four rites. In developing and articulating rulings on alcohol, each rite applied its own methodology for interpreting what was, in theory, the same source material. All four Sunni legal rites agree on the basic sources that can be used to establish legal rulings, namely the Qur’an and hadith, and, to varying degrees,

(consensus of the community), (analogy), and (free and independent

12 Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the Turks,” 122-23; Wilferd Madelung, “The Early Murji’a in Khurasan and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism,” Der Islam 59 (1982), 33. 13 Haider, The Origins of the Shia, 141-46; Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the Turks,” 112; Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Maturidi and the Development of Sunni Theology in Samarqand, trans. by Rodrigo Adem (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 98-99.

19 thinking).14 The major differences among the legal rites stem from disagreements regarding the circumstances under which the last two (qiyas and ijtihad) are applicable and the status ascribed to hadith or consensus of the community as compared to the

Qur’an.15 For our purposes, it is significant that, in contrast to the views of the other rites,

Hanafis asserted that independent reasoning could take preference over the strict application of analogy.16 For example, where the Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali rites used analogy to expand the definition of the Qur’anic term khamr (wine) to include all intoxicants, Hanafi jurists contended that only alcoholic substances derived from and dates counted as khamr and were subject to prohibition. Thus, by applying ijtihad rather than qiyas, Hanafi jurists were able to establish limited prohibition and, in certain situations, legitimize alcohol consumption.17

In determining whether or not alcohol consumption is licit, the most significant interpretive disagreement differentiating Hanafism from the other legal rites lies in the connotations of the word khamr, which appears in Suras 2, 5, 12, and 47 of the Qur’an.18

Suras 2 and 5 equate khamr with gambling, stating that both have the potential to be advantageous or detrimental, but that they should be avoided as the negatives outweigh the positives.19 Drinking and gambling are presented as mechanisms through which

14 Hadith are purported records of the deeds and sayings of Muhammad and his companions. Sunni Muslims recognize six canonical collections of hadith, though historians believe a substantial portion of these were fabricated by early jurists. See Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton: Press, 1981 (originally published in 1910)), passim. 15 Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, 4-6. 16 Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, 60-61. 17 Abdul I. al-Matroudi, The Hanbali School of Law and : Conflict and Conciliation (London: , 2006), 72-3; Haider, The Origins of the Shia, 138-39, 146-56. 18 Suras 12 and 47 refer to wine in Paradise, not the earthly variety. 19 Qur’an 2:216, 5:90-91.

20 , the great tempter, can lure people away from the correct path. It is important to note that khamr is not unequivocally forbidden in the Qur’an, but its consumption is clearly discouraged as it can tempt believers away from remembering God and undermine the basic rules that allow for the establishment of a stable society. On these grounds, adherents of the Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali rites argued for wholesale prohibition and applied analogy to extend the definition of khamr to all intoxicating beverages. Various hadith were invoked in support of prohibition, such as the caliph

‘Umar’s pronouncement that khamr “was prepared from five things: from , , date, grape, honey; and khamr is that which clouds the intellect.”20 Additional hadith record Muhammad as declaring that “Every intoxicant is khamr and every intoxicant is forbidden” and that “if a large amount of anything causes intoxication, a small amount of it is also prohibited.”21 Proponents of a limited definition cited a hadith traced to

Muhammad’s companion Abu Hurayra, who recorded that Muhammad said, “khamr is prepared from the fruit of these two trees – date-palm and vine.”22

Though these hadith are all included in canonical collections, there are clear differences in how they define khamr. The most likely explanation, originally put forth by Ignaz Goldziher and elaborated upon by Joseph Schacht and Christopher Melchert, is that during Islam’s formative period “Muslim men of religion invented hadith reports to justify their doctrines.”23 These hadith often reflected local contexts and concerns,

20 43:7186. 21 Sahih Muslim, 23: 1108; Abu Dawud 27: 3673. 22 Sahih Muslim 24: 4893. 23 Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, xxviii.

21 seeking to legitimize existing practice in religious terms.24 This is not to imply that all hadith were fabricated, but in the case of alcohol the contradictory hadith clearly serve to legitimize opposing arguments. As Melchert points out, hadith supporting wholesale prohibition come from later collections, reflecting a trend toward traditionalist approaches in the early ninth century C.E.25 In all likelihood, these hadith did not necessarily inform original legal rulings, but served to legitimize positions that had already been established as the legal rites were coalescing.26 Thus, Hanafi jurists were able to use hadith to support their exclusive definition of khamr, just as jurists from the other rites used hadith to support their definitions.

It is also of note that, strictly speaking, milk is not listed as a source of khamr in the hadith traced to ‘Umar, thus strengthening the argument for the exclusion of kumiss from the list of prohibited substances. Because alcoholic beverages made from milk were uncommon outside of the steppe, kumiss was neither a subject of early religious debate nor a specific target of prohibitive legislation. As such, when Turkic nomadic groups were incorporated into the predominant Hanafi Islam of Transoxania, kumiss was easily accorded an exceptional status compared to other forms of alcohol. Granted, by the same token, potato-based vodka, agave-based tequila, or -based rum would also be excluded. For this reason, followers of the Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali legal rites apply analogy to include any substance with the potential to intoxicate.27

24 Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, 81-86. 25 Ibid., 50-51. 26 Wael B. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 191; Berkey, The Formation of Islam, 146. 27 Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and : The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 53-55; Haider, The Origins of the Shia, 141-46.

22 The hadith stating that every intoxicant is khamr was also circumvented by Hanafi jurists, who argued that non-intoxicating quantities were not forbidden. This was accomplished by reading the word used for intoxicant (muskir) as an adjectival participle meaning “intoxicating” or “causing intoxication,” rather than as an active participle meaning “intoxicant.” Thus the hadith can be read: “Every[thing] causing intoxication is khamr, and every[thing] causing intoxication is forbidden.” This allows for a slightly different interpretation, whereby drinking khamr to the point of intoxication is forbidden but drinking it without becoming intoxicated is not.28 By this logic, it could be argued that moderate consumption of even grape or date wine is legally permissible, allowing for the use of wine and other alcohols in cooking and for medicinal purposes, both of which were extremely limited by the other legal rites.29 This is not to imply, however, that every follower of the Hanafi madhhab agreed with or adhered to this legislative interpretation, merely that the precedent existed within Hanafism whereas it did not within the other schools of thought.30

Further support for the argument that intoxication rather than consumption is forbidden comes from Sura 4 of the Qur’an, which warns believers not to pray while intoxicated, but to wait until sober.31 The implication of this verse is that it is possible to be both intoxicated and a true believer, meaning that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. However, intoxication interferes with one’s ability to fully comprehend and therefore engage in prayer, which is one of the and obligatory for

28 Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses, 53-55. 29 Brannon M. Wheeler, Applying the Canon in Islam: The Authorization and Maintenance of Interpretative Reasoning in Hanafi Scholarship (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), 148-49. 30 Haider, The Origins of the Shia, 141-46. 31 Qur’an 4:43.

23 every Muslim. The verse goes on to list other reasons for postponing prayer, including performing bodily functions or in certain situations, such as during travel. Thus intoxication is considered one of several circumstances in which prayer should not be undertaken until the state has passed, similar to physical uncleanliness. This verse is invoked in sources from Central Asia to demonstrate an individual’s piety, such as when

Babur praises his uncle, Sultan-Ahmad , for never praying while drunk.32

In addition to legitimizing alcohol consumption in certain situations, Hanafi jurists put limitations on prosecuting imbibers by establishing a burden of proof that was difficult to satisfy. The evidence required to punish imbibers was recorded by the twelfth-century Central Asian scholar Burhan al- al-Farghani al-Marghinani (d. 1197

C.E.) in his authoritative work on Hanafi jurisprudence, al-Hidayah, which continued to be one of the most influential works on Islamic law through the end of the Timurid period and into the .33 Working out of Samarqand, al-Marghinani compiled and synthesized Hanafi rulings, thus allowing for greater uniformity in legal practice.

Though al-Marghinani travelled widely, he was trained and spent the majority of his career in Samarqand. As a result, his discussion of alcohol reflect a distinctly

Transoxanian Hanafite interpretation.34

32 Babur, The , trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, f. 18b (p. 22). 33 Burhan al-Din al-Farghani al-Marghinani, Al-Hidayah: The Guidance, Volume 2, trans. Imran Ahsan Nyazee (Bristol, UK: Amal Press, 2006), 229-232; Maria Eva Subtelny and Anas B. Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning in Timurid Iran in the Light of the Under Shah Rukh,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.2 (1995): 210-236; Philipp Bruckmayr, “The Spread and Persistance of Maturidi and Underlying Dynamics,” Iran and the 13 (2009): 64-65. Al-Hidayah was also a core component of the religious curriculum in the Ottoman Empire and is still referenced in many parts of the Islamic world today. See al-Marghinani, Al-Hidayah: The Guidance, Volume 1, trans. Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, ix-xxv. 34 Al-Marghinani, Al-Hidayah: The Guidance, Volume 1, trans. Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, ix-xxv.

24 According to al-Marghinani, a person could only be punished for drinking only if he still had the smell of wine (khamr) on his breath or was visibly drunk. However, simply smelling of alcohol was not, in and of itself, proof of illicit activity; he could have been forced to drink or became intoxicated through consuming licit substances, such as kumiss. Therefore, the accused drinker must either confess to willingly drinking a forbidden substance or two witnesses must testify that they saw him drinking a forbidden substance. If the person was no longer intoxicated he could not be prosecuted or punished even if he confessed to having imbibed.35

Evidence of al-Hidayah’s enduring influence in Central Asia is found in religious scholar Fadlullah ibn Ruzbihan Isfahani’s 1519 advice manual Suluk u’l-Muluk. In his discussion of Hanafi punishments for drinking, the author includes a direct Persian translation of al-Marghinani’s original, written three centuries earlier yet still presented as authoritative and applicable.36 Al-Marghinani and al-Isfahani both composed their works long after Hanafi jurists are supposed to have embraced prohibition.37 Yet their works clearly demonstrate that, in a Central Asian context some forms of alcohol, such as kumiss, remained legal. Additionally, the evidentiary requirements to punish imbibers outlined by al-Marghinani and repeated by al-Isfahani were tailored to target public drunkenness, not drinking in general.

35 Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan al-Isfahani, The Suluk u’l-Muluk, eds. M. Nizamuddin and Mohammad Grouse (: Persian Manuscript Society, 1966), 379-83; Al-Marghinani, Al-Hidayah, Volume 2, 229-232. 36 As will be discussed in the conclusion of this work, al-Isfahani was a Shafi‘i scholar who personally opposed alcohol consumption. However, Suluk-ul-Muluk was composed for the Hanafi Shibanid ruler, ‘Ubaydullah Khan, and therefore includes extensive discussions of Hanafi law. 37 Haider, The Origins of the Shi‘a, 145-46.

25 Practically speaking, it is very difficult to enforce prohibitive measures on a sustained and widespread scale, and no society in Islamic history has successfully curbed drinking in its entirety. Even though drinking was deemed illicit throughout much of the

Islamic world, it often continued to occupy a place in the private sphere. Despite differing interpretations regarding the legality of alcohol consumption, all four Sunni legal rites adopted some form of legislation against . Because the

Shafi‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali rites accept wholesale prohibition, the major point of contention concerning alcohol in legal debates within these rites has centered on punishment and discovery. For example, the relative evil associated with drinking as compared with other sins is important when determining whether or not the imbiber should be punished. This is exemplified in a hadith recorded by the tenth-century Shafi‘i theorist al-Mawardi38 concerning the caliph ‘Umar, who dropped in unexpectedly at a friend’s home, and found the people inside engaged in a drinking . When ‘Umar attempted to chastise the partiers for drinking, they pointed out that it was ‘Umar himself who had committed the greater offense by entering the house unannounced. If he had not first invaded their privacy, he never would have discovered their drinking. According to the hadith, ‘Umar accepted this argument as valid and went on his way without any further attempt to reprimand his friend or the guests.39 This hadith exemplifies the principle expounded by the Hanafi rite and embraced by intellectuals from Spain to

Central and South Asia that drinking conducted in private did not pose an immediate or

38 This hadith does not appear in the Kutub al-Sittah, the six canonical hadith collections. 39 Amira K. Bennison, The Great Caliphs: The of the ‘Abbasid Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 106.

26 visible threat to society at large and therefore existed outside of the realm of earthly punishment. The only legal rite that expressly promotes interfering in private wine parties is the Maliki rite. According to the , a person is obligated to interfere in drinking that involves multiple imbibers, but not in individual drinking. The reason for this is that the latter offense is committed by the individual against God, but does not represent a direct threat to the social order in the way that group drinking does.40

In the Hanbali rite a person must have definite knowledge of wrongdoing, such as drinking or possession of alcohol, not merely a suspicion in order to legally invade the privacy of another.41 Additionally, in regard to the individual obligation to forbid wrong, the potential consequences of interfering must be weighed against the crime being committed. For example, if chastising a drunkard would likely lead to a physical fight and then potentially to someone’s death, a person is considered absolved of his/her religious obligation to prevent others from sinning.42 Shafi‘i scholars take a similar position, though they take it a step farther by stating that reprimanding a drinker should be done only once the person is sober, in such a way as to not bring him or her public shame, and lastly only if there is hope of preventing the same offense from being committed in the .43

It is also important to note that the nature of the accepted legal rites prohibits the adherents of one rite from punishing followers of another rite for actions that are allowed by the latter’s rite. For example, a Hanbali is not supposed to rebuke or punish a Hanafi

40 Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 381. 41 Ibid., 133. 42 Ibid., 155. 43 Ibid., 343

27 for doing something prohibited by Hanbalism but allowed by Hanafism. This allowed for the proliferation of flexible attitudes towards alcohol consumption, as a Hanafi need not fear punishment for, say, drinking kumiss at the hands of a Hanbali, Shafi‘i, or Maliki.44

Additionally, in places where the Hanafi rite did not predominate it was possible to embrace what Yılmaz terms “inter-madhhab surfing,” whereby one could choose to selectively follow the rulings of a legal rite other than his own.45 In terms of alcohol, this was prominent in Umayyad Spain, where the predominantly Maliki population embraced the lenient Hanafi attitudes towards alcohol consumption, thereby allowing alcohol to hold a legitimate place in al-Andalus. However, while Hanafi attitudes toward alcohol continued to dominate in Central Asia, later Muslim polities in Spain such as the

Almoravids (1040-1147 C.E.) and Almohads (1121-1269 C.E.) were stringently Maliki and reinstated wholesale prohibition.46

For Central Asians, the adoption of Islam did not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional cultural elements, even those seemingly at odds with Islamic practice. As shown, where the legalities of alcohol were concerned, Hanafi scholars took a variety of stances, the most lax of which permitted the unrestricted consumption of alcoholic beverages other than grape wine or, alternatively, allowed the consumption of any kind of alcohol so long as the imbiber did not become intoxicated. This is not to imply that alcohol use continued only among Hanafis or adherents of another legal rite

44 Ibid., 91-92, 136. 45 İhsan Yılmaz, “Inter-Madhhab Surfing, Neo-Ijtihad, and Faith-Based Movement Leaders,” in Bearman, Rudolph Peters, and Frank E. Vogel, eds., The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005),191, 199. 46 Maribel Fierro, “Proto-Malikis, Malikis, and Reformed Malikis in al-Andalus,” in Bearman, et al., eds., The Islamic School of Law, 66; Allen J. Fromherz, The Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 184.

28 who partook in occasional “inter-madhhab surfing.” Instead, when people who were exclusively Maliki, Shafi‘i, or Hanbali drank (as many throughout history have) they were technically engaging in illicit activity regardless of the quantity or type of alcohol they consumed. However, the preference for protecting privacy over forbidding wrong espoused by all the Sunni legal rites meant that drinking undertaken in private could be considered outside of the jurisdiction of the legal establishment. The flexibility of

Hanafism towards alcohol consumption not only allowed for it to achieve greater legitimacy in society, but also for it to exist as an acknowledged part of both private and public culture in a way it could not in other parts of the Islamic world.

Theology: The Maturidi Kalam

The origins of Hanafism in Transoxania are unclear, but the Samanid period is said to mark its triumph in the region.47 Working in Samarqand under the patronage of the Samanids, the Hanafi scholar Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944 C.E.) helped develop a school of speculative theology intended to both apply the tenets of Hanafi legal doctrine to theological inquiry and combat the rising influence of the rationalist Mu‘tazilite theological school.48 Few reliable details about al-Maturidi’s life survive. He was the student of several illustrious Hanafi scholars of the Samarqand school, including Abu

Sulayman al-Juzjani, al-Juzjani, and Abu Nasr al-‘Iyadi. As a member of the

47 Madelung, “The Early Murji’a in Khurasan and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism,” 39. 48 The Mu’tazilites were influenced by Greek philosophy, arguing that there was no contradiction between belief and reason and that possessed moral freedom. They came into conflict with other theological schools by arguing, among other things, that the Qur’an was created (inspired by God) rather than uncreated (part of God’s essence). See Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 87-89.

29 elite scholarly community in Samarqand, al-Maturidi’s ideas were not revolutionary, but instead reflected those that had been developing in the region for well over a century.

According to Ulrich Rudolph, eastern Hanafis had already developed a distinct theology based on the teachings of Abu Hanifa by the early ninth century. However, it was al-

Maturidi who first systematically articulated these ideas as a separate theological doctrine.49

By the mid-eleventh century C.E., al-Maturidi’s teachings had coalesced into a distinct school of speculative theology, which came to be referred to as Maturidism.50

The other major orthodox Sunni theological school, ’rism, developed in during the same period, based on the teachings of the theologian Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash’ari

(d. 935-6 C.E.).51 In most respects, al-Maturidi and al-Asha’ri espoused common doctrines, developed as counters to Mu’tazilism. However, while Asha’rite theology is not associated with a specific legal rite, Maturidism remained inextricably linked to eastern Hanafism. In terms of doctrine, there are thirteen identifiable points on which

Maturidi theology deviates from Asha’ri teaching.52 For our purposes, the most significant of these is the aforementioned debate over the connection between faith and works. According to Asha’rite theology, belief is dependent on both verbal assent and works. argue that only verbal assent is required. Thus, conversion required no direct knowledge of the Qur’an or Islamic law, and one’s status as a Muslim was not

49 Rudolph, Al-Maturidi and the Development of Sunni Theology in Samarqand, 72-74. 50 Bruckmayr, “The Spread and Persistance of Maturidi Kalam and Underlying Dynamics,” 61. 51 W. Montgomery Watt, "al-As̲h̲ʿari, Abu ’l-Ḥasan," EI2. 52 Rudolph, Al-Maturidi and the Development of Sunni Theology in Samarqand, 9-13.

30 dependent on orthopraxy.53 Rudolph argues that this originally grew out of economic concerns, as Muslims and non-Muslims were subject to different taxes. Therefore, for tax purposes, a Muslim could be identified as anyone who had made the verbal profession of faith.54

This proved especially important in shaping the way Turkic populations practiced

Islam, as the Maturidi-Hanafi synthesis not only allowed, but also encouraged the incorporation of local custom and continuation of traditional practices. Thus drinking was able to occupy a legitimate place in Islamic Central Asian society in both legal and theological terms. However, while Maturidi ideas spread north into the steppe, they did not infiltrate the Islamic heartland until the expansion of the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century.55 By this time, many Hanafis outside of Transoxania had adopted the teachings of the Egyptian theologian Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahawi (d. 933 C.E.), a former

Shafi‘i who had emerged as one of the foremost scholars of Hanafi jurisprudence. His doctrine closely resembled that of the Shafi‘i and Hanbali traditionalists, leading to a theology much more closely aligned with Asha’rite than Maturidi thought, thus establishing a clear distinction between western and eastern Hanafis.56

While the origins and early spread of Maturidism have been studied extensively in the works of Madelung and Rudolph, little scholarly attention has focused on identifying the school’s long-term influence on religious practice in Central Asia or among Turkic

53 Wilferd Madelung, “Early Sunni Doctrine Concerning Faith as Reflected in the Kitab al- of Abu ‘Ubaid al-Qasim b. Sallam (d. 224/839),” Studia Islamica 32 (1970), 233-34. 54 Rudolph, Al-Maturidi and the Development of Sunni Theology in Samarqand, 25-26. 55 Ibid., 2, 14. 56 Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the Turks,” 112; Bruckmayr, “The Spread and Persistance of Maturidi Kalam and Underlying Dynamics,” 62; Norman Calder, "al-Ṭaḥawi," EI2.

31 populations elsewhere in the Islamic world, such as .57 Philip Bruckmayr has explored the persistence of Maturidi thought in the religious curricula of Timurid,

Ottoman and Mughal schools. He does this by highlighting the prevalence of works written by scholars trained in Maturidi theology, such as al-Marghinani, who, as previously discussed, wrote al-Hidayah, one of the most important and influential works of Hanafi jurisprudence.58 While Bruckmayr’s work represents an important step towards appreciating the endurance of Maturidi Hanafi thought, his discussion focuses on identifying the mechanisms that allowed Maturidism to persist, rather than analyzing the impact continued adherence to this school of theology had on religious practice. Viewed through the prism of alcohol culture, it becomes clear that Maturidi Hanafi thought played a substantial role in shaping religious practice throughout Islamic Central Asian history. By exploring the nature of Islam in Central Asia we can appreciate the fact that the existence of a vibrant drinking culture did not reflect a lack of adherence to religious tenets. Instead it reflected the unique way Central Asian Muslims interpreted, understood, and practiced their religion.

57 There have also been several important studies examining the development and articulation of Maturidi theology. However, these focus on theological debates with little discussion of the effect of these doctrines in shaping the religious practice of its followers. See Joseph Austin Devenny, “Al-Maturidi’s Sharh al- al- and his Quranic Argument for Qadr” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1954); Farouq ‘Umar ‘Abdallah al-‘Omar, “The Doctrines of the Maturidite School with Special Reference to as-Sawad al-Azam of as-Samarqandi,” (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1974); Muhammad Mustafizur Rahman, An Introduction to Al-Maturidi’s Ta’wilat Ahl al-Sunna (: Islamic Foundation of , 1981). 58 Bruckmayr, “The Spread and Persistance of Maturidi Kalam and Underlying Dynamics,” 62.

32

CHAPTER 2

THE SILVER-LIMBED DRINKING TREE: ALCOHOL IN CENTRAL ASIA, C. 750-1350 C.E.

Drunkenness is sweet because it separates the I from the I, Otherwise how should sense countenance senselessness? Juvayni (1226-1283)1

There has never been a without thorns, or wine without a hangover. Rashid al-Din (1247-1318)2

As discussed in the previous chapter, the Hanafi interpretation, which flourished in large parts of Transoxania, allowed for a much more limited injunction against alcohol than the other legal rites did, and this proved fundamental in shaping Central Asian drinking practices. While many Hanafis in other parts of the Islamic world gradually accepted general prohibition by the eleventh century C.E., sources indicate that this was not true in Central Asia, where alcohol continued to hold a legitimate place in society.3

The changes that did take place in drinking patterns were a result of the ongoing interaction between sedentary and nomadic populations rather than the adoption of Islam.

1 ‘Ala al-Din ‘Ata Juvayni, The History of the World Conqueror, Volume II, trans. from the text of Mirza Muhammad Qazvini by John Andrew Boyle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 550. 2 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, ’u’t-Tawarikh, Compendium of Chronicles: A History of the Mongols, Part Three, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Department of Near Eastern and Civilizations, 1999), 607 (f. 874). 3 Haider, The Origins of the Shi‘a, 146.

33 This chapter will first consider the role of alcohol in sedentary Central Asia from the arrival of Islam in the eighth century to the Mongol conquests in the thirteenth century.

The discussion will then turn to the steppe and the diffusion of imperial nomadic drinking culture under the aegis of the Mongol Empire, thus providing the specific historical context that will set the stage for an analysis of drinking culture under the Timurids, which will be the focus of the final two chapters.

Pre-Mongol Central Asia

Prior to the Arab conquests, alcohol occupied an important place in the societies of both sedentary and nomadic Central Asia. The cultivation of grapes in the sedentary regions of Central Asia supported wine production, and the beverage occupied an important place in the region’s social, religious, and economic life. Central Asian grape were exported to China as early as the third century C.E., a trade that continued well into the Islamic period.4 In , grape wine was used in the observance of rituals, particularly for purification purposes. According to Rudi Matthee, in

Zoroastrianism wine retained the significance that it had held in earlier Near Eastern traditions, which connected it with blood and the cycle of life and death in ritual contexts.

Zoroastrians embraced “the concept of …wine symbolizing the liquid gold and flowing fire of the radiant sun, and the of drinking wine at dawn represented the

4 Edward H. Shafer, The Golden Peaches of : A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), 141-45.

34 conjunction of the new moon and the sun.”5 By imbibing at this symbolic moment,

Iranian kings ritually codified their authority as the qiran or “lord of the auspicious conjunction” – a title later adopted by Temür and his successors in their quest to assert legitimacy in meaningful and recognizable terms. Spreading out from the , these cultural currents became integrated into sedentary Central Asia, which was firmly part of the pre-Islamic Persianate world.6 The coming of Islam triggered changes in the contexts and occasions of alcohol consumption, specifically in the removal of wine from religious ritual. Nonetheless, wine-drinking continued to accompany celebrations of life events, including births and , regardless of the religious nature of the ceremony itself.

In part, this attitude towards alcohol stemmed from the establishment of the previously discussed Maturidi Hanafi doctrine, which emphasized verbal profession of faith over orthopraxy.7 In the juridical realm, the legitimation of alcohol derived from non-grape sources, such as kumiss and mead, was relatively easy for Hanafi jurists.

Finding ways to legitimize the culturally ingrained grape-wine of sedentary Central Asia, however, required more creative legal footwork. The two main arguments put forth in the early Islamic period to legally accommodate wine-drinking emphasized the difference between drinking and drunkenness and the importance of the age of the drinker. In the first case, it was argued that the quantity of the substance consumed was what mattered: wine was not forbidden per se, only the specific cup of wine that caused intoxication.

5 Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and in Iranian History, 1500-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 38. 6 Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure, 38; Lisa Balabanlilar, Imperial Identity in the : Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 9. 7 Madelung, “The Early Murji’a in Khurasan and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism,” 33.

35 For the latter, youth excused indiscretions, so long as repentance and increased piety accompanied age and maturity.8

For the most part, Central Asian texts from the early Islamic period do not directly associate abstinence from alcohol or drinking with religion or piety. This reflects at least in part the influence of both Hanafi legal thought and, by the ninth century, the theologians working out of Samarqand. Advice literature of the “Mirror for Princes” genre encouraged temperance and emphasized the negative effects of excessive alcohol consumption. But the authors rarely used religion as a basis for their prescriptions, and their arguments could hardly be considered uniquely Islamic.9 It would be difficult indeed to find advice literature from any culture that promoted continual or excessive drunkenness as a quality that went hand in hand with good leadership. Though primary source material for early Islamic Central Asia is limited, it is possible to draw some general conclusions about drinking in this period from various works, including

Narshakhi’s Tarikh-i-Bukhara, al-Utbi’s Kitab-i-Yamani, ’s Zayn al-akhbar, and

Yusuf Khass Hajib’s .10

8 For examples of these arguments, see the eleventh-century Persian work by Kai Ka’us ibn , A Mirror for Princes: The Qabus Nama, trans. Reuben Levy (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company: 1951), 50, 53, 57-60. 9 Though only Yusuf Khass Hajib’s work will be discussed in detail (as it was produced in Central Asia), the works of Kai Ka’us and Nizam al-Mulk offer further evidence of this trend. 10 , The , trans. Richard N. Frye (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954); Abu al-Nasr 'Abd al-Jabbar al-'Utbi, The Kitab-i-Yamini: Historical Memoirs of the Amir Sabuktagin, and the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, Early Conquerors of , and Founders of the Ghaz-Navide Dynasty, trans. James Reynolds and al-Jarbadakani Nasih ibn Zafar (London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1858); Abu Saʻid ʻAbd al-Hayy Gardizi, The Ornament of Histories: A History of the Eastern Islamic Lands AD 650-1041: The Original Text of Abu Saʻid ʻAbd al- Hayy Gardizi, trans. C. Edmund Bosworth (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011); Yusuf Khass Hajib, Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutagdu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes, trans. Robert Dankoff (: Press, 1983).

36 Wine for the Sown

The first major local dynasty to rule over sedentary Central Asia following the

Islamic conquests was also the region’s last Persian dynasty: the Samanids (819-1005

C.E.). Under Samanid rule, Central Asia was fully incorporated into the Islamic world’s intellectual blossoming, which has since come to be regarded as the ‘Abbasid Golden

Age. Though the Hanafi madhhab had been prevalent in Transoxania, this period marked its triumph in the region. Samanid rulers patronized Hanafi scholars in Samarqand and

Bukhara, and commissioned the composition of an orthodox creed, known as al-Sawad al-a‘zam. This creed, the official catechism under the Samanids, emphasized subjects’ obligation to obey their ruler and espoused the Maturidi definition of faith as excluding works.11 The Samanids eventually lost their southern territories in modern Afghanistan to the rising power of the (994-1040 C.E.), a Turkic dynasty that emerged from within the Samanid’s elite ghulam corps. In addition to the Ghaznavids, a second

Turkic group rose to power in the northern Samanid domains, establishing a tribal that became known as the Qarakhanid (992-1212 C.E.).12

The Ghaznavids and Qarakhanids were both Turkic Muslim and they modeled their on their Persian predecessors, effecting a greater sense of continuity than of change in the political and cultural realms.13 This continuity is expressed in the drinking cultures of both empires. For example, there is no indication of the promotion of nomadic drinking habits among the subject populations. This is

11 Madelung, “The Early Murji’a in Khurasan and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism,” 39. 12 Clifford Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Eastern Iran, 994-1040 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1963), 32-34. 13 Richard N. Frye, Bukhara: A Medieval Achievement (Norman, OK: Press, 1965), passim; Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, 56-57, passim.

37 especially true in the case of the Ghaznavids, who appear to have culturally assimilated and adopted the drinking practices of their imperial predecessors. They also adhered steadfastly to Hanafi doctrine, in some ways more fervently than the Samanids, presenting themselves as the upholders of Sunni orthodoxy in response to rising Shia power in the west.14 The active promotion of Persian rather than Turkic culture is evidenced through the work of the poet Ferdowsi, who completed his great Persian- language epic, the Shahnameh, under the patronage of the Ghaznavids.15 Unlike the

Ghaznavids, the Qarakhanids were introduced to Islam by Sufi mystics and were not assimilated to Persian culture when they came to power. Despite utilizing the established by the Samanids, they initially resisted the draw of urban life.

They preferred to rule from the countryside, neither assimilating nor imposing Turkic culture on their urban subjects, who continued to embrace Persian culture as they had under the Samanids.16

One of the more valuable sources for this period comes from the tenth-century historian, Narshakhi, who presented his history of Bukhara to the Samanid amir ibn

Nasir in 943 C.E. Though his work contains only a few references to wine, it conveys two important points: first, that drinking parties were commonplace among Muslim elites; and second, that it was not unusual or remarkable for women to participate in drinking wine alongside men. Given the dearth of information regarding women’s

14 Bosworth, The Ghaznavids, 52-54. 15 Ferdowsi was originally commissioned to compose his epic by the Samanid , but following the collapse of Samanid rule, he completed it under the patronage of the Ghaznavids, who despite embracing Persian culture, were apparently less than thrilled with Ferdowsi’s portrayal of the Turks in general. Dick Davis in Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, xxxii. 16 Frye, Bukhara, 175-76.

38 drinking habits for most periods of Islamic history, Narshakhi’s passing comment – contained within a larger story – that a man typically drank wine everyday with the women of his household offers a rare glimpse into the private lives of the Samanid elite.17

This is also important as it shows that neither sedentarization nor Islamization on its own can be blamed for the segregation of male and female imbibers that had emerged by the end of the fifteenth century, when Babur notes that he had never seen a woman drink.18

Women clearly continued to drink, but by the late Timurid era it had become increasingly uncommon for men and women to drink together, even within the private sphere. This is in stark contrast to the casual comment made by Narshakhi. The designation over time of women as upholders of the moral fortitude of society – along with, as previously mentioned, men over the age of forty – seems the most plausible single explanation for the restrictions on female imbibers that took shape during the course of the fifteenth century, though larger currents responding to the ongoing processes of sedentarization and Islamization in a post-Mongol context undoubtedly contributed to this shift, as well.

The eleventh-century histories written by al-Utbi and Gardizi, both Persian administrators to the Ghaznavids, contain more references to wine and drinking than

Narshakhi’s history.19 However, none of these authors draws direct connections between alcohol consumption and religious observance. This reflects both the continued acceptance of alcohol by Hanafi jurists and the ascendency of Maturidi theology, with its relative lack of emphasis on orthopraxy. Like Narshakhi’s work, al-Utbi’s history of the

17 Narshakhi, The History of Bukhara, 11, 74-75. 18 Babur, The Baburnama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, f. 247b (p. 300). 19 Al-'Utbi, The Kitab-i-Yamini, 201; Gardizi, The Ornament of Histories, trans. C. Edmund Bosworth, 67.

39 early Ghaznavids (up to 1020 C.E.) mentions alcohol only in passing, but does so in a way that indicates it was an ordinary part of life, with wine-flasks, wine-cellars, and wine-drinkers appearing intermittently within individual stories. Al-Utbi does include several accounts of negative situations arising from drinking too much, including tales of drunken brawls and, in one unfortunate case, the story of a man dying after overindulging in wine and beef .20 However, as stated, there are no references to alcohol that hint at religious or legal prohibition. Additionally, when al-Utbi enumerates the positive and negative qualities of individuals, descriptors concerning sobriety or lack thereof are not invoked as relevant or pertinent criteria for measuring piety or religiosity as they were in other parts of the Islamic world. These attitudes can be explained as arising from the continued prevalence of Maturidi Hanafi thought among Central Asian Muslims.

In his mid-eleventh-century history, Gardizi echoes the sentiments of al-Utbi in presenting overindulgence and drunkenness as detrimental to individuals, but once again does not present them in religious terms. For example, he relates that the Samanid ruler

‘Abd al-Malik (r. 954-961) died after being thrown from his horse while drunkenly playing . Given that he was granted the honorific title of “The Rightly-Guided One,” it is clear that his propensity for wine did not affect his image as a pious or legitimate ruler.21

Of the three historians, Gardizi provides the only comment identifying public intoxication as a legally punishable offense. In his discussion of the Arab governors of

Khurasan prior to the rise of the Samanids, for example, Gardizi tells the story of Waki b.

20 Al-'Utbi, The Kitab-i-Yamini, 201. 21 Gardizi, The Ornament of Histories, 67.

40 Abi Su’ud al-Ghudani, who was appointed governor of the region by the Umayyads in 97

A.H. (715-16 C.E.). Al-Ghudani reportedly “embarked on a policy of instilling fear and terror,” and once ordered a man summarily executed for public drunkenness, even though the established punishment for this crime was flogging.22 This extreme and unprecedented action was met with shock by the populace and should be viewed as an individual anomaly rather than as representative of attitudes towards drunkards and drunkenness in general. It is also notable that the offender was punished not because he drank alcohol or even wine, but specifically because he was in a drunken state while in public.23 Though the punishment was unusually severe, the crime itself illustrates a common attitude towards alcohol expressed throughout these three histories: the problem was not alcohol as a substance or even drinking but intoxication, drunkenness, overindulgence. In this context, Islam did not prohibit or even deter drinking, but it did eventually delegitimize the ceremonies in which alcohol played a significant ritual role.

In addition to the aforementioned histories, some of the most telling information about alcohol during this period comes from writings in the “mirror for princes” genre.

These works were intended as advice manuals for leaders and therefore reflect the cultural ideals of the society itself. Though histories often convey a sense of actual practice, mirror for princes literature tends to present the standard framework of assumptions and cultural attitudes within which the society operated.24 The eleventh- century Qarakhanid bureaucrat Yusuf Khass Hajib’s advice manual Kutadgu Bilig

22 Ibid., 22. 23 Ibid. 24 Louise Marlow, “Surveying Recent Literature on the Arabic and Persian Mirrors for Princes Genre,” History Compass 7 (2009): 523-38.

41 continues the trends expressed in the histories, giving no indication that a wholesale legal prohibition existed within the contemporary interpretation of Islam. This moves beyond the realm of acknowledging that something is forbidden and doing it anyway; for

Muslims in Central Asia it was clear that their religion did not forbid alcohol consumption.

Written in , on the eastern frontier of the Islamic world, for the

Qarakhanid ruler Tabghach Bughra Khan (r. 1074-1102), the Kutadgu Bilig represents an early attempt to convey Perso-Islamic concepts to a specifically Turkic audience.25 In this context, Yusuf does not incorporate any discussion of religious prohibition. He does include many references to alcohol and repeatedly warns against overindulgence, arguing at several points that drinking should be avoided altogether in order to guard against its negative effects. However, the appeals he makes in this vein all derive from a call to reason rather than religious observance. At no point does he cite the Qur’an or hadith to bolster his arguments against drinking. Instead, he calls wine “an enemy of wisdom and of intellect,” pointing out that “many a wise and intelligent man has ruined himself by sticking his head into wine.”26 For added emphasis, he continues with the following poem:

The man who drinks opens his heart, Revealing its secret in an instant. The sage who drinks becomes a fool Or foolish as an infant.27

25 Levi and Sela, eds., Islamic Central Asia, 76-77. 26 Yusuf Khass Hajib, Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutagdu Bilig), trans. Robert Dankoff, 127. 27 Ibid., 127.

42 He also warns that a ruler should not confuse drinking companions with true friends, as they “will not prove loyal, but will put a wound in your heart.”28 Though Yusuf insists that his advice is aimed at all members of society, he points out that the stakes are much higher for a than for a commoner, as the state itself could cease to function at the hands of a drunkard.29

Yusuf’s discussions of drinking shed light on several interesting cultural points, most importantly in the recognition that anyone can be overcome by the power of alcohol and fall victim to overindulgence, regardless of wisdom, intelligence, or socio-economic status. As discussed in the previous chapter, this assumption served as the rationale for the wholesale prohibition expounded by jurists from three of the four Sunni legal rites.

The same assumption exists within Hanafism, though there is greater flexibility in allowing individuals to exercise self-control. Additionally, by divorcing belief from action, Maturidi theology worked in conjunction with Hanafi rulings to continue to legitimize alcohol consumption in the minds of Central Asian Muslims.

Legitimate

While wine can be described as the drink of the sown, kumiss is the drink of the steppe. The nature of the nomadic economy, the availability of mare’s milk, and the combined nutritive and inebriating properties of kumiss ensured the drink’s continued popularity among the pastoral nomadic populations. Much like wine in pre-Islamic sedentary Central Asia, kumiss was incorporated into nomadic Central Asian culture as a

28 Ibid., 178. 29 Ibid., 108, 127.

43 key component of both social ritual and political ceremony, remaining an integral component of ritual observance long after the adoption of Islam and the movement of

Turkic populations out of the steppe. It was only through the centuries-long process of sedentarization and eventual abandonment of steppe ceremonies that kumiss lost much of its revered status in the southern stretches of Central Asia where, in most cases, the beverage itself became a cultural artifact, as exemplified by the experience of the

Timurids. However, this process did not occur simultaneously throughout Central Asia.

Instead, it was continually repeated when new waves of Turks migrated southward, as evidenced by the drink’s continued presence among the nomadic Chaghataids of

Moghulistan and the during the sixteenth century, and its post-Timurid re- emergence at the court of Uzbek leaders in Central Asia through the seventeenth century.30

As discussed in the previous chapter, because kumiss is made from milk rather than grapes or any other fruit, its legalization by Hanafi jurists required little in the way of interpretive creativity. Identified as unambiguously legitimate from the initial introduction of Islam to the Turkic people, it was neither a subject of religious debate nor a target of prohibitive legislation. There is no reason to doubt that kumiss was understood and recognized as an alcoholic beverage prior to the coming of Islam. This much is evidenced by the fact that Manichaean elects were prohibited from drinking it as

30 Robert McChesney, “The Chinggisid Restoration in Central Asia: 1500-1785,” in Nicola Di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank, and Peter Golden, eds., The Cambridge History of : The Chinggisid Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 284.

44 part of the abstemious lifestyle demanded by their position.31 But there were no analogous efforts to prohibit it among Muslim communities. It could be argued that kumiss’s exceptional status derived from its low alcohol content.32 However, this exception has not been universally applied to other low-alcohol beverages, such as , which has roughly the same potency as kumiss.

Though the relative importance of kumiss in early Islamic Central Asia was limited, from the twelfth century onwards, the increased incorporation of the steppe peoples into the Islamic world – combined with the rise of the Mongol Empire and the formation and dissemination of a distinct Turco-Mongol imperial culture – not only increased the presence of kumiss but fundamentally altered the relationship between alcohol and Islam in Central Asia.

In addition to kumiss, nomadic populations in the western steppe regularly produced and consumed mead, or alcohol derived from the fermentation of honey. As in the case of kumiss, Hanafi scholars deemed mead licit from the time of Islam’s initial introduction to the , as recorded by the tenth-century traveler Ibn Fadlan.

A member of the ‘Abbasid embassy sent to the of the Bulghars in the basin in

921 C.E., Ibn Fadlan provides an account of early Islamic practice in the western steppe.33 As a Shafi‘i, he was appalled by the prevalence of mead in both the everyday society and the ceremonies of the Turkic tribes he encountered. In the case of the

Bulghars, he claimed they regularly drank “mead to insensibility, day and night. It often

31 Colin Mackerras, “The Uighurs,” in Denis Sinor, ed. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 334, 336. 32 See Appendix A. 33 Levi and Sela, eds., Islamic Central Asia, 65.

45 happens that one of them dies with his beaker in his hand.”34 While part of the embassy’s mission was to teach the Bulghars about the laws of Islam, Ibn Fadlan conceded that according to Hanafi doctrine, they were well within their to drink the beverage and made no attempt to intervene or counsel against its consumption.35 Mead continued to be prevalent in this region following the Mongol conquests, as shown in accounts of the

Mongol successor khanate in Russia, the Golden Horde, during whose rule the ceremonial role of mead appears to have first melded with that of kumiss, as the two beverages were consumed either separately or mixed together.36

The Kumiss Craze: The Mongol Empire

As previously discussed, in pastoral nomadic steppe culture kumiss was held in high regard for its nutritional, ceremonial, and recreational value.37 The rise of the

Mongols in the early thirteenth century was accompanied by an exponential increase in cross-cultural communication and exchange, which included the dissemination of alcohol tastes and technologies from one end of Eurasia to the other. This is perhaps best exemplified by the construction of a tree-shaped silver , designed by a French engineer and installed in at the court of the fourth Grand Khan Möngke (r.

1251-59). Much to the amazement of his guests, Möngke’s fountain dispensed different varieties of alcohol from its branches, including wine, mead, sake, and, of course,

34 Richard N. Frye, trans. Ibn Fadlan’s Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century Traveler from to the Volga River (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2005), 67. 35 Frye, Ibn Fadlan’s Journey to Russia, 38, 45, 53-54, 65-67. 36 Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Tükles and the Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 204-10. 37 For discussion of kumiss production, see Appendix A.

46 kumiss.38 This impressive collection of beverages represented the convergence of alcohol tastes from throughout the vast empire, delivered to the ruler and his guests by technological innovations imported from far beyond the Mongol realm. In many ways, the fountain was the perfect analogy for the astounding level of interconnectedness the

Mongols introduced for the first time in world history. Additionally, the fountain should not be viewed as merely a decorative display of the empire’s prosperity, but rather as a reinforcement of the ritual significance alcohol held in Mongol ceremony and culture.39

With the exception of China, the successor that emerged following the collapse of central Mongol authority eventually adopted Islam. did not effect widespread changes in drinking habits, however. Change occurred much more slowly as the result of both the delegitimization of traditional ceremonies and the adoption of increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Though rulers occasionally embraced elements of the rhetoric of sobriety to promote their legitimacy in Islamic terms, the increased sedentarization of Turco-Mongol populations wrought much more significant changes in drinking tastes and practices on a societal level than the adoption of a new religious confession.

It should be noted that this argument is made only in reference to men’s drinking habits, not women’s. While female imbibers are mentioned regularly in sources during the fourteenth century, in the course of the fifteenth century they practically disappear from the historical record in southern Central Asia. It is unclear whether Islamization or

38 in Dawson, trans., Mission to Asia, 175-76. 39 Morris Rossabi, “Alcohol and the Mongols: Myth and Reality,” in Fragner, et al., Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, 219.

47 sedentarization was more influential in removing women from men’s sides at drinking parties. However, it is of note that women in sedentary societies generally enjoyed fewer participatory rights than those in nomadic societies, lending weight to the argument that sedentarization played a significant role in this shift. Unfortunately, the sources do not allow for any conclusions regarding whether or not (or the degree to which) women stopped drinking. What can be said is that their presence at and participation in drinking parties alongside their male counterparts appears to have become uncommon by the late fifteenth century.

The main sources for understanding the culture and customs of the Mongols include the anonymous work The Secret History of the Mongols, the Chinese Liao Shih,40

Rashid al-Din’s Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Juzjani’s Tabakat-i-Nasiri, and Juvayni’s Tarikh-i

Jahan-gusha. Drawing on these sources, it is possible to gauge the important role that kumiss played in Mongol tradition as well as in everyday life. The Secret History of the

Mongols provides the only surviving internally produced description of the rise of the

Mongols and though the author of the work is unknown, it was likely written by either a close companion or a relative of Chingiz Khan. Juzjani and Juvayni both wrote of the

Mongol conquests from the Muslim perspective, though Juvayni did so as an employee of the Mongols. Though the Liao Shih and Jami’u’t-tawarikh were composed after the actual conquests – and the former does not technically concern the Mongols – they

40 Though the Liao Shih is technically the official history of the Liao () Dynasty (907-1125 C.E.), according to Chinese tradition it was compiled by the Liao’s imperial successors, the Mongols of the .

48 provide invaluable insights into nomadic practice, traditions, and culture that are not found in other extant sources.

Kumiss was an integral component of the lifestyles of pastoral nomads, as attested by its mention in the Mongol origin story contained in the Secret History, wherein the progenitor of Chingiz Khan’s , Bodonchar, came down every day from his mountain redoubt to drink kumiss with a nearby tribe, eventually emerging as their leader. Kumiss also appears in many stories recorded by the Ilkhanid Rashid al-

Din, who had access to a variety of Persian, Chinese, and Mongol sources, including the long-lost Mongol , the Altan Debter.41 As such, his history provides unique insight into the beverage’s place in the traditional practices of various steppe tribes. For example, the Uriangqat – the tribe of Chingiz’s famed generals, the brothers Subotei and

Jelme – went to great lengths to avoid spilling even a drop of kumiss on the ground, as it was believed to attract lightning strikes that could prove fatal to their animals.

Alternatively, another group, the , consecrated oaths by pouring kumiss on the ground. Though these two traditions are characterized by opposing taboos, both exemplify the ritual significance kumiss as a substance held for the steppe tribes.42

In addition to its general ritual and ceremonial significance, kumiss also appears in many stories that shed light on other aspects of steppe culture.43 The importance of following specific protocols to ritually demonstrate rank and status, exemplified in the

41 Levi and Sela, eds., Islamic Central Asia, 139-40. 42 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume I, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 82, 107; Leo de Hartog, : Conqueror of the World (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 14, 30-31. 43 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume I, 163; Igor de Rachewiltz, trans., The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, Volume 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 55.

49 practice of court drinking ceremonies, is attested in nearly every surviving account of the

Mongol courts, whether of European, Islamic, or Mongol origin.44 Though for the

Mongols and other nomads of the eastern steppe, kumiss was the beverage of libation rituals, for nomads farther west, mead occupied this important place. According to Devin

DeWeese’s interpretation of an account from the khanate of the Golden Horde, these two traditions eventually combined – literally – as drinks containing both mead and kumiss were served. Following the adoption of Islam, these licit alcoholic drinks were also initially incorporated into Islamic ceremonies, such as Eid al-fitr, the festival celebrating the conclusion of .45

The high status that women enjoyed in Mongol society and their active participation in drinking parties is attested in The Secret History and by foreign travelers to the Mongol courts such as , who witnessed women drinking openly alongside men in the Mongol successor khanate of the Golden Horde. The prominence of women in steppe life was established well before Chingiz Khan’s time, as seen in the story of Qutuqtai Härigchi, who purportedly used kumiss to exact revenge on a rival

Tatar tribe for her husband’s murder. According to Rashid al-Din, after a time she invited the Tatar king and his nobles to a banquet, promising them sheep, horses, and one hundred large vats of kumiss. As in the famous myth of the Greeks’ gift of the magnificent wooden horse to the Trojans, Qutuqtai Härigchi tricked her enemies by hiding soldiers inside her peace offering. Once everyone had settled in for the banquet,

44 In addition to previously discussed sources, , Yuan Shih, and the Baburnama also contain episodes detailing courtly libation rituals involving kumiss. 45 DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde, 204-6.

50 her soldiers emerged from the kumiss casks and slaughtered the unsuspecting .46

This story illustrates the position of power enjoyed by certain women in the steppe, as well as the prized place kumiss held.

As previously discussed, kumiss boasts nutritive as well as intoxicating properties and, having undergone fermentation, was not wont to spoil, making it an integral part of the Mongol machine. Both Juzjani and the Liao Shih record the tendency of nomadic warriors to subsist partially on kumiss during extended military campaigns.47 In terms of nutritional content, kumiss differs significantly from wine or other alcoholic beverages as it contains fat, protein, and salt.48 While any form of alcohol could be used to help lessen the psychological stress of military campaigning, if used for subsistence, most other forms of alcohol would eventually weaken rather than bolster the physical integrity of the troops. However, if taken to excess and for the purpose of intoxication rather than nutrition, the effect of kumiss on soldiers could be just as detrimental as that of other forms of alcohol.

Though many of Chingiz Khan’s descendants suffered from the negative effects of and dependency, the empire-builder himself was reportedly not fond of drinking outside of ritual or nutritional contexts. In his history, Rashid al-Din includes several decrees purportedly issued by Chingiz Khan, including one enumerating the

46 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume I, 62-63. 47 Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-i-Nasiri: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, including Hindustan; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.) and the Irruption of the Infidel into Islam, Volume II, trans. H.G. Raverty (New : Oriental Books Reprint Coorporation, 1970 (first published 1881)), 968-69; Karl A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-, trans. History of Chinese Society: Liao Shih (907-1125) (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949), 126, 527. 48 Ramesh C. Chandan, ed., Manufacturing and Fermented Milks (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 302-3.

51 ruler’s feelings on alcohol (specifically wine and sake) and intoxication. In the text, a drunkard is described as someone who is simultaneously blind, deaf, mute, and death-like in his inability to hold himself up straight. The state of drunkenness is further compared to that experienced by a concussed person, who is left “dazed and senseless.”49 Imbibers are painted as unintelligent, unskilled, and immoral – prone to violence and untrustworthy. The decree goes on to recount the negative impact drinking can have on individuals of any status, from rulers to officers, commoners, and servants. After this extended diatribe against drinking and drinkers, the text goes on to recommend that if a person is going to drink, he should do so only three times a month, though “if one gets drunk twice a month, it is better; if one gets drunk once a month, that is even better; and if one doesn’t drink at all, that is the best of all.”50 It is impossible to know if Chingiz

Khan actually made this decree, and its inclusion in a history written by a Muslim vizier at a Mongol court nearly a century later brings up a variety of other questions regarding its provenance and reliability. However, Rashid al-Din did have access to sources that are no longer extant, and even if this decree is nothing more than a construct posthumously attributed to Chingiz Khan, it conveys an abstemious image of Chingiz

Khan that was clearly appealing to his descendants. By the same token nothing in the sources directly contradicts this portrayal of his character or attitudes towards intoxication.

49 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume II, 297. 50 Ibid.

52 The Successors of Chingiz Khan

According to steppe tradition, following Chingiz Khan’s death in 1227, the

Mongol domains were divided among the families of Chingiz’s four sons: ,51

Chaghatai, Ögedei, and . In 1229, Ögedei was elected as the imperial successor to his father, taking the title of Qaghan, or “Great Khan,” a position he held until his death in 1241. However, even during his father’s lifetime, Ögedei had difficulty keeping his drinking in check, “for which Genghis Khan sometimes took him to task and gave him advice.”52 After his as Qaghan, Ögedei’s drinking continually increased, leading his brother Chaghatai to limit the number of cups he was permitted to drink each day, and even assigning an officer the sole task of monitoring Ögedei’s alcohol intake.

Cheekily, Ögedei responded by having a very large cup made, thus allowing him to continue to drink the amount he wanted without explicitly disobeying his brother.53

Unfortunately, Chaghatai’s concern for his brother’s well-being was not unjustified and Ögedei’s addiction to alcohol worsened progressively over time, negatively affecting his health and leadership abilities before finally resulting in his death at the age of fifty-five. Ögedei drank kumiss regularly, and he was especially fond of imported wines, which boasted higher alcohol contents than fermented mare’s milk. The ready access to imported alcoholic beverages enjoyed by Ögedei would have been unheard of only a generation earlier. However, the establishment of Mongol hegemony over large parts of Eurasia facilitated this kind of cultural exchange through trade. Due to

51 Jochi predeceased his father, so his son, Batu, inherited his , which later became the Golden Horde in Russia. 52 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume II, 303. 53 Ibid., 329.

53 his drinking, Ögedei increasingly withdrew from active participation in government affairs, and this led to the deterioration of Mongol administrative effectiveness. While

Ögedei’s selection as Qaghan was intended to help ease tensions among various members of the imperial family, his illness rendered him unable to serve as the arbiter the empire needed.54 On his deathbed in 1252, Ögedei is said to have been tragically aware of the cause of his death, admitting, “I was at fault to let myself be vanquished by wine.”55

Ögedei is said to have favored his fifth son, Qashi, as successor. However, like his father, Qashi suffered from a debilitating addiction to alcohol, which resulted in his death in 1235 at the age of just twenty-five. Born shortly after his father’s death, Qashi’s son Qaidu was raised in Ögedei’s household; however, at the time of Ögedei’s death, the six-year-old Qaidu was too young to participate in the succession struggle that followed.

Upon reaching adulthood, Qaidu rose to prominence by establishing his own independent khanate, and, interestingly, he never drank alcohol, not even kumiss. Though Qaidu is said to have preferred Islam to other religions, he did not actually convert, nor is it likely that his temperance stemmed from a religious influence. As previously discussed, witnessing extreme cases of alcohol abuse can serve as a potent deterrent against drinking, regardless of genetic predispositions or the cultural prevalence of alcohol.

Thus, while Qashi appears to have modeled his father’s drinking habits, Qaidu’s

54 Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 81; Igor de Rachewiltz, Hok-lam Chan, Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing, and Peter W. Geier, eds., In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yuan Period (Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1993), 104, 159. 55 De Rachewiltz, trans., The Secret History of the Mongols, 217.

54 complete aversion to alcohol likely stemmed from the alcohol-related deaths of both his father and grandfather.56

Alcohol consumption continued to play a prominent role at the Mongol court, as evidenced in the enthronement ceremony of Ögedei’s son Güyüg in 1246 and that of

Tolui’s son Möngke in 1251. Both were celebrated with a “succession of cups of

[kumiss] and every kind of wine” for seven straight days, with the festivities beginning at dawn and lasting until everyone passed out from drunkenness, only to commence again the following morning.57 Unlike Qaidu, Güyüg did not learn from the example of his father and brother, remaining a prodigious drinker until his death, of unknown causes, two years after coming to the . Juvayni provides details regarding the quantity of alcohol consumed during Möngke’s enthronement, recording that two thousand wagon- loads of kumiss and wine were rationed for each day of the week-long celebration.58 As noted in connection with the tree-shaped silver fountain that dispensed a variety of alcoholic beverages from its limbs, Mongol imperial drinking culture reached new heights during Möngke’s reign, as tastes and technologies from across and Asia converged at Karakorum and were then disseminated across the empire.

Islam and the Mongols

The first Mongol khan to adopt Sunni Islam and declare it the was

Ghazan Khan (r. 1295-1304) of the Persian , one of the successor states that

56 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume II, 306, 309; Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of Mongol State in Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2013), 1, 19. 57 Juvayni, History of the World Conqueror, Volume II, 252-54. 58 Ibid., 571-72.

55 emerged in the political fragmentation that followed Möngke’s death.59 Since he adhered to the Hanafi rite, ’s religious conversion did not interfere with his prodigious drinking. Though Rashid al-Din, Ghazan’s vizier, claims that, unlike most rulers,

Ghazan preferred reading to drinking, several stories involving Ghazan’s alcohol use both before and after his conversion imply otherwise, such as his edict declaring that any statements he might make while drunk should be disregarded entirely.60 In terms of official policy, the profession of Islam as the Ilkhanid state religion was not accompanied by even rhetorical alcohol prohibition.

In his discussion outlining Ghazan’s policies, Rashid al-Din interestingly titles one of the sections, “People are forbidden to drink wine,” giving the impression that a religious prohibition was, in fact, embraced as part of the promotion of Islam within the khanate.61 However, the text that follows contradicts the section’s title entirely. It makes clear that Ghazan did not outlaw wine or any other kind of alcohol. Rather, he outlawed public drunkenness, which is logical considering that he made restoration of order one of the overarching goals of his reign. The express reason he gives for outlawing public intoxication is the avoidance of drunken brawls, a policy that leans more towards maintaining order than adherence to religious prescripts. Additionally, as previously discussed, this attitude towards public intoxication aligned with earlier Hanafi thought and rulings, which treated drunkenness rather than drinking as a social vice to be

59 David Morgan, The Mongols, Second Edition (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 146-7. 60 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume II, 725; Lane, Daily Life in the Mongol Empire, 163. 61 Rashiduddin Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, Volume II, 743.

56 avoided.62 Ghazan’s successors continued to profess Islam and to drink excessively, until the last , Abu Sa’id, died without an heir in 1335.

Despite several successful decades of rule and no observable decline, the

Ilkhanate ceased to exist after Abu Sa’id’s death. Historian George Lane posits that the collapse of the Ilkhanate – which has long baffled historians – may have resulted from the successive generations of alcohol abuse, which negatively affected the khans’ health and may have led to decreased fertility, exemplified in Abu Sa’id’s inability to produce an heir.63 While this explanation is both convenient and plausible, it is impossible to prove and uncomfortably monocausal. John Masson Smith puts forth a similar, yet slightly more compelling argument, pointing to overall “dietary decadence” as progressively compromising the health of Mongol rulers and thus decreasing both their life spans and their fertility, resulting in dynastic decline.64 Morris Rossabi has responded to such claims by arguing that recent scholarship has exaggerated the prevalence of alcohol abuse by wrongly treating individuals, such as Ögedei, as representative of larger societal trends. 65 Additionally, this scholarship ignores evidence that changes in dietary habits were reflective of larger shifts toward sedentary lifestyles, particularly in the Ilkhanate and Yuan China. In terms of dynastic decline, food and drink would perhaps better be described as contributing factors rather than root causes.

62 Ibid. 63 Lane, Daily Life in the Mongol Empire, 163. 64 John Masson Smith, Jr., “Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire,” Journal of Asian History 34 (2000): 35-52. 65 Rossabi, “Alcohol and the Mongols: Myth and Reality,” in Fragner, et al., Wine Culture in Iran and Beyond, 212-21.

57 In addition to the Ilkhanate, the Mongol empire produced the Yuan dynasty in

China, the Chaghataid khanate in Central Asia, and the Golden Horde in Russia. Though

Mongol rulers in Yuan China did not convert to Islam, those in both Central Asia and

Russia embraced Islam yet resisted cultural sedentarization. The process of Islamization in the Chaghataid khanate will be discussed in the following chapter. In the Golden

Horde, many sources attest to the continued prevalence of alcohol, including kumiss, as well as the inclusion of female imbibers in public drinking. The Golden Horde’s first ruler, Batu, reportedly was so fond of kumiss that he maintained a herd of three thousand mares whose milk was devoted solely to kumiss production for use in court ceremonies.66

In his discussion of the Islamization of the Golden Horde under Özbeg Khan in the early fourteenth century, Devin DeWeese provides a thorough analysis of libation ceremonies, showcasing the continuity of Mongol traditional and imperial drinking practices. Thus conversion to Islam did not fundamentally alter drinking habits. The importance of reinforcing rank and status through well-established libation rituals remained as significant in the Golden Horde as it had been in Chingiz Khan’s time. The major difference, as previously noted, was the incorporation of mead alongside kumiss, a distinction that represents the intertwining of eastern and western Turkic traditions that accompanied the establishment of Mongol hegemony in Russia. Ibn Battuta, who visited the Golden Horde following Özbeg’s conversion, notes the widespread ritual consumption of kumiss and mead, explaining that this was allowed due to the people’s

66 William of Rubruck in Dawson, trans., Mission to Asia, 103.

58 adherence to Hanafism.67 The ceremonial significance of kumiss and the prevalence of drinking rituals continued among the descendants of Jochi during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and accompanied the restoration of Chingizid rule in sedentary Central

Asia in the sixteenth century, when the Jochid “” replaced the region’s last

Timurid rulers.

By the mid-fourteenth century, leaders of both the Chaghataid khanate and the

Golden Horde had embraced Islam, yet Turco-Mongol culture continued to exert itself through political ceremony and social ritual.68 Both khanates suffered from weak or contested leadership, leading to internal fragmentation. In the Chaghataid realm, this led to the establishment of a separate political entity to the east of Transoxania and north of the Tien Shan mountains, known as , whose population remained largely nomadic.69 Out of this disorder the last great Central Asian nomadic conqueror, Temür – known in the west as Tamerlane – rose to power and established a dynasty that ruled various parts of Central Asia for nearly a century.

Under the Timurids, questions concerning the religious legality of drinking appear more regularly in the sources, though they still build on the Maturidi-Hanafi interpretations introduced to Central Asia alongside Islam itself, including the sidelining of orthopraxy as a requisite for piety. When sedentary Central Asians converted to Islam, they did so with the understanding that alcohol, including wine, could continue to hold a

67 DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion, 205-227; Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and , 1325- 1354, Volume 3, trans. H.A.R. Gibb (New York: Routledge, 1971), 144. 68 “Turco-Mongol” culture emerged by the early-fourteenth century, when the two cultures merged as a long-term result of the founding of the Mongol empire. See , The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 6. 69 Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 24; Beatrice Forbes Manz, “Multi-Ethnic Empires and the Formulation of Identity,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 26 (2003): 16.

59 legitimate place in their society. The increasingly prohibitive legal interpretations that evolved in most of the rest of the Islamic world wrought only subtle changes in drinking patterns in Central Asia, where Hanafi legal thought and Maturidi theology worked together to provide religious legitimization for the continuation of pre-Islamic drinking practices. The changes in alcohol culture that can be attributed to Islam did not arise from prohibition but from the delegitimation of Zoroastrian and, in the case of the

Timurids, Turco-Mongol rituals.

During the fifteenth century, Timurid rulers adopted increasingly sedentarized lifestyles and eschewed Turco-Mongol cultural practices and ceremonies, including those that accompanied political meetings and the accession of new rulers. The question is, why did this shift take place and how did it shape Timurid culture? The remaining chapters will address these questions by exploring the establishment and evolution of

Timurid culture through the lens of alcohol consumption.

60

CHAPTER 3

ALCOHOL IN TRANSITION: DRINKING CULTURE IN TIMURID CENTRAL ASIA, C. 1400-1450 C.E.

O! Thou wanderer in the wilderness of the world, See the graveyards that lie about thee. Realise the truth, that life passes And be not heedless, as drunkards are. ‘Abdullah of (1005-1090)1

It is said that once, when he was drunk, he urinated on the beard of…one of his amirs and protégés. Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi (c. 1438-1494)2

The political fragmentation of the Mongol empire created a power vacuum in

Central Asia that was eventually filled by Temür, the last great nomadic conqueror, who established a dynasty that ruled Central Asia for nearly a century before relocating to

India under the leadership of Babur. Our discussion examines the evolution of imperial culture throughout the first half-century of Timurid rule – during the reigns of Temür (d.

1405) and his son Shah Rukh (r. 1409-1447) – by building on the foundations laid in previous chapters to use alcohol as a prism though which the shift from nomadic Turco-

Mongol to sedentary Perso-Islamic imperial practice can be viewed and better

1 ‘Abdullah Ansari, The Invocations of ‘Abdullah Ansari of Herat (1005-1090), trans. Jogendra Singh (London: John Murray, 1959), 55. 2 Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi, Tadhkirat al-shu’ara, in Wheeler M. Thackston, A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art, 39 (folio 445).

61 understood. This shift did not remove alcohol but fundamentally altered its place at imperial courts, stripping it of the ritual and ceremonial significance it had previously held. The interactions of several distinct cultural strands during the course of the fifteenth century gave rise to the complex identity expressed by the later Timurids, including Babur and his successors. This chapter argues that those changes that occurred in drinking practices during the Timurid period resulted primarily from an increasingly sedentary lifestyle rather than in response to the adoption of orthodox Islamic attitudes towards alcohol.

The Timurids’ role in shaping the culture of large parts of the eastern Islamic world has been the focus of recent works by Maria Subtelny, Beatrice Manz, Stephen

Dale, and Lisa Balabanlilar. In assessing the Timurid legacy, Subtelny points out, “The impact of [the Timurids] was entirely out of proportion both to this dynasty’s geographical scope and to the relatively short length of its political rule.”3 Because the

Timurids never attained the political or economic might of the Mongols, Mughals, or

Ottomans, their achievements in other realms were long overlooked or attributed to others.4 However, recent scholarship has attempted to identify the scope of Timurid cultural influence, and the remainder of this study builds on and contributes to this body of literature.

3 Maria Eva Subtelny, “The Timurid Legacy: A Reaffirmation and a Reassessment,” in L’Héritage Timouride: Iran-Asie centrale-Inde, XVe-XVIIIe siècles (Aix-en-Provence: Édisud, 1997), 9. 4 Stephen Dale, “The Legacy of the Timurids,” in Scott Levi, ed., India and Central Asia: Commerce and Culture, 1500-1800 (: Oxford University Press, 2007), 176-94.

62

“Por la cabeza del Señor”:5 Alcohol at Temür’s Court

The contexts and occasions of alcohol consumption at Temür’s court were quite similar to those of the Mongol imperial courts discussed in the previous chapter. The sources are replete with references to extended drinking bouts that lasted days, weeks, and occasionally even months, both in Samarqand and while Temür and his men were on campaign. The Hanafi Islamization of Central Asia’s Turco-Mongol nomads had encouraged the continuation rather than elimination of traditional drinking habits by focusing on verbal professions of faith rather than works or behavior and by legitimizing drinking in specific contexts. As observed by Clavijo, strict protocols continued to accompany the act of drinking, and men and women openly imbibed together at mixed gatherings.6 Guests were welcomed into Temür’s yurt7 with offerings of alcohol; meetings between political leaders and representatives commenced with the sharing of a cup (or two, or more); and celebrations of life events such as births and weddings included raucous drinking parties. Changes had occurred in the century between the formation of Mongol imperial culture and the rise of the Timurids. The Mongols facilitated the transfer of alcohol tastes and technologies across Eurasia, as exemplified by Möngke’s elaborate drinking fountain. However, where Möngke’s ability to offer his guests a variety of drinks represented an impressive novelty, by Temür’s time the

5 “To the head of His Highness”: Ruy González de Clavijo, Embajada a Samarcanda (Barcelona: Linkgua, 2011), 125. 6 For accounts of women drinking, see Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406, trans. Guy Le Strange (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928), 194, 244-47. 7 Temür lived and entertained in richly decorated nomadic felt tents (Turkic sing., ; Mongolian sing., ger) rather than in permanent buildings or palaces.

63 availability of multiple kinds of alcohol was commonplace. The Turkic nomads added a taste for mead to their long-standing affinity for kumiss, and sustained close contacts with sedentary populations led to the regular incorporation of grape wine into their rituals. At the same time, technology transmitted from both China and the Middle East increased the presence of stronger beverages known generally as ‘araq.8

Both Sharaf al-Din Yazdi’s Zafarnama9 and Clavijo’s Embajada a Samarcanda provide detailed accounts of the two-month celebration that accompanied Temür’s return to Samarqand from Anatolia in 1404, during which “the king, army, and horde10 engaged in constant revelry.”11 A well-respected poet and historian at Shah Rukh’s court, Yazdi composed his as a history of the reign Temür in 1425.12 In addition to extolling the vast amount of alcohol consumed during Temür’s celebrations in

Samarqand in both prose and verse, Yazdi emphasized the variety of beverages that were readily available, including wine (bade), kumiss, mead (bal),13 ‘araq, and a known as muthallath.14 Yazdi and Clavijo both discuss the drinking protocols assiduously followed at Temür’s court, with the former noting how noble men and women,

“according to custom, quaffed ruby-colored wine, one goblet after another, completing

8 Today “‘araq” (also spelled “arak”) commonly refers to vodka in Central Asia and anise-flavored liquors in the Middle East. However, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the term was used generally to refer to any alcoholic beverage (including kumiss) that had undergone distillation. 9 Composed c. 1425. Not to be confused with Nizam al-Din Shami’s, Zafarnama, written 1404. 10 “shah va sipah va ‘aqeeb” 11Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi, Ẓafarnamah: tarikh-i ʻumumi-i mufaṣṣal-i Iran dar dawrah-i Timuriyan: az ru- yi naskhi kih dar ʻaṣr-i muṣannaf nivishtah shudah (: Amir Kabir, 1336 [1957/8]), 2:443. 12 C.E. Bosworth, “Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi,” EI2. 13 The Turkic bal (“honey”) is used rather than the Persian asal or shahad ab. The retention of the Turkic term likely has to do with the previously discussed prevalence of mead among Turkic nomadic groups. 14 From the Arabic thalatha (three). There is disagreement as to what exactly muthallath refers to. Thackston identifies it as liquor that had been distilled three times, while Melchert posits that it was liquor that was allowed to ferment for three days. Thackston, A Century of Princes, 79; Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni School of Law, 50.

64 the toasting rituals with each new cup.”15 Clavijo, an ambassador sent to Temür’s court by the Spanish King Henry III of Castile-León (r. 1390-1406), provides more information concerning these particular toasting rituals.16 He describes how “the attendants kneel before the guests, and as soon as one cup is emptied, another is presented…and the custom is for the cups to be filled to the brim and returned completely empty after toasting to his highness’ health; others toast to the head of his highness – but those who do must empty the cup in one drink.”17 The frequency of drinking was so high that each cupbearer could serve only one or two guests at a time and if a cupbearer grew tired, alternates stood ready to take his place.18 Prior to the gathering, Temür sent several casks of wine to Clavijo and his entourage, who were told that they were expected to imbibe before coming into Temür’s presence as well as during their audience. The descriptions recorded by both Clavijo and Yazdi reinforce the former’s observation that “no feast…is considered a real festival unless the guests have drunk themselves sot.”19

During this two-month period, six weddings were held “according to the rites of the Hanafite ” between Temür’s grandsons20 and women from various royal houses.21

As part of the general festivities that accompanied these weddings and his time in

Samarqand, Clavijo attended a feast hosted by Khanzada , a Chingizid princess

15 Yazdi, Ẓafarnāmah, 2:436. 16 Levi and Sela, eds., Islamic Central Asia, 175-76. 17 Clavijo, Embajada a Samarcanda, 125. 18 Ibid. 19 Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406, trans. Guy Le Strange, 231. 20 Shahrukh’s sons Ulughbeg and Mirza Ibrahim-Sultan; Miranshah’s son Amirzada Ejil; and Umar- Shaykh’s sons Amirzada Ahmad, Mirza Ahmad, and Mirza Bayqara. See Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, Tome 3: The Reign of the Mongol and the , trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Cambridge, MA: Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1994), 293 (f. 528). 21 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 293 (f. 528).

65 and the chief wife of Temür’s son Miranshah.22 Approaching Khanzada’s yurt, Clavijo noticed that the route was lined with jars of wine and kumiss, which were brought into the tent as needed throughout the day.23 According to Clavijo, Khanzada sat on a low dais, flanked by her ladies and family members. Every time Khanzada or her guests took a drink, a highly ritualized protocol was followed. Remaining seated, Khanzada was served wine and kumiss by three cupbearers who were members of the Timurid household – one older and two younger. Behind the cupbearers, attendants held golden platters with cups of wine and kumiss, which were presented alternately. The cupbearers drew near Khanzada and knelt before her three times before approaching, the eldest carrying a goblet wrapped in white cloth, which served as a barrier between the cup and his hands. Once directly in front of her, they knelt again and the eldest raised the for her to take. After this was completed, they knelt again until she had finished her drink, at which point they presented an empty platter for her to set the cup on, retreated, and returned with a fresh cup in the same ritualized manner as before.24

Clavijo points out that this carried on throughout the entire feast, though occasionally after being handed her cup, Khanzada would insist that her cupbearers drink as well. They would do so and turn the cups over to show that they were empty, competing with one another to prove their ability to hold their drink, leading to a great

22 Khanzada was first married to b. Temür; after his death she married his brother Miranshah. This practice was common in Turco-Mongol tradition, but is technically prohibited by Islam. 23 The term Clavijo uses is “bosar”, which Guy Le Strange translates as “buza,” – a fermented drink made from grain (such as or wheat) that is similar to beer and popular in large parts of the Turkic world. However, Clavijo describes the beverage specifically as fermented mare’s milk (“de leche de yeguas”). Though “bosar” is phonetically closer to “buza,” I have opted to designate the drink as “kumiss,” following Clavijo’s description of the drink’s actual properties. 24 Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406, 244-47.

66 deal of laughter as the day wore on and the men and women became increasingly drunk.

In the middle of the festivities, Khanzada called the foreign ambassadors forward and presented them with cups of wine from her own hand, thus distinguishing them as her personal and honored guests. The meal was not brought in until after the guests had had their fill of drinks and were, according to Clavijo, “beginning to show signs of being in their cups, and some indeed were already dead drunk.”25 Since wine has two to three times the alcohol content of kumiss, drinking prior to the meal would likely have increased the level of drunkenness achieved during these extended drinking bouts well beyond that observed at earlier Mongol courts.

Samarqand was not the only place Clavijo encountered female imbibers during his time in the Timurid realm. Though most of the details of women’s drinking habits come from his experiences at the imperial court, Clavijo also witnessed women drinking at other points in his journey. For example, shortly before reaching Samarqand, he stayed at the home of a ’s widow who had taken over the estate after her husband’s death. When Clavijo and his companions arrived, the widow sent them wine and joined them at dinner that evening, where they all partook of wine made from grapes grown on the property’s .26 This episode is interesting for several reasons beyond offering evidence of women’s participation in drinking culture, as the widow had been married to a qadi, a member of the religious elite, whose property included productive vineyards. As discussed throughout this work, Muslims in many eras and across the

Islamic world have consumed alcohol, whether or not their legal rites allowed it.

25 Ibid. 26 Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406, trans. Guy Le Strange, 175.

67 However, even in the Hanafi parts of the Islamic world where drinking was deemed legitimate in certain contexts, religious leaders and officials often practiced and promoted temperance. Thus, this reference to a qadi owning productive vineyards and his widow drinking wine alongside foreign guests offers a rare glimpse into a unique aspect of

Islamic Central Asian society, wherein cultural attitudes and religious interpretations unheard of in most parts of the Islamic world were regularly expressed.

Earlier in his travels, in the newly-Timurid city of in eastern Anatolia,

Clavijo witnessed drinking bouts similar to those in Samarqand at the court of Temür’s governor, who sent the Castilians wine upon their arrival and served them alcohol at the opening of (and throughout) their meetings. A distinct Timurid court culture had not been established at this point, and the rituals observed throughout the empire were clearly borrowed from existing Turco-Mongol models. Just as Temür continued to incorporate

Turco-Mongol ceremonies, so did the local rulers he appointed. In this instance, the governor stood and served the first cup of wine directly to his guests, who knelt before him and used both hands when taking the cup as a sign of both supplication and respect.

To accept the cup with only one hand would imply that the recipient was of equal status with the governor. Thus, the existing hierarchy was represented and reinforced in the drinking rituals at both the imperial and regional courts. However, Clavijo notes that unlike Temür, the governor himself did not drink at the banquet.27 There would have been several practical reasons for the governor to maintain his sobriety, as he could approach the meeting cautiously while his guests became increasingly pliable and

27 Clavijo, Embajada a Samarcanda, 69.

68 vulnerable. In addition, he could protect himself against potential drunken transgressions, misstatements, or mutterings that could threaten his high position or even his life.

Though drinking was an integral part of political meetings, it was something to be approached with caution and wariness. In his history of the world, the Zubdat al-

Tawarikh, Shah Rukh’s court historian Abru (d. 1430) records the story of a general (under the command of Temür’s ally, the Jalayirid28 ruler Sultan Hussein), who drunkenly spoke out against Temür.29 His companions immediately chastised him, warning him that the penalty for such treasonous diatribes was death. Though the general avoided execution, he did purportedly lose his position and followers as a result of this drunken utterance.30 While the specifics of this story are likely allegorical, serving as a cautionary tale against any kind of disloyalty, it does establish a precedent regarding culpability for drunken transgressions. Elites, specifically those who were not members of the , owed their positions to Temür’s favor: the knowledge that their ranks, wealth, and lives depended on their loyalty and discipline would have encouraged them to act with extreme caution and forethought at all times, even at the height of a drinking party.

Temür’s repeated military successes, relentless campaigning, and the scattered details about his personality – preserved in Timurid sources and by outside observers such as Clavijo and – indicate that he was by no means a degenerate

28 The Jalayirids (1340-1432) were one of several dynasties that rose to power in different regions of Iran following the collapse of the Il-khanate. 29 Beatrice Manz, Power, Politics, and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 41, 51-52, 57. 30 Hafez Abru, Zubdat al-Tawarikh (Tehran: Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, 2001), 1:342.

69 alcoholic or consumed by drinking. Temür clearly enjoyed drinking, consuming a variety of alcoholic beverages regularly on campaign and while at home in Samarqand. Writing more than a century later, the Timurid court historian Khwandamir relates that nearly every military victory was followed by drinking parties lasting days or weeks.31 Based on early Timurid sources, Temür is best described as a heavy drinker, but one who drank within the confines of what was considered socially acceptable. While on military expeditions, he recognized the value of alcohol in promoting bonding and escaping the psychological realities of near-constant campaigning. At home, the use of alcohol in ceremonies and rituals reinforced hierarchies of power and invoked Mongol imperial practice, thus lending credence to Temür’s legitimacy as a nomadic empire builder.

Ibn ‘Arabshah’s biography of Temür, the ‘Aja’ib al-maqdur fi akhbar , provides some insight into the ruler’s personal drinking habits. Ibn ‘Arabshah was born in 1392 in and was brought to Samarqand around the age of ten following

Temür’s conquest of in 1401.32 As he grew to adulthood, he gained renown as a translator and writer, completing his detailed biography of Temür in 1435. Despite the success he found later in life, Ibn ‘Arabshah’s hostility toward the conqueror permeates the work, likely a result of the lingering resentment and anger he felt for the man who destroyed his home and carried him off to Central Asia as a child. Despite this, Ibn

‘Arabshah’s work remains one of the most important sources on Temür’s life and death.

In his account of Temür’s life, one finds a few casual references made to drinking wine.

These are not nearly as substantial as the stories found in Yazdi’s and Clavijo’s works,

31 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 248, 256, 258, 268, 284, 292. 32 Manz, “Tamerlane and the Symbolism of Sovereignty,” 108.

70 but we do find that Temür had little patience for those who “grew foolish in [their] drunkenness,” which reinforces the image of Temür’s character preserved elsewhere. In his rendition of the festivities in Samarqand accompanying Temür’s return, Ibn

‘Arabshah insults the ruler in passing for “eating and drinking forbidden things,” but provides none of the specific details found in other sources. More time is devoted to describing Temür’s attempts at dancing, which the author mocks in prose and verse due to the conqueror’s advanced age and lameness.33

Alcohol may have played a role in Temür’s death, as Ibn ‘Arabshah’s attests; however, the veracity of his account is difficult to establish, and his animosity toward

Temür puts his objectivity in question. Other early Timurid sources do not identify the cause or circumstances of Temür’s death, though the late Timurid historian Khwandamir does attribute Temür’s fatal illness to overindulgence in alcohol.34 Yazdi’s section on

Temür’s passing is written as a religious eulogy – rife with , Qur’anic references, and Arabic phrases – intended to praise Temür’s piety and his soul’s departure from the mortal world rather than focusing on the mundane details of his physical death.35 In contrast, Ibn ‘Arabshah relates Temür’s death in the same narrative tone he uses throughout his history, stating that after arriving in many of Temür’s men fell victim to hypothermia and the conqueror ordered ‘araq prepared to help protect himself against the cold. However, rather than showing restraint, Temür “took of that arrack [sic] and drank it again and again without pause…until the hand of death gave him

33 Ahmed ibn ‘Arabshah, Tamerlane or Timur the Great Amir, trans. J.J. Saunders (: Progressive Books, 1976), 220-21. 34 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 295. 35 Yazdi, Ẓafarnāmah, 2:460-470

71 the cup to drink.”36 Interestingly, Khwandamir does not identify any medicinal incentives for Temür’s heavy drinking in Otrar (in southern Kazakhstan), stating instead that it occurred after the royal ladies departed for Samarqand.37 According to both Ibn

‘Arabshah and Khwandamir, the overindulgence in ‘araq so weakened Temür that doctors were unable to help him, and after three days of excruciating pain, he succumbed to his illness.38 Ibn ‘Arabshah is quick to paint Temür’s drawn-out and painful death as retribution for his acts in life, but he does not condemn ‘araq or even connect its purported role in Temür’s death to impious behavior – it is merely the neutral mechanism through which the tyrannical Temür was struck down.

After Tamerlane: The Succession of Shah Rukh

Following Temür’s death, a struggle for the succession broke out among his descendants, who competed with one another to garner support and assert their legitimacy. In this episode, too, alcohol consumption informed the trajectory of the

Timurid dynasty. The , Muhammad-Sultan ibn Jahangir, died in 1403, predeceasing Temür by two years. After Muhammad-Sultan’s death, the empire was divided into four , each governed by the family of one of Temür’s sons. It was not until the aging conqueror was on his deathbed in 1405 that he supposedly designated his grandson, the younger brother of Muhammad-Sultan, Muhammad ibn Jahangir, as the new heir. Though was not a requirement in Turco-Mongol dynastic

36 Ibn ‘Arabshah, Tamerlane, trans. J.J. Saunders, 232. 37 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 295. 38 Ibn ‘Arabshah, Tamerlane, trans. J.J. Saunders, 232-34; Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 295.

72 succession, at almost thirty years of age, Pir Muhammad was the eldest of Temür’s capable living descendants39 – one year older than his uncle Shah Rukh and eight years older than his other major rival for power, his cousin40 Khalil-Sultan ibn Miranshah.41

Pir Muhammad’s ability to assert his claim to power was hindered by several factors, including the aforementioned division of Timurid territories among members of the royal family; his appointment as governor of , which was too far from the center of power to allow him to engage in the scramble immediately following Temür’s death; and his constitution, which was more inclined towards pursuing pleasure than attending to affairs of state.42

The initial struggle for power took place between Khalil-Sultan and Shah Rukh, though at this point the two avoided direct confrontation. The former seized Samarqand, and Shah Rukh, busy attending to his duties as governor of Khurasan, made a temporary

39 Technically, Miranshah was older; however, he was not a contender for the throne and held no official appointment at the time of Temür’s death. Several sources (including Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi and Khwandamir) claim that he became deranged and increasingly erratic after a fall from his horse (after which, according to Khwandamir, he started drinking heavily - Habibu’s-Siyar, 270), though Beatrice Manz argues that he was likely discredited for plotting a rebellion against his father and that the story of his injury may have been invented after his descendants (including Babur) rose to prominence in the mid- fifteenth century. See Manz, Power, Politics, and Religion, 14. In contrast, John Woods argues that the accident and subsequent mental imbalance may have been omitted or redacted from earlier sources out of respect for the prince and his surviving sons. See John E. Woods, “Turko-Iranica II: Notes on a Timurid Decree of 1396/978,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43 (1984): 333-35. I am inclined to agree with Woods’ assessment, as Manz tends to disregard information on individual character traits as either fictitious or politically irrelevant. 40 Though Khalil-Sultan was Pir Muhammad’s cousin, he was technically the half-brother of the original heir, Muhammad-Sultan, through their mother Khanzada. A Chingizid princess, Khanzada was originally married to Jahangir b. Temür. In accordance with Mongol custom (though contrary to Islamic law), after her husband’s death she married his brother Miranshah and gave birth to Khalil-Sultan. Thus both Muhammad-Sultan and Khalil-Sultan claimed direct Chingizid descent, whereas Pir Muhammad was the son of one of Jahangir’s non-Chingizid wives. See Manz, Power, Politics, and Religion, 16-17. 41 There were other localized succession struggles that took place during this period. However, for the sake of brevity, I will focus only on the three major contenders for the throne: Pir Muhammad, Khalil-Sultan, and Shah Rukh. For a full discussion of the succession crisis see Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 128-47; and Manz, Power, Politics, and Religion, 16-24. 42 Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 128-31.

73 truce with his nephew. By the end of 1405, Pir Muhammad had arrived in and launched an attack on Khalil-Sultan’s forces with some military assistance from Shah

Rukh. In the battle, Khalil-Sultan routed Pir Muhammad’s troops, thus retaining the throne for the time being.43 It is perhaps unfair to credit Pir Muhammad with the attack or blame him for the defeat, however, as his heavy drinking had already forced him to relinquish most of his power to his chief advisor, Pir ‘Ali Taz. According to al-Qazvini’s sixteenth-century history of the Timurids, the Nusakh-i Jahanara, the prince’s followers, frustrated by his constant state of drunkenness, attempted to overthrow him in Kabul prior to Temür’s death, leading Pir ‘Ali Taz to take administrative control of the .44 During the year following Pir Muhammad’s failed attempt to capture the throne, Pir ‘Ali Taz became increasingly power-hungry and frustrated with the alcoholic prince, whose plight was eulogized in verse by the late-Timurid historian Khwandamir:

When the sultan’s head nods from wine, he does not realize That the royal crown is falling from his head.45

With the imperial succession crisis still largely unresolved, Pir ‘Ali Taz led an uprising, murdering Temür’s heir apparent in February 1407 and officially taking control of Pir

Muhammad’s territories until he was in turn cut down by one of his own followers in

1408.46

With Pir Muhammad out of the way, Shah Rukh emerged as the only major threat to Khalil-Sultan’s power, though for several years the Timurid realm remained in a

43 Ibid. 44 Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Gaffari al-Qazvini, Nusakh-i Jahanara, British Library, India Office Persian Manuscript Collection, MS IO Islamic 28, f. 165b. 45 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 313. 46 Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 132-33; Hafez Abru, Zubdat al-Tawarikh, , Süleymaniye Library, MS Fatih 4371/1, ff. 398b-99a.

74 general state of turmoil rather than descending into civil war. To maintain his position,

Khalil-Sultan spent exorbitant sums buying the loyalty of his followers, essentially emptying the imperial treasury in the process. Meanwhile, Shah Rukh was preoccupied with putting down a string of rebellions and conspiracies in his own province of

Khurasan. The lands belonging to other Timurid princes did not fare any better, as the entire empire was plagued with infighting and instability. As Beatrice Manz aptly observes, “when Temür died…he left behind a political order which could not function without him, and one which provided for his successors no clear political relationships or rules of conduct.”47 By patiently working to build a loyal following and regain stability in Khurasan, Shah Rukh strengthened his position while his relatives and various power- hungry emirs weakened or destroyed each other through continual infighting. Finally, in

1409, Shah Rukh took Samarqand and captured Khalil-Sultan, thus affirming his position at the head of the Timurid hierarchy. Rather than remain in Samarqand, however, Shah

Rukh appointed his fifteen-year-old son ‘ as governor and returned to his base of power in Herat, which he established as the empire’s new capital.48

Shah Rukh’s New Order

Shah Rukh’s reign ushered in a , during which he established relative political stability, instituted a series of sweeping reforms, and supported the beginnings of a cultural through the patronage of religious scholars, poets, and miniaturists, among others. One important aspect of Shah Rukh’s reign was his emphasis on Islam as

47 Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, 145. 48 Manz, Power, Politics, and Religion, 24-25.

75 a legitimizing factor supporting his royal authority. This was in stark contrast to earlier notions of political legitimacy, as even Temür himself “did not claim to rule in his own right but only to exercise sovereignty in the name of a descendant of Chingiz Khan.”49

During the prolonged succession struggle, Shah Rukh allied himself with religious elites in Herat by patronizing the local of three Hanbali Sufis (‘Abdullah Ansari, Abu’l

Valid, and ‘Abdullah Taqi) and endorsing populist, rather than madhhab-specific, religious rhetoric.50 While Shah Rukh’s pious image may have proceeded from genuine conviction, it was undeniably strategic insofar as it helped establish a strong support base among multiple constituencies and offered an alternative means of supporting his claim for legitimacy, especially given his chief rival’s claims of Chingizid descent.51 It is therefore logical that Shah Rukh would return to Herat after gaining power, as his remaining in Samarqand could easily have alienated his supporters and limited his ability to stay tied to the vibrant Perso-Islamic religious culture long associated with Herat. By leaving his son to govern the former capital, he reinforced his family’s primacy within the dynasty without removing himself from the political environment he already knew how to navigate.

As part of her reassessment of Shah Rukh, Beatrice Manz argues that the move away from Samarqand was a purely practical decision based on Herat’s geographic centrality, rather than stemming from religious considerations or the shift from nomadic

49 Woods, “Notes on a Timurid Decree,” 332. 50 Maria Subtelny, “The Cult of ‘Abdullah Ansari under the Timurids,” in Alma Giese and J. Christophe Bürgel, eds., Gott ist schön und Er liebt die Schönheit (Bern: Peter Lang, 1994), 399. 51 Though technically Khalil-Sultan’s Chingizid claims could be challenged on religious grounds because his parent’s was illegal according to Islamic law (due to Khanzada’s previous marriage to Miranshah’s brother, Jahangir).

76 to sedentary cultural practices.52 This is partially a response to Maria Subtelny’s earlier assertion that the move to Herat represented “the start of a new era of accommodation and acculturation,” based on Perso-Islamic rather than Turco-Mongol identity.53 While geographic centrality may have played a secondary role in Shah Rukh’s decision, the policies that he embraced throughout his reign – emphasizing the support of religious learning, the promotion of Perso-Islamic artistic forms, and the demotion of Turco-

Mongol cultural practices – clearly support Subtelny’s conclusions rather than Manz’s. If

Temür had moved the capital from Samarqand to Herat, Manz’s argument might hold more weight. Temür was a master tactician, displaying the strategic acumen and conquest-driven mentality that would lend itself to reconfiguring the center of power based primarily on geographic considerations. However, Shah Rukh was not Temür, and a consideration of the complex cultural and religious motivations for his decisions and policies does not yield the conclusion that he was “obsessively pious…or unwilling to exercise political power,” as Manz claims.54 Both authors rightly credit Shah Rukh with transforming Temür’s loosely-connected territories into a stable political entity.

However, each has the tendency to treat the political, cultural, and religious spheres as separate when it seems much more likely that they were inextricably bound together.

Without recognizing the interdependence of these elements, it is impossible to assess the actual impact of Shah Rukh’s reign on Timurid society and Central Asian history.

52 Manz, “Temür and the Problem of a Conqueror’s Legacy,” 32. 53 Subtelny and Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning,” 211. 54 Manz, “Temür and the Problem of a Conqueror’s Legacy,” 32.

77 By viewing this period through the lens of alcohol culture, it becomes clear that the influence of Shah Rukh’s reign on Central Asian society and culture has been largely misinterpreted and misrepresented. Religious intellectual life did expand significantly under Shah Rukh’s patronage, but the long-term result was a move away from restrictive conservatism rather than towards it.55 By initially sponsoring a more restrictive interpretation of Islam, Shah Rukh appealed to the religious elites and the significant

Shafi‘i minority in his eastern territories in Iran and Khurasan, who would have favored outward shows of religious observance.56 He did not, however, attempt to change the nature of religious practice in Central Asia or delegitimize the widely observed Hanafi interpretations.57 Rather than seeking to reform or undermine the existing religious landscape, he sought to couch his personal and dynastic legitimacy in pre-Chingizid,

Perso-Islamic terms rather than in Turco-Mongol ones, thus instituting a cultural realignment intended to bolster his credibility as the ruler of a largely sedentary empire.58

Additionally, though Temür married into the Chingizid line, Shah Rukh’s mother was a concubine, not a Mongol princess.59 It was therefore politically expedient for him to distance himself from Turco-Mongol claims to legitimacy, which remained dependent on

Chingizid descent.60

55 Maria E. Subtelny, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 24-28; Anna Caiozzo, “Propagande dynastique et célébrations princières, mythes et images à la cour Timouride,” Bulletin d’Études Orientales LX (2011): 191. 56 Subtelny and Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning,” 210-236. 57 A.G. Ravan Farhadi, Abdullah Ansari of Herat: An Early Sufi Master (Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1996), 11-13; Subtelny and Khalidov, “The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning,” 210-236. 58 John E. Woods, “The Rise of Timurid Historiography,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46 (April 1987): 105. 59 Beatrice Forbes Manz, "Shah Rukh." EI2. 60 Shah Rukh did take a Chingizid wife, Malikat Agha, who was also the widow of his elder brother ‘Umar- Shaykh (d. 1394).

78 Of the policies instituted during Shah Rukh’s forty-year reign, the prohibition of wine is often presented as evidence of a larger societal shift towards Islamic orthodoxy.61

However, this represents an oversimplification and misunderstanding of the nature of

Islam in Central Asia; the changes that were occurring as a result of cultural sedentarization; and the actual degree to which the population adhered to Shah Rukh’s decrees promoting prohibition, which appears to have been minimal. If there was a widespread conservative turn reflected in his religious rhetoric, no other Timurid princes seem to have noticed.

The major change in imperial drinking habits that did occur did not result from religiously motivated prohibitive measures, but from Shah Rukh’s intentional elimination of many elements of Turco-Mongol ceremony from court culture. As a result, both kumiss and the highly ritualized drinking protocols observed by the Mongols and Temür himself disappear from descriptions of court culture during Shah Rukh’s reign. The resultant drinking culture was almost entirely devoid of political and ritual meaning while remaining religiously legitimate according to Hanafi interpretations. In this way, by the second half of the fifteenth century, as a direct result of Shah Rukh’s measures to assert his own legitimacy in Islamic terms by eschewing Turco-Mongol customs, Timurid drinking practices more closely resembled those of sedentary pre-Mongol Central Asia than those of their nomadic imperial predecessors or their dynasty’s eponymous founder.

The remainder of this chapter will examine alcohol culture during Shah Rukh’s reign, emphasizing the difference between rhetoric and practice in order to shed light on

61 Manz, “Temür and the Problem of a Conqueror’s Legacy,” 31.

79 the larger social, cultural, religious, and political changes that were taking place in

Central Asia during this period. It is important, in this respect, to examine the impact of his policies as a whole rather than fixating on the invocation of religious prohibition as an indicator of larger trends, which it was not. Instead, it becomes clear that the environment of religious learning and discourse promoted by Shah Rukh actually reinforced the ingrained and legitimate role of alcohol in Central Asian society. At the same time, Shah Rukh’s policies actively promoted the widespread adoption of Perso-

Islamic sedentary cultural practices, which in turn replaced Turco-Mongol rituals associated with drinking.

A Mirror for Princes: Official Policies and Rhetoric

As many rulers before and after him have done, Shah Rukh issued a number of proclaiming new policies, reform measures, religious devotion, legitimacy, love for his subjects, and general fitness to rule. Among these edicts, his prohibition of wine has been repeatedly cited (in both primary and secondary literature) as evidence of his credentials as a pious Muslim ruler and of his commitment to establishing a just society based on Islamic values. Given its popularity as a point of reference and its obvious relevance to the study at hand, it is therefore logical to begin the discussion of alcohol culture during Shah Rukh’s reign with a detailed examination of this particular topic.

The full text of Shah Rukh’s official edicts are recorded in ‘Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi’s

80 ‘ al-sa‘dayn wa majma‘ al-bahrayn62 and Nizami’s Mansha‘ al-insha.63 Reference to Shah Rukh’s alcohol policies are included in the Nasa‘ih Shahrukhi, an advice manual completed in 1417 by the prominent Hanafi scholar al-Qayini.64

At first glance, the proclamation titled “Edict forbidding wine drinking,” appears fairly straightforward.65 However, close scrutiny of the text reveals a more qualified statement reminiscent of that found in the record of Ghazan Khan’s alcohol policies from the Ilkhanate. As discussed in the previous chapter, Ghazan sought to outlaw public drunkenness in the interest of maintaining order, but his decree is often inaccurately described as having promoted wholesale prohibition as part of his conversion to Islam.66

Unlike Ghazan’s prohibition, Shah Rukh’s edict does not outlaw public drunkenness or, for that matter, anything else, despite the title’s implications to the contrary.67 The first sections of the edict are laden with religious rhetoric, extolling the success of the

Qur’anic message in restructuring society and instilling piety throughout the lands of the

Arabs, , and Turks. The text insists that the pious masses recognized wine’s ability to cloud their minds and deprive them of God’s grace, and in response they ensured that “the tradition of drinking wine was stricken from the world.” The author goes on to contradict this statement by saying that recently, 113 officials have repented

62 ‘Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi, Matla‘ al-sa‘dayn wa-majma‘ al-bahrayn, ed. Muhammad Shafi‘ (Lahore: Chapkhanah-i Gilani, 1944), 2:2:739. 63 Nizam al-Din ‘Abd al-Vasi Nizami, Mansha’ al-insha (Tehran: Daneshgah-i Milliy-i Iran, 1979), 164-5. The two texts (by Samarqandi and Nizami) are nearly identical. For convenience the citations and direct are from Nizami’s text. 64 Jalal al-Din Muhammad al-Qayini, Nasa‘ih Shahrukhi,Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS Cod. A.F. 112, ff. 2b-3a. 65 “Farman man’a bade nushi;” see Nizami, Mansha’ al-insha, 164. 66 Rash al-Din Fazlullah, Jami’u’t-tawarikh, volume II, 743. 67 For a full translation of Shah Rukh’s edict from the Mansha’ al-insha, see Appendix A.

81 and taken vows of temperance, “shattering their wine goblets and trading the joys of earthly drunkenness for the intoxication of God’s words.”68 Crediting Shah Rukh’s influence, the author includes a verse stating that the ruler’s implementation of had removed two great stains from society:

Oh! King who uprooted from the garden of time The plants of unbelief, , and intoxication,

Out of fear for the justice you brought forth, The blood of wine dries up in the veins of grapes still on the vine,

Except in the eyes of the beloved, Who, by nature, make their lovers drunken without drink.

Your justice wiped two scourges from the earth: The drunken and the hungover.69

The “order” itself is found in the final sections of the text, though the language is more suggestive than prohibitive, stating that “everyone, elites and commoners alike, should avoid drinking the forbidden khamr both in public and in private.”70 The decision to use the word khamr in this specific instance is significant as it directly references

Qur’anic language rather than the colloquial terms found elsewhere, such as bade, sharab, or rahiq. As discussed in Chapter 1, the Qur’an presents khamr as an instrument used by Satan to lead believers astray. The decree thus utilizes very specific language that reflects the limited prohibition promoted by the Hanafi rite, while still appealing to easily recognizable populist (i.e. non-madhhab-specific) sentiments. While Hanafis

68 Nizami, Mansha’ al-insha, 164. The number of officials may allude to the 114 Suras in the Qur’an. Shah Rukh himself would arguably make the 114th. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid., 165.

82 agreed that khamr was forbidden, they disagreed regarding its definition, limiting its meaning to either grape wine or to the specific cup that gives rise to intoxication. By encouraging people to avoid khamr specifically, the decree therefore allows individuals to continue interpreting the meaning of the term according to their legal rites and does not impose sanctions on legitimate drinking.

The final part of the edict reinforces this sentiment by stating that judges and officials should try to enforce this order and that those caught breaking it should be publicly humiliated. However, it also cautions against strict or overzealous enforcement, as this could prove counterproductive by angering people and making them turn against religion. Instead, the edict closes by insisting that policing is unnecessary because the desire to adhere to religious law is enough to compel people, and its revival alone will set society aright.71 Thus, the substance of Shah Rukh’s decree makes it evident that he did not impose a wholesale prohibition on wine or alcohol. This directly challenges the oft- repeated assertion that his reign and policies represented part of a larger shift towards religious conservatism and strict orthopraxy. Instead, he masterfully used religious rhetoric to bolster his legitimacy as a pious ruler while simultaneously maintaining the status quo regarding preexisting Hanafi legal interpretations.

Echoing the sentiments found in the official edict, al-Qayini’s Nasa‘ih Shahrukhi praises Shah Rukh’s piety, just leadership, and success in restoring peace and prosperity through the implementation of Islamic principles. The work is an advice manual composed for Shah Rukh in the previously discussed “mirror for princes” genre, though

71 Ibid.

83 large parts are taken directly from the Shafi’i Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk’s magnum opus, the Siyasatname. However, al-Qayini did pen the opening pages, which are devoted to extolling Shah Rukh’s unparalleled leadership qualities. Prior to Shah Rukh’s assumption of power, al-Qayini states that the populace was decadent, prideful, and occupied with drinking wine or, to be more specific, with drinking khamr.72 Once again, the word khamr is specifically invoked, though this is not a general rallying cry against alcohol or wine as a substance. Instead, contextually the word is used as a symbol of overindulgence and divergence from the religious path.

Al-Qayini goes on to state that prior to Shah Rukh’s reign, religious officials were unable to curb immoral behavior, painting a picture of an environment characterized by widespread defiance and disrespect for those in positions of power. By contrast, Shah

Rukh is presented as the leader who set society aright, publicly pouring wine out into the streets and destroying the containers that held it. Given such displays, al-Qayini rhetorically asks, how could people not praise Shah Rukh’s piety? And it was not just

Shah Rukh, al-Qayini insists, as his favorite son nobly followed his father’s example, confiscating wine and pouring it into the streets of Herat.73 This representation of Baysunghur is especially interesting, as the prince was a well-known imbiber who succumbed to alcohol addiction at the age of thirty-six. The stark contrast between the depiction of Baysunghur and reality perfectly reflects the difference between rhetoric and practice during Shah Rukh’s reign. Crafting the image of Shah Rukh and his sons as paragons of virtue and promoters of popular religious ideals – thus appealing broadly to

72 Al-Qayini, Nasa‘ih Shahrukhi, Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, MS Cod. A.F. 112, f. 2b. 73 Ibid., ff. 2b-3a.

84 followers of all Sunni legal rites – was an integral component in establishing the line’s legitimacy in defensible terms. Therefore, while evidence suggests that Shah Rukh did indeed embrace sobriety, his policies aimed at prohibition were largely invoked as legitimizing rhetoric. While quite relevant in that regard, we will see below that they had little to no practical effect in curbing alcohol consumption, as we will see below.

A Mirror up to Nature: Rhetoric Aside

Despite promoting the rhetoric of sobriety through public decrees in order to bolster his own legitimacy, Shah Rukh does not appear to have enforced widespread prohibitive measures or penalized drinkers. This is especially evident in the case of the royal family, as political stability, wealth, and largely sedentary lifestyles created a generation of Timurid princes who spent their days pursuing pleasure rather than focusing on organizing conquests or affairs of state. In this environment, the Timurids emerged as patrons of some of the most impressive artistic, literary, and scientific achievements of the age, from beautifully illuminated manuscripts to massive astronomical catalogues. Within the princes’ palaces and exquisite gardens, wine circulated freely among the artists, the intelligentsia, and their royal patrons.74 It must be remembered that the Sunni revival associated with Shah Rukh’s reign took place within a specifically Central Asian context in which alcohol continued to occupy a legitimate place in society. However, the shift to immovable courts and the preference given to

Perso-Islamic cultural practices led to the elimination of highly ritualized Turco-Mongol

74 David J. Roxburgh, “Baysunghur’s Library: Questions Related to Its Chronology and Production,” Journal of Social Affairs 18 (2001): 16.

85 drinking ceremonies and to the disappearance of fermented mare’s milk, a product of the steppe, in favor of fermented grapes, a product of the sown. After this point, kumiss and ritualized drinking appear only in accounts of meetings with Jochid or Chaghataid rulers.

In these instances, the rituals are presented as foreign to the Timurid rulers, who partake of them as a gesture of respect for their hosts.75

The continued prevalence of alcohol in Transoxania during Shah Rukh’s reign is attested to in the account of Cheng, who travelled from China to Central Asia in

1414 and spent a year and a half touring the Timurid realm as the ambassador and representative of the court. Chen recorded his observations of the cultural practices he encountered in order to educate future ambassadors to the region.76 Since he was an outsider, his work is especially informative as it is largely divorced from the rhetoric- laden Timurid accounts of this era. In his commentary on Herat, Chen provides three references that shed light on alcohol culture and drinking practices. The first stems from observation and is found in a description of eating habits and utensils, as Chen tells his reader that the people of Herat “use gold and silver wine jugs and wine cups.”77 In addition to providing evidence for the continued popularity of wine during Shah Rukh’s reign, this simple statement conveys a lack of strict religious conservatism in everyday practice, as gold and silver implements are unequivocally forbidden in the hadith, a

75 Babur, The Baburnama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 2002f. 100b (p. 116); Mirza Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i Rashidi: A History of the Khans of Moghulistan, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Cambridge, MA: The Program for Islamic , M.I.T., 1989), 179; Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 420. 76 Morris Rossabi, “A Translation of Ch’en Ch’eng’s Hsi-yü Fan-kuo Chih,” Ming Studies 17 (1983): 49. 77 Ibid., 50.

86 proscription supported by all four Sunni legal rites, though admittedly overlooked by many Muslim rulers over the centuries.78

Chen’s second reference to alcohol reflects a certain confusion. In this instance, he states that “the prohibition against wine is extremely strict;…therefore they [the people of Herat] do not ferment wine. But they ferment grape wine.”79 Obviously something was lost in translation here. Perhaps Chen inquired about rice wine and attempted to reconcile the response he received with the practices he observed, or his translator simply made an error or was unclear. He goes on to remark that “those who are principled…drink no wine because they fear that they will blaspheme heaven.”80 This is in line with both religious rhetoric and historical practice, as even those Muslims who viewed some drinking as licit considered temperance an admirable and pious trait.

Chen’s final reference to wine appears in his discussion of feasts, where he observes that cupbearers serve wine to guests on silk-lined platters.81 As evidenced in the ambassador’s remarks, alcohol continued to flow freely at the Timurid courts during

Shah Rukh’s reign, though lip service was paid to the idea of religious prohibition.

An example of the pitfalls of approaching sources such as Chen’s account with preexisting assumptions about alcohol and Islam is found in Felicia Hecker’s article about the embassy’s time in Herat, in which she argues that “many of Chen’s descriptions of local Islamic customs ring true even to the present. He reports that wine is strictly

78 Sahih Muslim 24: 5126, 5128, 5131. 79 Rossabi, “A Translation of Ch’en Ch’eng’s Hsi-yü Fan-kuo Chih,” 51. 80 Ibid., 51. 81 Ibid., 55.

87 forbidden and is not imbibed by the ‘principled.’”82 What exactly Hecker means by

“local Islamic customs” is unclear, especially considering the continued prevalence of alcohol consumption in large parts of Central Asia today.83 Additionally, she has uncritically selected the one reference that reinforces prohibition rather than acknowledging Chen’s observations of actual practice, leading to a misrepresentation of

Chen’s overall remarks.

Further evidence that a thriving drinking culture persisted during Shah Rukh’s reign is found in accounts of the lives of several Timurid princes – most notably the aforementioned Baysunghur and his sons – recorded by Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi84 and Khwandamir. Though Samarqandi was the son of a courtier, the opulence of

Timurid courts did not appeal to him. He lived much of his life in relative seclusion as a

Sufi , studying and writing poetry. His work, the Tadkhirat al-shu’ara, was completed in 1487 and provides biographical information and anecdotes about Persian poets from antiquity to the Timurid era.85 In his biographical sketches of his contemporaries, Samarqandi includes various stories about the Timurid elite. His near- contemporary, Khwandamir, was a member of the renowned Herati literary circle at the late Timurid court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara. His chronicle, the Habibu’s-Siyar, completed in 1521, is a general history of the world up to the author’s time and also contains a wealth of information on imperial culture during the Timurid era.

82 Felicia J. Hecker, “A Fifteenth-Century Chinese Diplomat in Herat,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd series 3 (1993): 93. 83 Adeeb Khalid, Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 1. 84 Not to be confused with the more famous fifteenth-century ambassador Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi. 85 Thackston, A Century of Princes, 11.

88 In reference to Shah Rukh’s third son, Baysunghur, who was largely believed to have been the heir apparent, both Samarqandi and Khwandamir identify alcohol addiction as the means of his demise. During the first decade of Shah Rukh’s reign, Baysunghur was active in military affairs, leading several successful campaigns. However, by 1420, relative stability had been achieved and Baysunghur’s time had come to be devoted largely to recreational , accumulating works for his library, and drinking wine.86

Though Baysunghur undoubtedly drank alongside his men on campaigns, the sudden shift from peripatetic leader to sedentary prince appears to have had a profound effect on the twenty-three year-old prince’s drinking habits. According to Khwandamir, as the

1420’s wore on, Baysunghur was never found without a wine cup nearby, until eventually “this habit had gone beyond moderation [and] the heat of subtle wine effected the noble temperament, the causes of the disease grew strong, and the prince’s health declined.”87 While Khwandamir’s account of the prince’s affliction and death is a fairly straightforward retelling, Samarqandi’s is replete with literary flourishes and drinking- related metaphors. In this vein, the particulars of Baysunghur’s death in 1433 are depicted as follows: “Half-drunk, the prince crept into the mastaba88 of the earth” and

“suffering from the hangover of resurrection…[requested] from the cupbearers the pure wine that cures a hangover.”89

86 Roxburgh, “Baysunghur’s Library: Questions Related to its Chronology and Production,” 16; Fasihi al- Khvafi, Majmal al-Fasihi, ed. Mahmud Farrukh (: Kitabfurushi-i Bastan, 1961), 3:233-34, 272- 74. 87 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 343. 88 An Egyptian tomb. 89 Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi, Tadkhirat al-shu’ara, in Wheeler M. Thackston, trans. A Century of Princes, 23.

89 Shah Rukh was understandably grief-stricken at this loss and divided

Baysunghur’s post among the prince’s three sons: Ala’uddawla, Abul-Qasim Babur, and

Sultan-Muhammad. In what was undoubtedly another disappointment to Shah Rukh, all three of these grandsons followed their father’s example rather than his own. The eldest,

Ala’uddawla, is described by Khwandamir as “totally devoid of militarism,” having “no thought for anything but drinking rosy wine and listening to the dulcimer and the harp.”90

Seven years after Baysunghur’s death, Herat’s enforcer of public morals, Murtaza Sahhaf approached Shah Rukh about the prince’s behavior. He informed the ruler that while his decrees had wiped the scourge of drunkenness from society at large, Ala’uddawla and his uncle Muhammad-Juki, Shah Rukh’s youngest son, had horded a massive amount of wine in their palaces and were gaining reputations as prodigal drinkers. Enraged, Shah

Rukh went straight to the princes and, finding them drunk and reeking of alcohol, ordered their wine poured into the streets.91

Shortly after confronting his son and grandson, Shah Rukh received word that

Baysunghur’s youngest son, Sultan-Muhammad, planned to build a palace devoted entirely to drinking on the outskirts of Herat. In response, he informed his grandson that he would “pluck the eye out of anyone who did such a thing.”92 Needless to say, this made the prince rethink his building project, but it appears to have had no effect on his drinking. Unlike his father and brothers, who are presented in fairly positive lights despite their excessive drinking, Sultan-Muhammad is depicted as generally unlikeable,

90 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 361-62. 91 Ibid., 360. 92 Ibid.

90 erratic, and detested by almost everyone around him. According to Khwandamir, once when the prince was drinking on the banks of the Herat River, he suddenly drew his sword and drunkenly charged after his surprised and terrified attendants.93 In another instance, this time recorded by Samarqandi, Sultan-Muhammad is said to have drunkenly urinated on the beard of a kneeling shaykh, who was also one of the amirs his grandfather had assigned to watch over him.94

In many ways, this particular story perfectly exemplifies the difference between rhetoric and practice during Shah Rukh’s reign. This is not to say that all princes went around drunkenly urinating on members of the religious classes – they obviously did not.

But the case of Sultan-Muhammad showcases a pervasive irreverence for religious elites that does appear widespread among the Timurid ruling class, standing in stark contrast to the image of piety and restraint crafted so meticulously by Shah Rukh and his propagandists. While Shah Rukh’s angry responses to his son’s and grandson’s drinking are presented as evidence of his commitment to Islamic values, they likely stemmed from a combination of the anguish of losing Baysunghur and paternal frustration at his own helplessness. If continued alcohol consumption can be viewed as any kind of indicator, there was clearly not a societal shift towards practical religious conservatism in the cultural realm at this time.

However, the way drinking was carried out, now within the privacy of a fixed court, had changed significantly within a few decades, reflecting not changing religious attitudes but the shift towards an unmistakably sedentarized society. The resultant world

93 Ibid. 94 Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi, Tadkhirat al-shu’ara, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 39.

91 was the one embodied by the later Timurids and, more importantly for the purposes of this study, the one that gave rise to Babur and his contemporaries.

92

CHAPTER 4

“CHASTISE ME WHEN YOU FIND ME SOBER”: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BABUR

Only the drinker knows the pleasure of wine. What enjoyment thereof can the sober have? Babur (1483-1530)1

Nearly a century after the collapse of Timurid rule in Central Asia, the Timurid-

Mughal Akbar commissioned the artist Farrukh Beg to paint miniatures commemorating many of the noteworthy and heroic scenes depicted in the memoirs of the empire’s founder, Babur, to be included in one of the beautiful illuminated manuscripts for which the Mughals would later become famous. One painting, bearing the description “A Drunken Babur Returns to Camp at Night,” might seem out of place at the court of a Muslim ruler, especially one as concerned with crafting his dynasty’s image and legitimacy as Akbar was.2 In the painting, the emperor’s grandfather is depicted hunched over on his horse, listlessly holding a torch while his followers look on, apparently unconcerned with and unsurprised by the spectacle. One might think that

Akbar would have wanted to excise this incident from the historical record or gloss over it in favor of highlighting Babur’s more flattering achievements. Instead, in this painting

1 Babur, The Baburnama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 154 (fol. 252b). 2 See Appendix B.

93 there is a celebration and unabashedly self-conscious recognition of a number of complex cultural elements that intertwined and evolved over centuries, culminating in the image of a man drunkenly riding a horse through his camp. Babur and his descendants did not look back on his drunken exploits with a sense of embarrassment or shame. Given

Babur’s later vow of temperance, he could easily have removed this and the many other accounts of youthful drunkenness from his memoirs. However, Babur was much more complex than that: he was a Turk, a Timurid, a Chaghataid, a Muslim, and a drunkard.

The convergence of these seemingly contradictory identities represents both the specific time and place and the larger historical processes that culminated in this, the story of a drunken Mughal.

Babur’s World: Historical Backdrop and Family

Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur was born on , 1483, in in the

Ferghana Valley, today in far eastern Uzbekistan, which was ruled by his father Umar-

Shaykh Mirza, a descendant of Temür’s son Miranshah. His mother was the daughter of

Yunus Khan, the Chaghataid ruler of Moghulistan just to the northeast. In terms of legitimacy, Babur’s lineage was thus irreproachable as he claimed direct descent from both Temür and Chingiz Khan. By the final decades of the fifteenth century the Timurid princes vying for power in Central Asia hailed primarily from the houses of Temür’s first son, Umar-Shaykh, and his third son, Miranshah. Though power initially passed through the line of Shah Rukh following Temür’s death in 1405, Miranshah’s grandson Abu Sa’id was able to capture Samarqand and take control of the empire in 1451. However, for the

94 duration of his rule he faced significant opposition internally, from rival Timurid princes, and externally from the Uzbeks to the north as well as the and

Turkoman in the west. Following his execution in 1469 at the hands of

Shah Rukh’s great-grandson Yadgar-Muhammad, the Timurid realm permanently fragmented.3

The dissolute Yadgar-Muhammad was killed within a year of Abu Sa’id’s death by an upstart prince named Sultan Husayn Bayqara – a descendant of Temür’s eldest son

Umar Shaykh – who took control of Herat immediately following Abu Sa’id’s death and asserted independence from the remainder of the Timurid realm. Following Abu Sa’id’s death, the eastern part of the empire was ruled by three of his sons – Sultan-Ahmad

Mirza, Sultan-Mahmud Mirza, and Umar-Shaykh Mirza – who waged war against one another for the duration of their lives. It was into this world that Babur was born in 1483.

In 1494, at the age of twelve, he assumed power in Ferghana following his father’s death.

However, the political landscape of Central Asia at this time was one of near constant infighting and factionalism among members of the ruling elite, making it very difficult for Babur to assert and maintain his position of leadership. Thus the environment in which Babur grew to adulthood was fraught with instability as he competed with rival factions to centralize power around himself. For both his survival and the realization of his imperial aspirations, Babur came to depend on various individuals for moral and material support, including various Timurid and Mongol relations as well as his religious advisors. As a result, Babur’s cultural heritage truly represented a conglomeration of

3 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 68-74.

95 Turco-Mongol, Persian, and Sunni Islamic traditions; and the expression of these various identities is exemplified in the drinking culture of Babur and his contemporaries, which built on trends that had evolved over the course of several centuries.4

The ability to analyze the alcohol culture of this period in terms of the interweaving of disparate cultural strands is possible due to the abundance of relevant information in the sources produced at the time. These include memoirs written by many of Babur’s associates, including his maternal cousin Mirza Muhammad Haidar’s Tarikh-i

Rashidi, his boon companion Shaikh Zain Khwafi’s Tabaqat-i Baburi, and his daughter

Gulbadan Begum’s Humayunnama. However, the most important work for understanding the cosmos of Babur is unquestionably his own memoir, the Baburnama, which provides invaluable and surprisingly candid insight into the emperor’s thoughts, motivations, and worldview.5 Additionally, earlier works such as Khwandamir’s chronicle the Habib as-Siyar and Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi’s Tadkhirat al-shu’ara provide insight into the life and times of the later Timurids and include many anecdotes and bits of information that shed light on various individuals’ drinking habits.

The generation of Timurids immediately preceding Babur featured some of the dynasty’s most resolute and prolific drinkers (though they would eventually be largely outshone by their successors), including the aforementioned Yadgar-Muhammad, Sultan

Husayn Bayqara, and Babur’s paternal uncles Sultan-Ahmad Mirza and Sultan-Mahmud

4 Ibid., 74-84. 5 I have personally compared all quotations taken directly from translated editions of the Baburnama to the Chaghatai and Persian texts published by Eiji Mano (Kyoto: Syokado, 1995) and (Camridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). For the sake of convenience, most citations of the work come from Wheeler Thackston’s Modern Library Classics edition and include the folio number. All the editions I consulted are included in the bibliography.

96 Mirza. By this point, kumiss had been relegated to the steppe nomads in the north and east, and in Timurid territories the consumption of alcohol had been stripped of its ceremonial and ritual roles. Instead of playing an integral part in political negotiations and in reaffirming the hierarchies of power, alcohol had come to be associated with drinking parties that represented the lavish and privileged court culture of the Timurids.

As in Temür’s time, extended drinking bouts often accompanied the observance of

Islamic ceremonies such as feasts and weddings, though the scale, duration, and frequency increased substantially. This is not to imply that the ruling elite felt compelled to associate their drinking with special occasions, as many appear to have needed no such excuse for imbibing. Additionally, the alcohol consumed at these ceremonies did not serve to legitimize the ceremony in any way, but instead represented an expression of culture devoid of religious or ritual significance. The rhetoric of prohibition on religious grounds promoted by Shah Rukh found no advocates among the later Timurids, whose culture was demonstrably not that of their predecessors.

Within the Timurid elite, Yadgar-Muhammad (1452-1470) is presented as the worst kind of debased and weak representative of a moribund lineage. Both Khwandamir and Samarqandi depict this prince, who was only eighteen at the time of his death, as a reckless drunkard who abandoned the needs of the state and sacrificed the security of his realm in order to spend his days and nights “intoxicated to numbness…either drunk or nursing a hangover.”6 He is described as the foil to his eventual vanquisher, Sultan

Husayn Bayqara, who, it should be noted, was the patron of Samarqandi and of

6 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 427.

97 Khwandamir’s grandfather, the historian Mir Khwand. However, neither of these historians lauds Husayn Bayqara as a bastion of temperance and upholder of Islamic values who quashed the immorality of Yadgar-Muhammad. Instead, Khwandamir emphasizes that the contrast is not between drinker and non-drinker, but between a man who can hold his alcohol and one who cannot. The corruptibility of Yadgar-Muhammad and his inability or unwillingness to abstain in response was thus at the heart of his downfall.

The admirable quality displayed by Husayn Bayqara was his ability to drink other men under the table “without the slightest modification showing in his words or behavior.”7 This point of praise represents an element of nomadic culture that persisted despite the countervailing forces of both sedentarization and Islamization. This is especially apparent in Khwandamir’s description of Husayn Bayqara’s meeting with the

Shibanid Uzbek leader Abu’l-Khayr Khan (r. 1438-1468). Seeking military assistance,

Husayn Bayqara traveled to the Qipchaq Steppe in 1467, and Abu’l Khayr Khan opened their meeting in the traditional steppe manner by circulating goblets filled with wine, mead, and of course, kumiss. Husayn Bayqara proved his mettle and earned the respect of Abu’l-Khayr Khan by drinking goblet after goblet without appearing intoxicated.8 As a result, Husayn Bayqara’s request for military assistance was granted. Though this is the only instance of his participation in the ritualized drinking of his ancestors, the idea that

Husayn Bayqara’s qualities as a leader were tied to his ability to hold his alcohol, in contrast to someone like Yagdar-Muhammad, is continually reinforced. Thus, even

7 Ibid., 420. 8 Ibid.

98 among the later Timurids there was continued emphasis on certain nomadic values. After easily seizing the drunken Yadgar-Muhammad, Husayn Bayqara, according to

Samarqandi, chastised him for bringing shame on the house of Timur through his immoderation and weak character, crimes for which he ordered the teenage prince’s immediate execution.9

While Husayn Bayqara is, for the most part, depicted as possessing a high tolerance for alcohol and lauded for having relative control over his drinking, the same cannot be said for many of his sons or for the military and civilian elites at his court, who

Babur insists were all “addicted to drink and lived with inordinate revelry and debauchery.”10 One of the youngest of Husayn Bayqara’s fourteen sons, Ibrahim-

Husayn, reportedly drank himself to death in 1505 while serving as governor of Balkh, predeceasing his father by just over a year.11 What is perhaps most telling about Babur’s account of his relatives in Herat is that he never uses religious grounds to criticize their drinking, though he does take a dim view of their use of gold and silver drinking vessels, which are expressly forbidden in the Prophetic hadith.12 The negative comments he does make about drinking pertain to the detrimental effect it has on people’s health or leadership, not on their status as pious Muslims. Of course, later in life Babur himself was guilty of intemperance, despite actively avoiding drinking until he was in his early twenties. As will be discussed later, it was in Herat, in the company of sons of Husayn

9 Mir Dawlatshah Samarqandi, Takhirat al-shu’ara, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 56-57 (folios 598-599). 10 Babur, The Baburnama, 202 (folio 170a). 11 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 447; Babur, The Baburnama, 199 (folio 167b). 12 Babur, The Baburnama, 224 (folio 186b); Sahih Muslim 24:5126, 5128.

99 Bayqara (specifically his joint successors, Muzaffar Mirza and Badi’uzzaman Mirza), that Babur first determined to “make the leap” and discover the joys of intoxication.13

Though Babur places responsibility for the decline of the Timurid court in Herat on a culture of excess, the model he witnessed while living among this branch of his family unquestionably shaped his own relationship with alcohol.14 Husayn Bayqara’s court and the cultural attitudes towards drinking that he and his family exemplified represent a continuation of and elaboration upon the tendencies of earlier Timurid rulers.

In a clear break from the nomadic heritage still embraced by the Jochids in the north, the now fully sedentarized Timurids did not regard alcohol or drinking as having clearly defined ritual or ceremonial significance. At the same time, Hanafi doctrine condoned the continuation of certain drinking practices that were by now completely divorced from the cultural meanings they once held as integral parts of political rituals and ceremonies.

The one exception to this abandonment of steppe protocol is the continued emphasis on the ability to drink without appearing drunk in order to earn or maintain the respect of others, which was a feature of steppe warrior culture. However, this also reflects an outward adherence to the Hanafi rulings allowing the consumption of alcohol in non- intoxicating quantities. Thus, displaying a high tolerance could allow a leader to prove his mettle in the traditional nomadic sense and simultaneously present himself as an upholder of Islamic values. However, for most of the later Timurids, questions regarding the religious acceptability of their drinking habits – in regard to the type of alcohol or the

13 Babur, The Baburnama, 228 (folio 189b). 14 Ibid., 202 (folio 170a).

100 quantity consumed – do not appear to have troubled, hindered, or concerned them in any significant way.

These attitudes were also reflected in the works of religious scholars active in

Herat at this time, such as the Sufi leader Husayn al-Waiz al-Kashifi (d.

1504-5), who was held in such high esteem at the Herati court that he was appointed preacher at the city’s main Friday .15 In his work on morality, Akhlak-i Muhsini

(The Morals of the Beneficent), the only reference to alcohol appears in the section on the merits of labor and perseverance; alcohol is conspicuously absent from specific discussions concerning decorum and self-restraint. Al-Kashifi’s treatment of alcohol echoes the sentiments discussed earlier:

That person destroys the foundations of his own fortune Who drinks wine in the evening, and goes to sleep in the morning.16

In this poem and the accompanying discussion, al-Kashifi remains neutral regarding wine as a substance and the consumption of alcohol in a general sense, neither condemning nor condoning it. Instead, he indicates that overindulgence can lead to or reflect the abandonment of one’s moral obligations and therefore impede the ability to manage affairs successfully. By discussing drinking in this way he reinforces the cultural views expressed in the chronicles and memoirs written at this time, but does so in a religious and moral context.

15 rd Jürgen Paul, "ʿAli b. Ḥusayn al-Waʿiẓ al-Kashifi," , 3 ed. 16 Husain Vaiz Kashifi, Akhlak-i Muhsini or the Morals of the Beneficent, trans. H.G. Keene (Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1850), 38.

101 In addition to the willingness of some religious elites to legitimize – or at least avoid condemning – drinking in theological terms, one of the major reasons for the decreasing willingness of leaders to at least pay lip service to any kind of prohibitive measures, such as those undertaken by Shah Rukh and Ulugh Beg, may also have been the lack of any need for the later Timurids to legitimize their right to rule on religious grounds. They were not defending themselves against non-Muslim threats, nor were they actively seeking to expand the empire – they were too busy protecting their frontier borders and fighting among themselves. The Timurid line was now several generations removed from the empire’s founder, and its hereditary legitimacy had already been established. The princes had no real need to cater to the desires of more conservative members of the in order to bolster their claims. Thus, while Shah

Rukh made a public display of having his son’s and grandson’s massive wine stores poured into the streets, the later Timurids were unapologetic about their frequent states of intoxication.17 Rather than keeping their drinking private and thus outside the established jurisdiction of religious officials, the later Timurids treated drinking as a regular and confirmed part of court life, as is reflected in the chronicles and memoirs produced during this period. The attitude of absolute irreverence toward religious judgments against drinking or intoxication is perfectly conveyed in a couplet composed by Ahmed

Hajji Beg, a high-ranking amir and poet who enjoyed the patronage of Husayn Bayqara in Herat:

17 Khwandamir, Habibu-s-Siyar, 360.

102 I’m drunk, muhtasib. Leave me alone today. Chastise me on a day you find me sober.18

Given the culture described at the court of Husayn Bayqara, the muhtasib in question likely had a long wait ahead of him.19

It is important to note that among the later Timurids, the attitudes towards alcohol consumption displayed in Herat represented the rule, not the exception. Based on the description provided by Babur, the court at Samarqand was no more temperate than

Husayn Bayqara’s; the ruler, Babur’s uncle Sultan-Ahmad, was an avid and regular imbiber. What is especially telling is the specific way Babur chooses to frame his uncle’s character: “He was a man of orthodox Hanafi belief. He never missed the five daily prayers. Even when he was drinking he did not skip his prayers.”20 If read with the assumption that drinking is unequivocally prohibited by Islam, these statements appear both perplexing and slightly humorous. Didn’t Babur understand the contradictory nature of these statements? Was this his attempt at a backhanded compliment? Or did he genuinely admire his uncle’s astuteness in observing prayers so much that he was willing to completely overlook the inherent impiety of drinking?

These questions all seem perfectly valid when modern-day assumptions regarding alcohol and Islam are imposed on Babur’s text. However, when taking into account the larger historical contexts that shaped Babur’s worldview and interrogating the specific phrasing he uses, it becomes obvious that for Babur these statements were not contradictory at all. First and foremost, Babur specifically identifies Sultan-Ahmad as a

18 Babur, Baburnama, Part 1, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 41 (folio 22a). 19 A muhtasib was a religious official who oversaw the public and enforced public morals. 20 Babur, Baburnama, Part 1, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 36 (folio 18b).

103 follower of the Hanafi rite. As discussed in Chapter 1, Hanafi jurists took a more liberal stance on the question of alcohol than followers of the other three Sunni legal schools.

By emphasizing moderation rather than promoting wholesale prohibition, Hanafism facilitated the continued prevalence of alcohol in Central Asian society. Thus, Sultan-

Ahmad was well within his rights as a follower of Hanafism to imbibe in moderation, i.e., not to the point of intoxication. Therefore, the fact that he was a Hanafi Muslim and the fact that he drank did not represent an inherent contradiction.

As for the comment that he did not abandon21 or miss his prayers when he was drinking, the subtle implications are much more complicated and dependent on context than they might appear to be at first glance. First, Babur does not state that Sultan-

Ahmad performed prayers while drunk (mast). Instead, an accurate translation of the original Chaghatai text is, “He also did not abandon his prayer during his wine times.”22

It can be inferred that “wine times” (shirb mahallarida) refers generally to the times when he was drinking, but Babur does not imply that he was drunk, just drinking. This distinction is important in order to understand Babur’s meaning and the compliment he is attempting to give his uncle. One of the Qur’anic references to alcohol, found in Sura 4, warns true believers not to come to prayer when they are intoxicated (sukara), but to wait until they can comprehend the meaning of the prayers they are saying.23 Therefore, arguably, even if Sultan-Ahmad was drinking, Babur’s assertion that he did not miss his prayers implies that he was not visibly intoxicated and therefore not acting outside the

21 Chaghatai text: tark bolmas edi. As noted above, Thackston translates this simply as “skip.” 22 Translated from the Chaghatai text in Babur, Babur-Nama (Vaqayi‘): Critical Edition Based on Four Chaghatay Texts, ed. Eiji Mano (Kyoto: Nakanishi Printing, 1995), 27 (folio 18b). 23 Qur’an 4:43.

104 Hanafi interpretation of acceptable pious behavior. At the same time, by being able to drink and still perform his prayers, Sultan-Ahmad displayed the admirable quality already discussed of being able to hold his alcohol without it interfering in his affairs.

In addition to possessing the capacity to drink without becoming too drunk to perform his prayers, Sultan-Ahmad, according to Babur, could forgo alcohol for extended periods in the same way that he could binge for extended periods. He could therefore not be accused of uncontrolled immoderation or addiction: “Once he started drinking he drank continually for twenty or thirty days, but when he stopped he did not drink again for another twenty or thirty days. Once he sat down in an assembly he could sit all night and through the next day. He was a good drinker.”24 Immediately before making these statements, Babur praises his uncle’s skills as an archer and his modesty, both qualities that were valued in steppe society and continued to be used as standard criteria for accomplished and admirable individuals. The description of Sultan-Ahmad’s command over alcohol should not, therefore, necessarily be taken as an attempt at an accurate or truthful depiction of his habits, but as a formulaic invocation of societal conventions that

Babur and his contemporaries would have immediately recognized as rhetorical devices. As a result, the actual extent of his drinking can only be guessed at, though it is clear that Sultan-Ahmad drank alcohol and neither he nor his nephew appears to have viewed this as at odds with his religious beliefs. On the contrary, Babur maintains that during the two decades that Sultan-Ahmad held power, Samarqand was

24 Babur, Baburnama, Part One, 37 (folio 19a). Khwandamir provides a near-identical (though slightly abridged) description of Sultan-Ahmad’s character. The accounts are so similar that I believe Babur’s memoir was Khwandamir’s source for this information, and therefore Khwandamir’s account will not be analyzed separately.

105 peaceful and prosperous, and that “affairs were conducted…with justice and in accordance with religious law.”25

When discussing the drinking habits of his father, Umar-Shaykh Mirza, Babur clearly relies on his personal experience and memory, leading to a more familiar portrait than the complimentary stock image painted of Sultan-Ahmad. However, Babur penned his memoirs as an adult whereas Umar-Shaykh died when his son was ten years old, and

Babur’s reminiscences betray the child’s eyes through which he viewed his father. In addition to the conventional statements identifying Umar-Shaykh as an orthodox Hanafi who never neglected his prayers and often recited the Qur’an, Babur recalls that he drank a lot, held drinking parties at least once or twice a week, had an affinity for the intoxicating confection ma’jun,26 and was an avid gambler.27 Though neither primary nor secondary sources make any connection between his fondness for intoxicants and his premature death at thirty-nine after falling from his dovecote at Akhsi fortress into a ravine, it may well have been a contributing factor. When recounting his own history with alcohol, Babur states that as a child he had no desire to drink and made excuses when his father offered him drinks.28 Considering that Babur was only ten when his father died, this particular recollection offers an interesting glimpse into life at the court of Umar-Shaykh and into Babur’s early life. Not only does this comment suggest an intimacy between the young prince and his father; it also shows that Babur was raised in

25 Babur, The Baburnama, 28 (folio 24a). 26 Ma’jun generally refers to a confection containing either hashish or . In his memoir, Babur makes over thirty references to ma’jun but never specifies the type of intoxicant it contained. Based on his descriptions of the drug’s effects and his discussion of the dangers associated with mixing alcohol and ma’jun, I believe that the confection to which Babur refers contained opium rather than hashish. 27 Ibid., 10 (folio 7b). 28 Ibid., 227 (folio 189a).

106 an environment where alcohol was never off-limits or designated as a into adulthood. On the contrary, it was ever present and ever available.

Of Umar-Shaykh’s three sons, Babur appears to be the only one whose health was not adversely affected by chronic alcohol abuse. Jahangir Mirza is listed by Babur as a regular and enthusiastic participant at drinking parties, and, according to Babur’s cousin,

Mirza Haidar Dughlat, he fell ill as a result of overindulgence in wine around 1506 – though he also states that it was commonly believed that his wine had been poisoned.

Babur and his brother initially attempted to join forces against their common enemy,

Muhammad Shaybani Khan, but as rival claimants for power they had a falling out and

Jahangir died from his illness in Kabul shortly thereafter.29 Their feud must have been fairly significant as Jahangir disappears almost entirely from Babur’s account, and his death goes completely unmentioned. Babur’s other brother, Sultan Nasir Mirza, was put in charge of Kabul, where he died around 1515 as a result of overindulgence in wine.

Unfortunately, Babur’s response to Sultan Nasir’s death is unknown, as it occurred during a period that is missing from surviving manuscripts of the Baburnama. However, the cause of death is recorded by Mirza Haidar, who includes the following verse to describe the young prince’s affliction:

Every time my heart is pained by a hangover, I quaff so much wine that my body ceases to exist.30

These lines are striking not only in conveying the cyclical nature of alcohol addiction, but also for their sympathetic, albeit slightly admonitory, tone. Mirza Haidar does not

29 Mirza Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i Rashidi, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, 135. 30 Ibid., 223.

107 condemn the prince’s overindulgence or present it as indicative of a weakness of character, but rather uses the simple verse to preserve a sense of Sultan Nasir’s very struggle.

Babur’s Early Life: Youthful Temperance and Intemperance

Babur’s personal relationship with alcohol was very complex and changed significantly over the course of his life. His attitude towards drinking reflected the convergence of various cultural threads over the preceding centuries and the influence of his immediate surroundings, family, and upbringing. In many ways, it also mirrored his personal evolution from Timurid prince to South Asian empire builder. Babur’s memoirs are often noted for their candid tone, which is especially apparent in his stories about alcohol, wherein he comes across as not only incredibly human but also incredibly vulnerable. Drinking was clearly often on Babur’s mind, and he discusses it throughout the story of his life: from his decision to start drinking to nights filled with drunken carousing on campaigns, and finally the public vow of temperance he invoked as a rallying cry to his weary troops when they first faced non-Muslim foes. Having discussed both the long-term and immediate cultural contexts that created Babur’s world and shaped his worldview, we can now explore his story, beginning with the decision to depart sobriety and experience the pleasures of drunkenness.

When and under what circumstances Babur first tasted alcohol is unclear, though his memoirs do record the thought process leading to his decision to first experience intoxication. Once again, the distinction between drinking and drunkenness is important,

108 though the cultural understandings of this distinction appear to have changed enough that the differentiation failed to make its way into the surviving Persian translations of the

Baburnama produced at the Mughal court in the late sixteenth century. In the original

Chaghatai, Babur specifically indicates that up to this point (1506) he had never committed the act of becoming intoxicated (nasha) from wine (chaghïr), and therefore did not know the pleasures of drunkenness and intoxication (mastliq va sarxoshluq kayfiyyati).31 However, in the Persian translation the words referencing drunkenness and intoxication were excised from this particular sentence, leaving the false impression that

Babur said he had not engaged in drinking wine (sharab nekarde) and therefore did not know the state that resulted from its intake.32 This interpretation is clearly inaccurate, or at least lacking in nuance, as at an earlier point in his memoir Babur compliments

Bukharan wines and states that the first wine he drank in Samarqand was from Bukhara.33

Considering that Babur’s stays in Samarqand34 preceded his time in Herat by several years, it is clear that he was not trying alcohol for the first time, but rather had elected to fully engage with the culture of drinking and intoxication from which he had previously distanced himself.

31 Babur, Babur-Nama, ed. Mano, 296 (folio 189a). 32 Though later stories of Babur’s drunken adventures did not undergo the same subtle revisions, the discrepancy is significant since it may point up changing cultural attitudes regarding religious interpretation following the Mughals’ relocation to the . The attitude imparted by the translator was not, however, reflective of a trend away from drinking in the later sixteenth century, as it continued to be a sport at which the Mughals excelled. However, the emphasis on Islam as a differentiating and legitimizing factor likely contributed to more restrictive and clear-cut interpretations than those espoused in Central Asia, evidenced by the gradual relegation of alcohol to the private sphere by the seventeenth century. 33 Babur, The Baburnama, 100 (folio 49a). 34 Babur won and lost control of Samarqand twice, first in 1498 and again in 1500.

109 Though the decision not to drink appears to have been regarded as a matter of individual choice that was respected by others, it still would have separated Babur from his companions and followers. As Babur struggled to assert his right to rule, any such divisive element had the potential to undermine camaraderie and the loyalty of those on whose support his survival depended. By continuing to forgo the opportunity to bond over alcohol, he risked creating a distance between himself and them that could be misinterpreted as hubris or arrogance. At the same time, it left him unable to illustrate his fortitude along traditionally recognized lines. While it was undoubtedly better to not drink than to be a drunkard, his ability to hold his alcohol remained unproven.

Making the decision to start drinking proved easier for Babur than acting on it.

To begin with, Babur did not feel comfortable asking for a drink, both due to his social status and the fact that he had rejected alcohol on many previous occasions. In addition, his reputation as a non-drinker meant that he was either not offered alcohol at social gatherings or not invited to drinking parties as a sign of respect. Thus, though he “had an inclination for wine, nobody offered.”35 Observing the atmosphere of pleasure and revelry at Herat in 1506, Babur determined that it would be the best place to make known his intentions and to start drinking. However, he found himself faced with a dilemma given that he was about to “make the leap” in the house of Muzaffar Mirza after previously rejecting wine offered by his host’s elder brother, Badi’uzzaman Mirza. If word got back to Badi’uzzaman that Babur had accepted wine from his younger brother, it could be viewed as a personal affront. This was clearly not just about getting drunk,

35 Babur, The Baburnama, 228 (folio 189b).

110 but about negotiating the etiquette that governed society. Babur was not tasting wine for the first time, nor was he significantly altering his relationship with Islam – he was entering a new social arena while simultaneously attempting to assert his place at the head of it. In order to avoid offending either of his Herati relations, he proposed that the brothers throw a joint party so that Babur could then drink at their mutual behest. It is unknown whether or not this event ever occurred, as Babur makes no further mention of it before the abrupt gap in his memoir beginning two years later, in 1508. When the work picks back up in 1519, after over a decade of silence, Babur casually mentions throwing wine parties and engaging in regular drinking bouts. Therefore, though the Baburnama provides many insights into Babur’s relationship with alcohol, unfortunately there are no surviving accounts of his first intoxication. Given Babur’s candid discussion of all things alcoholic in the rest of the memoir, it seems likely that Babur’s musings on the event were featured in the missing sections of the manuscript.

From 1519 until his vow of temperance in 1528, Babur was a prolific drinker. It would be both tedious and redundant to discuss in detail every instance of alcohol consumption preserved in the sources. While a few memorable stories will be recounted here for analysis, the drinking period of Babur’s life can be summarized fairly succinctly through the identification of key defining features and recurrent themes. During this period, Babur’s life was consumed by near-constant military campaigning, and his drinking patterns and those of his men reflect a reaction to this harsh and peripatetic lifestyle. However, the contexts of alcohol consumption still followed strict protocols

111 determined by existing cultural mores, invoked in ways that specifically reflected Babur’s personal experience, opinions, and philosophical outlook.

As during Temür’s conquests a century earlier, Babur and his men engaged in drinking as a way of bonding with one another, occupying themselves between battles, and coping with the physical and psychological challenges of military life. In this environment, questions regarding the religious morality of intoxication were superseded by the importance of alcohol as a social lubricant and tool for psychological escapism.

At the same time, Babur took care to remain respectful of those who chose not to drink and restricted the occasions of alcohol consumption in an attempt to maintain the mental discipline and physical integrity of his troops.36 The theoretical relegation of drinking to designated days or locations was one way Babur attempted to limit the negative consequences of chronic inebriation, both for individuals and on the battlefield. In this effort, three days a week – Monday, Thursday, and Friday – were officially designated

“non-drinking days.”37 However, Babur notes that on these days he regularly consumed ma’jun as an alternative and also mentions breaking this rule for various reasons, including treating and awaiting or celebrating the arrival of honored guests.38

Thus, while there was a disparity between rhetoric and practice, the need for some mechanisms to keep alcohol consumption in check was clearly recognized and intermittently adhered to.

36 Ibid., 294 (folio. 243a), passim. 37 Ibid., 310 (folio 252a). 38 Shaykh Zain Khwafi, Tabaqat-i Baburi, trans. Syed (Delhi: Idarah-i Abadiyat-i Delli, 1982), 7-13.

112 Babur’s account of the events of 1519-1520 reads like an endless stream of wine and ma’jun parties with occasional breaks for campaigning in the regions surrounding his base in Kabul, as well as a first incursion into Hindustan. While Babur provides no information about most of the parties other than the date and occasionally the location, there were a few drunken episodes he deems worthy of recording in detail for posterity.

The first of these stories, in which Babur blacks out and drunkenly rides his horse through camp – remembering nothing the following morning except that he vomited a lot

– and the subsequent painting commissioned by his grandson Akbar have already been discussed.39 Drunken horseback riding, especially while carrying a lit torch, poses some obvious risks; however, these pale in comparison to the danger one of Babur’s companions faced during another drunken escapade. In this instance, Babur had just returned to Kabul and decided to hold a drinking party on the outskirts of the city. He and his companions drank so much that some of them had difficulty mounting their horses at the end of the evening, even with the assistance of their servants. One man in particular, Dost-Muhammad Baqir, was so drunk that his servants could not lift him on to his horse; attempts to rouse him from this state, such as splashing water on his head, proved ineffective. The lighthearted situation (at least for the drunkards, not for the servants) quickly escalated when the group was set upon by a band of Afghans. Still unable to get Dost-Muhammad on his horse, another of the men, the equally intoxicated

Amin-Muhammad , jokingly proposed chopping off Dost-Muhammad’s head, which they could then carry away, protecting him from the Afghans. Luckily, the

39 Babur, The Baburnama, 276-77 (folio 228b).

113 servants intervened and put Dost-Muhammad on his horse, and the whole party returned safely to Kabul.40 At this point, perhaps due to the environment of the military camp,

Babur seems completely unconcerned with fostering an image of sobriety or proving that he could hold his drink. Instead, he appears to revel in the extremity of his own and others’ intoxication.

The equanimity with which Babur regarded his own drunkenness is explained slightly later when he reveals that he had sworn to renounce drinking when he turned forty the following year.41 As a result, Babur admits, he spent the interim “drinking to excess out of anxiety.”42 Apparently either this anxiety or social considerations outweighed his compulsion to follow through with his vow, as he did not actually renounce drinking until several years later – when it was, admittedly, much more politically expedient to do so. In many ways, quitting drinking at this point in his career would not have been feasible without significantly altering his social interactions and relationship with his men.

The feeling of camaraderie between Babur and his men was reinforced through their regular participation in drinking parties, which not only served as their primary social events but “also functioned as a kind of parliament, where important political questions were discussed and decisions taken.”43 In this environment, intoxication was not a solitary pursuit but a shared experience intended to bolster social cohesion. It was

40 Ibid., 297-98 (folios 245b-246a). 41 According to the lunar calendar, Babur’s fortieth birthday fell in 1521. Forty is significant because it was Muhammad’s age when he received his first revelation. As a result, reaching this is often marked (by male Muslims) by the outward adoption of a more pious lifestyle. For a discussion of this tradition in Central Asia, see Adeeb Khalid, Islam after Communism, 103-4. 42 Babur, The Baburnama, 303 (folio 249b). 43 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 182.

114 therefore incredibly difficult for an individual to extricate himself without threatening the balance of the group or, at the very least, his own place in it. As Stephen Dale points out, the abundance of drinking parties could also be viewed as a response to the feelings of alienation that accompanied Babur’s move into India and “the powerful nostalgia he felt for his social life in Kabul.”44 However, it is important to stress the elements of continuity as well as adaptation – these drinking parties were not merely a coping mechanism established by Babur and his men; they served the same purposes and were undertaken in the same ways they had been under Babur’s Timurid and Mongol ancestors. The importance of participation may have been magnified in Babur’s time, when “even kinship bonds were notoriously fragile and unreliable,” but in the other particulars Babur’s gatherings were nearly identical in structure, organization, and purpose to those held by Ögedei, Möngke, and, of course, Temür.45 Even though sedentarization changed the type of alcohol consumed and established a separate courtly drinking culture, the return to a peripatetic lifestyle focused on conquest led to a revival of Turco-Mongol drinking practices. This was especially important in ensuring that intoxication did not result in chaos, as it did for Timurid princes who attempted to retain courtly drinking habits that were wholly unsuited for military campaigning.46

One aspect of Mongol imperial drinking culture that was almost completely eradicated by Babur’s time was the open participation of women at these gatherings. As

44 Ibid., 311. 45 Ibid., 182. 46 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, passim; Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 78-81; Balabanlilar, Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire, 89-94.

115 discussed in the previous chapter, during Temür’s reign, Clavijo witnessed high-ranking women regularly enjoying wine alongside their male counterparts, indicating that this aspect of Central Asian culture had persisted regardless of Islamization. In the intervening century, the adoption of increasingly sedentary lifestyles effected significant and permanent changes regarding the cultural acceptability of women’s participation in such public revelry.47 By Babur’s time, drinking was already established as a culturally homosocial activity. Upon hearing that a woman, Huhlul Anikä, wanted to join his wine parties, Babur was not opposed to the idea; on the contrary, claiming never to have seen a woman drink before, he excitedly invited her to come. Unfortunately, Babur’s experience did not make him want to revive this aspect of nomadic culture. While everything started off well, Babur found it impossible to relax because Huhlul Anikä would not stop talking and making “offensive requests.”48 He finally escaped her by pretending to be drunk and, needless to say, does not record any further attempts to include women in his drinking parties.49

A second gap in Babur’s memoir, spanning 1520 to 1526, severely limits the information available for this period of Babur’s life; however, when the work picks up

47 It is important to note that the increasing relegation of women to the private sphere was not accompanied by a changing attitude regarding the intellectual capacity of women. Royal women continued to exert considerable influence as political advisors and participants in literary and economic life throughout the Mughal period. Babur’s mother and grandmother served as two of his early political advisors; in the later empire, , , , Jahanara, and Zebunnisa are the most prominent of many examples of highly influential royal women. See Lal, Domesticity and Power; Rumer Godden, Gulbadan: Portrait of a Rose Princess at the Mughal Court (London: Macmillan, 1980); Ellison Banks Findley, Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Razia Sultanova, From to : Women, Islam, and Culture in Central Asia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011). 48 Babur, Baburnama, quoted in Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 312. 49 Babur, The Baburnama, 300 (folio 247b); Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 311-12; Lal, Domesticity and Power, 80-81.

116 again, Babur’s drinking habits appear largely unchanged. Whether or not he dabbled in periodic temperance in the interim will never be known, but the material point is that he was still drinking heavily following his removal to India and the resumption of the memoir. The seminal victory of Babur’s career, the Battle of , in which he defeated Ibrahim Lodi of the in 1526, was followed with a raucous drinking party. Considering much of the later history of the Mughal , it is only fitting that the empire’s birth was celebrated in such a way. Though Babur makes only a passing reference to the party – stating that he returned to camp and drank spirits (‘araq) on a boat50 – his boon companion Shaykh Zain Khwafi recorded the celebration with a bit more characteristic flair, recounting how “the billowing waves of the sea inclined [Babur] by the dashing of its waves towards wine-bibbing and that world-taking king became a captive of the firy [sic] water.”51 Perhaps not finding this description quite poetic enough for his taste, Shaikh Zain follows it with a verse:

The diver of his heart in the waves of the sea of wine Plunged and drew out the measuring rope from the froth of reason; The king who had subdued the whole world Was himself vanquished in a moment by the world of a drinking bout.

The verse gives the impression that the tone of the party was not so much joyful conviviality as total surrender to intoxication. At this moment, after over thirty years of wandering and fighting and at times losing everything, Babur finally had his empire. He was not marking this victory by simply drinking for pleasure; he exhibited a need for a

50 Babur, Baburnama, 573 (folio 268a). 51 Shaykh Zain Khwafi, Tabaqat-i Baburi, 92.

117 momentary escape into oblivion. After giving himself over entirely to drunkenness for this one night, Babur emerged the following day to start organizing affairs of state and administering his newfound empire.52

Babur’s Sobriety: Crafting a New Image for a New Empire

Up to this point in his career, Babur’s major enemies were fellow Muslims.

However, in defeating the Delhi Sultanate and establishing his domain in northern India,

Babur now ruled over a largely non-Muslim population and faced non-Muslim rivals – most notably under Sanga, the ruler of . At the same time, Babur faced growing disaffection among his troops, who despised the Indian climate and longed to return home. Though Babur shared his men’s sentiments, he recognized that his base of power was now in India, making a return even to Kabul incredibly risky. The openness with which his men expressed their dissatisfaction caught

Babur off guard as he had always considered their support unconditional and without question. Despite his attempts to revive his men’s enthusiasm, some, including his close friend and drinking companion Khwaja Kalan, found it impossible to hide their disdain for India and returned to Kabul with their leader’s grudgingly bestowed blessing.53

In order to maintain his empire and the support of his troops, Babur needed to redefine his legitimacy and refocus his cause’s raison d’être. While the goal of accumulating the wealth and material to retake Central Asia was not forgotten, Babur decided to expend his energy securing and expanding the empire he had, rather than

52 Ibid., 92-93. 53 Babur, The Baburnama, 357-58 (folios 294b-296a).

118 chasing after the empire he wanted. This realization was no doubt exacerbated by the fall of Balkh to the Uzbeks, making a return to Central Asia even more untenable. Taking the religious landscape of India into account, he decided to adopt the identity of a

(warrior for the faith)54 and increasingly assert legitimacy on religious grounds in order to lend greater purpose to his cause and rally the support of his disaffected and homesick troops. In addition, as ruler of a vast empire, he realized that asserting the primacy of his position now superseded the need to foster social bonds with his men, which had served him well in the past but now backfired in the form of open defiance and insurrection. As direct confrontation with the Rajputs loomed ever nearer, Babur needed an immediate course of action to drum up the support of his disheartened troops and reaffirm his place at the top of the social hierarchy by removing himself from the casual social culture of his companions. Proving himself an expert politician and military commander, Babur achieved both of these goals simultaneously with the single action of invoking a very public vow of temperance.55

An understanding of the flexibility of Islam and the ability to adapt religious interpretation situationally is necessary in order to make sense of Babur’s changing relationship with alcohol over the course of his life. Embracing this flexibility was by no means unique to Babur as it represented a widespread cultural phenomenon shaped over time by the ongoing interaction between Maturidi Hanafi doctrine and traditional Turco-

Mongol culture. In this context, it was equally acceptable to expand religious

54 Though he invokes the image of a ghazi warrior, he does not formally adopt the title until after his victory over the Rajputs at the Battle of Khanua. See Babur, The Baburnama, 394 (folios 324b-325a). 55Ibid., 380-83 (folios 311a-314a).

119 interpretation to legitimize drinking and to venture in the opposite direction by pledging temperance. This is exemplified in the story of Babur’s maternal cousin, the Chaghataid

Sultan-Sa‘id Khan of Moghulistan. In 1513, having recently renounced intoxicating beverages, Sa‘id Khan was presented with a dilemma while visiting the camp of the

Jochid Kazakh leader Qasim Khan, who offered him kumiss as a sign of hospitality and respect. Though both leaders were Muslim, they derived legitimacy through direct descent from Chingiz Khan and the formalities observed during their meeting were those of the steppe. In accordance with his vow, Sa‘id declined the offer, stating, “I have forsworn such things as this; how can I break my vow?” Qasim hung his head in shame, not knowing how else to honor his guest. As previously discussed, the meeting of rulers had been accompanied by the consumption of kumiss for centuries and the symbolism of the drink could not be replicated or replaced; unfermented mare’s milk simply would not do. Faced with the choice of offending his host or breaking his vow, Sa‘id opted for the latter course and agreed to partake. However, this was not a temporary oath-breaking that would be followed by a requisite period of penitence. Instead, Sa‘id simply – yet self-consciously – “expanded his religion to allow drinking,” thus working within a pre- established framework to reconceptualize and redefine his personal religious principles in order to meet the demands of his situation.56 This reflects the same cultural understanding of alcohol displayed by his contemporaries, including Babur, who approached their religion with the assumption of flexibility and adaptation.

56 Mirza Haydar, Tarikh-i-Rashidi, 179.

120 Unfortunately for Sa‘id, his eight-day drinking bout with the Kazakh ruler was followed by a decade-long battle with alcohol addiction, beginning with lavish wine parties – which, in turn, negatively affected his abilities as a military commander – and culminating in the onset of and other severe physical manifestations of alcohol abuse. Mirza Haydar’s verse gives a clear indication of the Khan’s quality of life at this time:

Drunk at night, drunk at dawn, hung over all day: see how he spends his precious time.57

This couplet bears a striking resemblance to al-Kashifi’s cautionary remarks: the problem is not alcohol, or even drinking, but intemperance. Clearly, Sa‘id’s drinking had escalated beyond what was considered socially acceptable. Finally, in 1523, at the age of thirty-seven, Sa‘id embraced Sufism and renounced alcohol for good, seeking the guidance of a Sufi shaykh to support him during the arduous withdrawal process.58

Though he continued to suffer from long-term physiological effects of chronic alcohol abuse, such as shivering fits and partial paralysis, until his death from altitude sickness in

Tibet ten years later, Sa‘id’s assumption of sobriety marked a significant turning point in his life. While the correspondence between Sa‘id Khan and Babur has not survived, they appear to have exchanged letters fairly regularly, and it is possible that Babur’s own vow of temperance was partially influenced by the experience of his cousin.

Though the timing and circumstances of Babur’s vow betray underlying political motivations (that he himself acknowledges), he emphasizes the desire to lead a more

57 Ibid., 230. 58 Ibid., 229-230.

121 pious life as the primary guiding force for his decision. While the chosen moment of renunciation reflects larger social, political, and military considerations, it should not be assumed that the decision was therefore devoid of religious meaning for Babur. Even today in Central Asia, the burden of piety in action often falls on specific segments of society – namely women and the elderly.59 Babur acquits himself on these grounds, arguing that “in conformity with the customs of lords of high royal and military status, during the full bloom of youth some intemperances and a few indulgences were committed.”60 In many ways this mirrors the Western idiom that “boys will be boys” by condoning a certain degree of youthful indulgence and impropriety. Then, as a man ages, the assumption is that he will outgrow certain behaviors and at the same time may turn towards religion as he becomes increasingly aware of his own mortality. Babur’s aforementioned, though unrealized, vow to give up drinking at the age of forty embodies these very sentiments. His transition into a pious adult (and emperor) is thus articulated through the rhetoric of religious repentance, even though the context is specific to his imminent military confrontation with the Rajputs and the need to overcome disaffection among his troops. He makes it clear that forsaking alcohol had weighed on his mind for some time, and the official decree announcing his temperance was accompanied by much more public displays – including pouring out wine, turning wine into vinegar, and breaking the proscribed gold and silver drinking vessels that not only facilitated drinking but by nature symbolized improper indulgence.

59 Khalid, Islam after Communism, 103. 60 Babur, The Baburnama, 381 (folio 313a).

122 The official decree, written in Persian and preserved in the text of the Baburnama, makes much more use of religious rhetoric than Babur ever puts forth in the general text of the memoir. For example, the struggle to lead a pious life, exemplified here by temperance, is directly compared to holy war against the , and the shattered drinking vessels are likened to Hindu idols that will soon suffer a similar fate.61 While these statements are obviously incendiary – especially to a modern audience – the relegation of such arguments to official decrees indicates that they were intended to serve as self-legitimizing rallying cries rather than expressions of intolerance or religiously- inspired bigotry. The goal was to inspire fervor and enthusiasm within the controlled environment of military engagements, not unbridled violence stemming from fanaticism.

Since Babur was the Muslim ruler of a largely Hindu population, inspiring his Hindu subjects to military exploits would obviously have been hugely counterproductive. Babur claims that 300 of his followers were inspired enough by his example to take pledges as well – though considering that he commanded tens of thousands of men, this newfound trend towards temperance hardly represents a widespread phenomenon or cultural shift.

Babur therefore did not force sobriety on people – the attempt to do so would have undermined his authority – but he recognized the importance of cultivating his image in order to bolster his own claims of legitimacy and right to leadership. In addition to immediate displays of temperance, Babur’s daughter Gulbadan recounts in her own memoir that though her father had ordered the construction of a pool in and promised to fill it with wine when it was completed, “since he swore off wine before the

61 Ibid., 382 (folio 313b). For the full text of Babur’s decree, see Appendix C.

123 battle with the ruler, , he had it filled with sherbet.”62 Thus,

Babur continued to publicly assert his own sobriety even after his victory over the

Rajputs. As a young child at the time, Gulbadan was no doubt pleased by the alternative, as was her brother, , whose affinity for lemon sherbet rivaled his father’s love of wine.

Unlike many of his family members, Babur was apparently not physically addicted to alcohol, though he did struggle to overcome his psychological addiction to drinking. He maintains that he never broke his vow, despite occasionally finding himself overwhelmed by the desire to drink.63 Babur expresses this specifically two years after taking the oath, in a letter to Khwaja Kalan in Kabul in which he laments that without alcohol to drown his homesickness, he finds himself oddly affected at times and admits to weeping uncontrollably while eating a . He also includes a very straightforward and telling verse written during his first year of sobriety:

I am distraught to have given up wine. I do not know what to do, and I am perplexed. Everybody regrets drinking and then takes the oath. But I have taken the oath and now regret it.64

The emotional toll sobriety took on Babur was clearly significant and he confides that early on his cravings for a wine party were so great that he was often on the verge of tears. To what degree Babur actually conquered his cravings for wine parties is unclear as this is the final reference to alcohol before Babur’s memoir cuts off in mid-sentence

62 Gulbadan Begum, Humayunnama, in Three Memoirs of Homayun, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2009), 10 (folio 12a). 63 It should be noted that though Babur abstained from drinking, he did not abandon intoxicants entirely, and his ma’jun intake appears to have increased substantially after his renunciation of alcohol. 64 Babur, The Baburnama, 436 (folio 360b).

124 six months later, about a year and a half before his death, brought on by an unknown illness at the age of forty-seven.65

Conclusion

Babur’s personal relationship with alcohol changed dramatically over the course of his life, but always in ways that reflected the pre-existing cultural constructs and assumptions of his time. These constructs were shaped over the course of several centuries as a result of the ongoing processes of both Islamization and sedentarization, which interacted with Persian and Turco-Mongol culture to create the unique worldview exhibited by Babur and his contemporaries. While adherence to the Hanafi rite allowed alcohol to retain a legitimate place in Islamic Central Asian society, the continual shift away from nomadism fundamentally altered the practice of drinking, stripping it of its ritual significance, altering the type of alcohol consumed, and limiting the participation of women. Babur’s story reflects the convergence of these larger historical trends, which fostered the coexistence of multiple identities in a single person – Babur was a Timurid, a

Chaghataid, a Muslim, and, at times, a drunkard. To assume that the last two personas were mutually exclusive or inherently contradictory is to ignore how Babur and his contemporaries conceptualized their religion; for them Islam was flexible, adaptable, and deeply personal. The recognition and appreciation of this complexity are possible only if monolithic assumptions about Islam, Muslims, and alcohol are put aside. After all, as

65 The only firsthand account of Babur’s death comes from Gulbadan, who was only ten years old at the time. While she provides many details regarding the last months of Babur’s life, the only symptom she identifies is severe abdominal pain, making an exact diagnosis of his illness impossible. See Gulbadan, Humayunnama, 13-16 (folios 17b-20a).

125 Babur aptly observed, the sober can never understand the pleasure of wine: that privilege is reserved for the drinker.

126

CONCLUSION

A poet once said, “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. Richard Feynman1

In August 2013, officials in discovered a makeshift pipeline used to smuggle thousands of liters of moonshine across the border from neighboring

Kazakhstan. The illegal operation, involving two predominantly Muslim countries, had nothing to do with circumventing religious or sharia law. Instead, it reflected economic disparity and the desire to avoid high import tariffs.2

While the Soviet period wrought undeniable influence on Central Asian society and its drinking habits, the taste for alcohol among its Muslim population is nothing new.

Nor is its cultural acceptability. As Adeeb Khalid observes, the unabashed drinking habits in post- would be unthinkable in most parts of the Muslim world today, and the continued prevalence of alcohol “provides powerful insight into the place of Islam in Central Asian societies.”3 While Khalid’s analysis concerns the post-

1 Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume 1: Mainly Mechanics, Radiation, and Heat (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 3-10. 2 “Kyrgyz-Kazakh ‘Alcohol Smuggling Pipeline’ Discovered,” BBC News, August 16, 2013, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23723092 (accessed November 24, 2014). 3 Khalid, Islam after Communism, 1.

127 Soviet context, we have seen that alcohol has historically held a place in Islamic Central

Asian society that was both prominent and legitimate.

Islam is an unquestionably important aspect of Central Asian society, but it has never been the only or even dominant factor shaping its culture. Additionally, Islamic influences shaped Central Asian societies in ways that were quite different from other parts of the Islamic world. This study has endeavored to demonstrate that, even when rulers such as Shah Rukh made deliberate turns towards religious orthodoxy, they did so within a very specific Central Asian context. Sunni orthodoxy meant something different for Transoxanian Hanafis than it did for Persian Shafi‘is, Berber Malikis, Arab , or even non-Maturidi Hanafis. It is impossible to understand the role of religion in shaping Timurid cultural practice without appreciating this difference.

While the initial adoption of Islam in sedentary Central Asia stripped alcohol of its ritual significance by delegitimizing pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religious ceremonies, it did not curb non-religious traditional drinking practices. For Turkic populations in the steppe, rituals involving alcohol tended to be less tied to a particular religious confession and more reflective of nomadic culture in general. Thus, Islam delegitimized neither established rituals nor alcohol’s place in them. As demonstrated in chapter 1, within the

Hanafi tradition, the adoption of Islam did not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional cultural elements, even those seemingly at odds with Islamic doctrine. Where alcohol was concerned, Hanafi scholars took a variety of stances, the most lax of which permitted the unrestricted consumption of all alcoholic beverages other than grape wine or, alternatively, allowed the consumption of any kind of alcohol so long as the imbiber

128 did not become intoxicated. Additionally, Maturidi theology argued that one’s status as a

Muslim was not dependent on works or orthopraxy. Throughout the region, rather than supporting prohibition, the dual influence of the Hanafi legal rite and Maturidi theology thus facilitated and legitimized the continuation of drinking practices. Thus Central Asian

Muslims were able to work within their religious framework to legitimate their drinking theologically or, alternatively, to absolve themselves after the fact.

In the longterm, the Timurids implemented a political culture that supported the continuation of a vibrant drinking culture in Central Asia. Contrary to the image of religious conservatism and prohibition associated with Shah Rukh, Hanafi attitudes towards alcohol did not change during this period. When viewed through the lens of alcohol, it becomes clear that Shah Rukh’s reign exemplified continued negotiation and accommodation among adherents of the different Sunni legal rites. In his politically motivated elevation of an elite Perso-, Shah Rukh eschewed Turco-

Mongol practices, but in no way did his strategies seek to undermine Transoxanian

Maturidi Hanafi doctrine. During the course of the fifteenth century, the nomadic drinking rituals assiduously observed by Temür disappeared from Timurid courts.

Kumiss was relegated to the steppe, strict protocols were no longer invoked to reinforce rank, and women ceased to participate in drinking alongside men. But these changes in drinking culture resulted from the Timurids’ increasingly sedentary lifestyle, not from the adoption of orthodox Islamic attitudes.

By the early sixteenth century some Central Asian Shafi‘is had loosened their prohibitive stance on drinking, likely as a result of the intellectual interactions between

129 scholars of these two rites during the Timurid Renaissance, encouraged by Shah Rukh himself.4 When the Shafi‘i jurist Fadlullah ibn Ruzbihan Isfahani summarized previous

Hanafi and Shafi‘i rulings on alcohol for the Shibanid ruler ‘Ubaydullah Khan (r. 1534-

1539), he reiterated Hanafi leniency and Shafi‘i prohibition.5 However, in his section on

Shafi‘i law, he recognizes and condones differing interpretations on this matter, stating that “all intoxicating drinks are khamr, unless a person regards them as lawful.”6

Additionally, in his 1509 history, Mihman nama-i Bukhara, Ibn Ruzbihan Isfahani included a section arguing that kumiss consumption was lawful as, according to the hadith traced to ‘Umar, milk was not one of the five substances from which khamr was produced.7 This stance conflicts with mainstream Shafi‘i thought and, we argue, represents an accommodation that arose from a specifically Timurid Central Asian context.

The evolution of alcohol culture from the collapse of Timurid rule in Central Asia to the present day falls outside the parameters of this study. However, the legacy of the

Timurids persisted long after Babur departed for Kabul. The restoration of Chingizid rule under the Shibanid Uzbeks (1500-1599 C.E.) and their successors, the Toqay-Timurids

(1599-1747/85 C.E.), in southern Central Asia reintroduced many aspects of nomadic drinking culture that had disappeared under the Timurids. As discussed in chapters 3 and

4, cultural sedentarization precipitated the removal of kumiss from court ceremony, and the beverage remained prevalent only among nomadic populations. Husayn Bayqara

4 Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan al-Isfahani, The Suluk u’l-Muluk, 379-83; Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan Khunji, Mehmannameh Bukhara (Tehran: Scientific and Cultural Publishers, 2005), 174-79. 5 Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan al-Isfahani, The Suluk u’l-Muluk, 379-83. 6 Ibid., 381. 7 Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan Khunji, Mehmannameh Bukhara, 174-79.

130 therefore encountered kumiss in his meeting with the Uzbek leader Abu’l Khayr Khan.

While among his nomadic Chaghataid relations, Babur similarly observed a ceremony that included the sprinkling of kumiss on -tail standards. And, as discussed in the previous chapter, when Said Khan of the Yarkand Khanate met with the Kazakhs in

1513, he was pressured to break his vow of abstinence in order to participate in the ritual consumption of kumiss.8

When the Uzbeks took control of Transoxania, they brought kumiss with them, and the beverage continued to hold ritual significance at least through the , when

Balkh-based historian Mahmud ibn Amir discussed the intricate protocols that accompanied its consumption at the Toqay-Timurid court.9 While these rituals continued to reinforce court hierarchies as they had in steppe society for centuries, there were also subtle changes. For example, at the enthronement ceremony of ‘Abd Khan II (r.

1583-1598), water from the well of Zamzam at the Ka‘ was sprinkled instead of kumiss.10 Here, as Robert McChesney and Ron Sela have argued, we see a non-Islamic

Mongol ceremony legitimized through the incorporation of Islamic elements.11 In this way, the Uzbeks differed from their Timurid predecessors, who eschewed many Turco-

Mongol ceremonies as part of their cultural sedentarization. At the same time, Stephen

8 Khwandamir, Habibu’s-Siyar, 420; Babur, The Baburnama, trans. Thackston, f. 100b (p. 116); Mirza Haydar, Tarikh-i-Rashidi, 179. 9 McChesney, “The Chinggisid Restoration in Central Asia: 1500-1785,” in Di Cosmo, Frank, and Golden, eds. The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age, 283-84. 10 McChesney, “The Chinggisid Restoration in Central Asia: 1500-1785,” 283. 11 Robert McChesney, “Zamzam Water on A White Felt : Adapting Mongol Ways in Muslim Central Asia, 1550-1650,” in Michael Gervers and Wayne Schlepp, eds., Religion, Customary Law, and Nomadic Technology (Toronto: University of Toronto - York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, 2000), 66-67; Ron Sela, “Ritual and Authority in Central Asia: The Khan’s Inauguration Ceremony,” Papers on Inner Asia, No. 37 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2003), 42-43.

131 Dale argues that the Uzbeks intentionally assimilated aspects of late-Timurid Perso-

Islamic culture, thereby reiterating the process previously undertaken by the Timurids.12

While this is true in some respects, the example of kumiss sheds light on an important difference between the two dynasties: whereas the Timurids eschewed nomadic ceremonies in favor of sedentary ones; the Uzbeks Islamized nomadic ceremonies.

In South Asia, Lisa Balabanlilar finds the Timurid legacy to be even more apparent. However, while Babur’s return to a peripatetic lifestyle based on conquest revived some Turco-Mongol drinking practices, the same cannot be said for his successors. As the Mughals established a vast sedentary agrarian empire, especially during the reigns of Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and Jahangir (r. 1605-1627), they embraced a court culture that was much more reminiscent of Husayn Bayqara’s than Babur’s.13 This is exemplified in the following couplet, composed by Jahangir’s court poet:

I have two lips, one devoted to wine and the other apologizing for drunkenness.14

Mughal drinking culture continued to be focused on wine, though questions of the religious acceptability of drinking appear with much more frequency there than in any

Central Asian context.15 This led to a self-consciousness that pushed Mughal drinking culture into the private sphere, as in many other parts of the Islamic world. That is not to imply that the Mughals drank less than the Timurids; if anything, private drinking facilitated overindulgence by removing it from public scrutiny. Several Mughal princes

12 Dale, “The Legacy of the Timurids,” 186. 13 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, 457-58. 14 Jahangir, The Jahangirnama: trans. by Wheeler M. Thackston, 320. 15 Balabanlilar, Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire, 92-94.

132 succumbed to in their twenties and thirties, and the emperor Jahangir described his own struggles with addiction at length in his memoir.16

At the same time, recreational opium consumption – something that rarely appears in Timurid sources – became a regular part of Mughal imperial court culture, likely due to the pre-existing large-scale cultivation of opium poppies in India. Babur’s first three successors, Humayun (r. 1530-1556), Akbar, and Jahangir are all known to have consumed opium regularly. Despite the dangers, Jahangir often mixed opium with wine to increase the intoxication.17 Jahangir’s son and successor, (r. 1628-

1658), avoided drinking, but on personal rather than religious grounds. The sources indicate that Shah Jahan’s temperance was a direct response to his father’s struggles with addiction and the alcohol-related deaths of his brother, Parvez (d. 1626), and uncles,

Murad (d. 1599) and Daniyal (d. 1605).18 With Shah Jahan’s son, (r. 1658-

1707), a clear turn towards mainstream Sunni orthodoxy took place within the Mughal realm. This was accompanied by a cultural shift as Aurangzeb embraced religious interpretations that were at odds with his Central Asian Hanafi heritage. Thus,

Aurangzeb ushered in a new era in the evolution of alcohol culture by designating all drinking as a religiously proscribed vice. Though drinking continued, it did so illicitly, as in most parts of the Islamic world.19

16 Ibid., 89-91. 17 Abul Fazl, The , trans. by Henry Beveridge, 3: 1242. 18 Jahangir, The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, trans. by Alexander Rogers, ed. by Henry Beveridge, 1: 35; Abul Fazl, The Akbarnama, trans. by Henry Beveridge, 2: 514, 1125-26; 3: 1228-31, 1248, 1254; Nicoll, Shah Jahan, 141-42. 19 John Richards, The Mughal Empire (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 171-74.

133 The Timurids represent one stage in the evolution of both Central and South

Asian imperial drinking culture, an evolution that can only be understood when the nature of Islamic practice in Central Asia is elucidated and contextualized. The Maturidi Hanafi interpretations that shaped Islam in Transoxania resulted in religious practices that were both flexible and adaptable. Though “Islamic” is often invoked as an all-encompassing descriptor of Muslim societies, Timurid Central Asia shows that culture is a dynamic and ever-evolving process that is constantly responding to various influences beyond religion.

The experience of the Timurids shows that the driving force behind cultural change was not Islamization or a turn towards Sunni orthodoxy, but instead the ongoing shift away from nomadism in favor of a more sedentary lifestyle.

134

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148

Appendix A

I’ll Drink to That: Alcohol in Myth, Reality, and History

As a substance, alcohol is both widely understood and widely misunderstood. A cultural history of alcohol focusing on any specific time or place must address the pervasiveness of current cultural conceptions, which should not be imposed upon other societies or allowed to color our perceptions by attributing to alcohol a sense of cultural universality. There are certain aspects of alcohol that are universal, both on the molecular level and in terms of the physiological processes produced by its consumption.

However, the occasions and patterns of alcohol use and the cultural understandings attached to drink and drinkers vary greatly across time and space. This discussion will strip alcohol down to its essentials by explicitly identifying the substance in question both chemically and pharmacologically. The physiological effects of alcohol and the processes by which it has historically been produced will then be discussed in order to provide a basis for overcoming generalizations and differentiating between elements of universality and contextual specificity.

149 The use of the term “alcohol” throughout this study is more representative of everyday language than nomenclatural specificity. Technically speaking, the type of alcohol consumed in beverage form is known as ethyl alcohol or (C2H5OH).

Ethanol is one in a class of compounds referred to as monohydric alcohols, which also includes methanol (CH3OH), isopropyl alcohol (C3H7OH), butanol (C4H9OH), and amyl alcohol (C5H11OH). These compounds all have one hydroxyl (-OH) molecule and differ from one another in the number of carbon chains they contain. Unlike other monohydric alcohols, limited quantities of ethanol can be safely metabolized into carbon dioxide and water by enzymes in the human liver. In contrast, the metabolism of methanol – which features only one carbon chain less than ethanol – produces formaldehyde and formic acid, both of which are extremely toxic to humans even in small quantities.1

The physiological response to the consumption of alcoholic beverages is two-fold.

The first response is focused on metabolism and elimination, wherein the alcohol is absorbed from the stomach and into the bloodstream and transported to the liver, where between eighty and ninety percent of the ethanol is metabolized through three phases of oxidation. This process first converts ethanol into water and

(which is toxic), then into acetyl acid (which is harmless), and finally into carbon dioxide and water. Due to the potential for toxicity if blood alcohol levels rise too high,2 the

1 Peter L. Meyers and Richard E. Isralowitz, Alcohol (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 2011), 1-12; Edwards, Alcohol, 1-2. 2 Though there is significant variation, acute alcohol poisoning becomes fatal when the blood alcohol concentration reaches approximately 0.40 percent. See John Brick, ed. Handbook of the Medical Consequences of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, 2nd ed. (New York: Haworth Press, 2008), 2.

150 metabolism of alcohol takes precedence over that of other substances, which limits the body’s ability to absorb nutrients when alcohol is present. Most of the alcohol that is not metabolized by the liver leaves the body via the kidneys, where the function of regulatory hormones is depressed in order to ensure expedient removal from the body, thus resulting in the dehydration usually associated with hangovers.3

The second response occurs when alcohol in the bloodstream crosses the blood- brain barrier and acts as a to the central nervous system (CNS), thus leading to the physical manifestations of intoxication or drunkenness, including impaired judgment, reasoning, and perception as well as the lessening of emotional and behavioral inhibitions. High concentrations of alcohol in the bloodstream can also inhibit the brain’s ability to encode memories, leading to periods of alcohol-induced amnesia or

“blackouts.” Additionally, alcohol impedes the CNS’s ability to regulate sleep rhythms, which is a second cause of hangover symptoms in addition to dehydration.4

The prolonged or chronic consumption of large quantities of alcohol can lead to instances of alcohol addiction or alcoholism. The definition of addiction will be discussed at length; however it is important at this point to note some of the physiological and psychological repercussions of alcohol abuse. In today’s society, the ailments most commonly associated with excessive alcohol use are (technically steatohepatitis and ) and liver cancer; however, these are by no means the only – or even most prevalent – physical results of abuse, which also can include chronic

3 Meyers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 6-11; Edwards, Alcohol, 6-8. 4 Meyers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 53-54.

151 esophageal irritation, , , ulcers, stomach cancer, chronic , inflammation of the pancreas (), alcoholic diabetes, kidney disease, cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart), hypertension, and cardiac arrhythmias.5 As evidenced by this list, chronic alcohol use can wreak havoc on the functioning of a variety of the body’s organ systems, causing permanent and potentially fatal damage. However, these are only representative of problems arising as a result the first stage of the body’s physical response to alcohol, the metabolism and removal process.

The potential consequences of the depression of the CNS after alcohol has crossed the blood-brain barrier are not limited to the immediate physical manifestations of drunkenness and subsequent hangover symptoms. Long-term or chronic alcohol use can lead to an array of psychological and neurological disorders including delirium tremens

(DTs), dementia, encephalopathy, epilepsy, psychosis, and peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage) resulting in partial or full paralysis. Additionally, it can trigger or exacerbate psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and antisocial personality disorder.6 While many of these afflictions have only recently been clearly delineated and defined by the medical establishment, there is no reason to believe that they are in any way new phenomena. However, especially in the case of psychiatric illnesses, the lack of descriptive diagnostic vocabulary in historical sources makes it, for the most part, impossible to identify these diseases in the pre-modern era with any certainty. There are instances in the historical record where etiological connections are

5 Ibid., 49-58. 6 Ibid., 58-61.

152 drawn between psychological and neurological pathologies and excessive alcohol use, but I have yet to find any information in early modern sources that indisputably confirms a causative relationship between an identifiable psychiatric illness and alcohol. While the potential to induce psychiatric illness can be considered a universal attribute of alcohol use from a modern medical perspective, it is almost impossible to retroactively diagnose historical figures according to modern medical nomenclature and criteria. Therefore assessments regarding the presence of mental illness as a resultant or contributing factor to alcohol abuse will be avoided in this study.

While the pharmacology of and physiological responses to alcohol consumption are fairly well understood, there are still many unresolved questions regarding how and why some individuals respond differently to alcohol from others, providing fodder for debate among scientists, physicians, psychologists, and sociologists the world over.

Attempts to provide answers have created divergent theories concerning genetic predisposition, chemical tolerance, societal and cultural influences on behavior and drinking patterns, and the actual definition of alcoholism. As for the last, there is no definitive consensus as to whether alcohol addiction represents a chronic progressive illness, a treatable syndrome, or a vice touted as a disease as a way of displacing personal responsibility.7 While many regard the disease of “alcoholism” as a modern invention, descriptions of chemical addiction to alcohol – including physical degradation resulting

7 George E. Vaillant, The Natural History of Alcoholism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 1-4.

153 from overconsumption and withdrawal pangs when consumption ceases – can be found in medical treatises and other texts from the ancient through the modern period.8

The way alcoholism as a medical disease is emphasized in Western society today likely has more to do with overcoming the social stigma attached to addiction than newfound medical knowledge recognizing alcohol as an addictive substance, as this has clearly been observed – even if not necessarily understood – for millennia. In his study of the history of alcohol use in Ghana, Emmanuel Akyeampong points out that the

“phenomenon and physiological consequences of alcoholism are universal, but its manifestation and causation are influenced by specific cultural and historical factors.”9

Understanding this fundamental difference between universality and specificity is crucial to understanding alcohol culture in the past. Where addicts in the modern are often viewed by society as weak or deviant, this assumption is culturally specific and does not appear in texts from the medieval or early modern Islamic world. While religious scholars viewed excessive drinking as a societal problem that must be quashed in order to create the ideal community, the perception of drinkers themselves as suffering from some inherent character flaw does not enter into the discussion. Therefore, the idea that addiction to alcohol represents personal weakness or deviant behavior must not be regarded as a universal attribute, but rather as a constructed cultural conception.

8 Disease concept of alcoholism as modern invention: Myers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 34; Edwards, Alcohol, 93-102. 9 Emmanuel Akyeampong, Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, 1800 to Recent Times (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996), xxii.

154 Defining Abuse and Addiction in the Present Study

Due to the aforementioned cultural baggage attached to the term “alcoholism,” its use will be largely avoided in this study. However, the terms “abuse” and “addiction” will be applied when appropriate, based on the information contained in the sources. It is imperative, therefore, to outline the parameters within which I intend to use these terms.

An individual will be designated as an abuser of alcohol only if his consumption is described outside the realm of what is considered socially acceptable, as chronically impeding his ability to fulfill personal political or military obligations, or as the causative factor of persistent medical ailments.10

An individual will be described as an addict only if, in addition to meeting the criteria for abuse, he is recorded as having experienced symptoms of physical or psychological withdrawal or if long-term overconsumption is identified as a cause of death. Additionally, when possible, distinctions will be made between physical and psychological addiction.11 For example, in his memoir Babur recounts the difficulties he faced after taking a vow of temperance – at times feeling perplexed and finding himself reduced to tears due to his longing for a wine party.12 However, he does not describe any physical withdrawal symptoms, indicating that his addiction was primarily psychological.

10 These criteria are based on the DSM-IV-TR definition of “Alcohol Abuse” and my own assessment of the nature of the information contained in the primary sources. For the DSM-IV-TR definition, see Myers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 23. 11 The criteria for this come from the DSM-IV-TR definition of “,” Jellinek’s Phases and Species of Alcoholism, and my own assessment of the primary sources. For the DSM-IV-TR definition and Jellinek’s Phases and Species see Myers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 22, 33-35. 12 Babur, The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), fols. 359-361 (pp. 432-34).

155 In contrast, Babur’s cousin and contemporary, Said Khan, suffered from many physical problems arising from long-term chronic drinking, such as ague and partial paralysis, in addition to experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms every morning that subsided only when he started drinking again. Therefore, in this case the evidence is strong enough to classify Said Khan as having suffered from a physical addiction to alcohol.13

Genetic Predisposition and the “Asian Flush”

In recent decades many advancements have been made in the field of genetics, which have in turn generated a great deal of curiosity as to the role genes play in shaping the human experience. Part of this has materialized in debates regarding genetic predisposition and the importance of “nature vs. nurture.” It is easy and often tempting to apply modern scientific theories or findings to the historical narrative in an attempt to better understand or explain how and why things happened the way they did. However, this can also be very problematic. For example, it would be easy to say that the propensity for alcohol abuse among Babur’s descendants in Mughal India indicates a genetic predisposition towards addiction. However, not only is this unprovable at this point; it adds little to the discussion of how and why the Mughals drank (or chose not to drink) and clouds the importance of individual agency. Blaming genes also runs the risk of simplifying history by resorting to monocausal explanations for very complex events

13 Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia: The Tarikh-i-Rashidi, trans. E. Dennison Ross, ed. N. Elias (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008), 340-41, 369. Both Babur’s and Said Khan’s relationship with alcohol will be discussed at length in Chapter 4.

156 and processes. For this reason, we find little benefit in indulging in a lengthy discussion of genetic predisposition as a contributing or determining factor in individuals’ relationships with alcohol.

It is also important to keep in mind that genetic predisposition, where it does exist, is not a guarantee of addiction, and often witnessing alcohol abuse can itself serve as an important deterrent against drinking.14 For the purposes of this study, when a family history of alcohol abuse is apparent, the concepts of “modeling” and “learning” will be applied to help explain individual drinking behaviors. For example, the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27) not only suffered from alcohol addiction but also lost two brothers to drinking.15 His son Parvez abused alcohol and died at the age of thirty-eight as a result of epilepsy brought on by years of heavy drinking.16 Therefore, we can say that Parvez modeled the behavior exhibited by his father and uncles. However, another of Jahangir’s sons, his eventual successor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-59), avoided alcohol his entire life yet never defined his abstinence in religious terms or attempted to curb the drinking of others (as his son Aurangzeb later would). The impression given in the sources is that Shah Jahan learned from the negative examples set by his father, uncles,

14 Vaillant, The Natural History of Alcoholism, 64-66. 15 Murad (d. 1599) at the age of thirty and Daniyal (d. 1605) at the age of thirty-three. See Jahangir, The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, trans. Alexander Rogers, ed. Henry Beveridge (Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2006), 1: 35; Abul Fazl, The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl, trans. Henry Beveridge (Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2010), 2: 514, 1125-26; 3: 1228-31, 1248, 1254. 16 Muhammad-Hadi, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 448; Fergus Nicoll, Shah Jahan: The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Emperor (London: Haus Publishing, 2009), 141-42.

157 and brother.17 Therefore, Shah Jahan serves as a perfect example of the limits of generalized assumptions regarding genetic predisposition.

Recent genetic research has also produced evidence of a scientific basis for what has come to be known as the “Alcohol Flush Reaction” or “Asian flush,” which is characterized by an inability to efficiently metabolize alcohol, resulting in a reddening of the cheeks when alcohol is consumed (the “flush”) and a generally lower . This is believed to result from mutations in genes responsible for producing two enzymes found in the liver: alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH2) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2). Some studies have shown that the specific gene associated with Alcohol Flush Reaction is most prevalent in populations of Asian18 descent, while almost non-existent in European populations. However, the sample populations in these studies tend to be very small and the results are at times contradictory. For example, one study found that individuals of Mongolian descent are unlikely to have the gene (only about ten percent) compared to participants of Southeast Asian descent (about thirty-five percent). In contrast, a separate study found that over half of the Mongolian participants possessed the gene.19 Additionally, there is no scientific consensus regarding connections between slower metabolism of alcohol and the prevalence of abuse. Some

17 Jahangir, The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, 1: 306; Nicoll, Shah Jahan, 83. 18 The tendency among geneticists is to use the terms “” or “Oriental;” however, given the baggage attached to these terms in a historical context, I have chosen to substitute the word “Asian.” 19 Shi-Han Chen, et al., “Gene Frequencies of Alcohol Dehydrogenase2 (ADH2) and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase2 (ALDH2) in Five Chinese Minorities,” Human Genetics 94 (1994): 571; H.W. Goedde, et al., “Distribution of ADH2 and ALDH2 Genotypes in Different Populations,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 15 (September 1986): 345.

158 researchers argue that Alcohol Flush Reaction impedes alcohol addiction; others say it has no practical impact, while still others argue that it increases the likelihood of addiction.20

It is also important to keep in mind that whatever the genotype distribution is today, it tells us little about genotype distribution in the past, meaning any conclusions based on this evidence are purely conjecture.21 If this genetic mutation was prevalent among Mongols in the thirteenth century and it does contribute to increased alcohol addiction, this might explain the widespread incidence of alcohol abuse by various khans whose primary source of alcohol (kumiss) topped out at around three percent potency by volume (see below). However, there are too many uncertainties in this statement to draw concrete or meaningful conclusions. It is, after all, possible to both get drunk and abuse alcohol with low-alcohol-content beverages, such as beer, especially when there is no (or limited) access to higher alcohol-content beverages.

Alcohol Production – The Science of Fermentation

Alcoholic beverages are produced when an , such as those found in yeast, acts as a catalyst to break down simple , such as glucose (C6H12O6), into ethanol

20 Goedde, et al., “Distribution of ADH2 and ALDH2 Genotypes in Different Populations,” 344-346; Ting- Kai and William F. Bosron, “Genetic Variability of Enzymes of Alcohol Metabolism in Human Beings,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 15 (September 1986): 997-1004; Chen, et al., “Gene Frequencies of Alcohol Dehydrogenase2 (ADH2) and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase2 (ALDH2) in Five Chinese Minorities,” 571-572; Keun Soo Ahn, et al., “Alcohol Dehydrogenase 1B and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 2 Polymorphisms in Uzbekistan,” Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 10 (2009): 17-20. 21 For examples of this kind of conjecture see George Lane, Daily Life in the Mongol Empire (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2006), 164-65; and David T. Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 10.

159 22 (C2H5OH) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The initiation of this process occurs when sugar- containing foods such as grapes, honey, or milk come into contact with yeast in an anaerobic or low-oxygen environment. If the resulting beverage is not exposed to oxygen at all, the carbon dioxide will remain and attain equilibrium with water molecules, producing carbonic acid, and thus carbonation.23 Exposure to oxygen will upset this equilibrium releasing the carbon dioxide and resulting in the impression that a liquid that has been “watered down.” Additionally, even if the drink is not carbonated, exposure to the air can allow for a second fermentation process, that of ethanol to acetic acid,24 which leads to the production of vinegar.25

Grapes ferment easily because the yeasts necessary for fermentation occur naturally on the fruit’s skin – meaning that when a grape is crushed and the comes into contact with the skin in a low-oxygen environment, wine will be produced. Starch- containing foods such as wheat, barley, potatoes, and rice can also undergo fermentation, but only after water has been added to break the starch down into simple sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.26 However, alcohol derived from starch-containing foods was uncommon in Central Asia prior to the modern period. Most alcohol was derived from fruits (wine), honey (mead), or mare’s milk (kumiss). Therefore beverages such as

22 Technically speaking, the balanced equation is C6H12O6 + [zymase] ! 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2 23 CO2 + H2O ! H2CO3 (carbonic acid) 24 This occurs as a result of the acetic acid bacteria, which occur naturally in the air. See Joseph Needham and H.T. Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6: Biology and Biological Technology, Part V: Fermentations and Food Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 283. 25 Graham H. Fleet and Gillian M Heard, “Yeasts – Growth During Fermentation,” in Graham H. Fleet, ed. Wine Microbiology and Biotechnology (London: Taylor & Francis, 2002), 45. 26 Starch is a polysaccharide and must undergo hydrolysis to be broken down into monosaccharides, such as glucose, in order to be fermented. See Edwards, Alcohol, 5-6.

160 beer, while common in the Western world, will not figure prominently into this study. In addition to ethanol and water, alcoholic beverages contain trace amounts of other alcohols, known as congeners, which are byproducts of the fermentation process. As previously stated, other alcohols are toxic to humans even in small amounts and these congeners – also colloquially referred to as the “dirt” – are the third contributing factor to hangovers after dehydration and disturbed sleep rhythms.27

The alcohol content of beverages produced through fermentation varies greatly depending on the percentage of sugar in the initial source. Generally speaking, the maximum alcohol percentage achievable through natural fermentation alone is about one half the percentage of sugar available at the outset. For example, grape juice on average contains about twenty-five percent sugar, leading to wine with an alcohol percentage of around twelve percent, though selective cultivation and breeding can increase the yield to as high as sixteen percent.28 Though honey is generally thirty percent glucose, the alcohol content of mead varies greatly (from eight to fifteen percent) depending on how the honey is fermented. Mare’s milk, on the other hand, contains only about six and a half percent sugar, making kumiss’ maximum potency just over three percent alcohol by volume, which is comparable to that found in most beer.29 Sake, or rice wine, has the highest potential alcohol content attainable through natural fermentation, which can reach up to twenty percent. The production of more potent alcoholic beverages (spirits,

27 Myers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 5; Edwards, Alcohol, 10. 28 Needham and Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6, Part V, 279. 29 Ibid., 249.

161 liquors) requires a secondary distillation process, reducing water content and thereby increasing the percentage of alcohol per volume.30

The origins of distillation are generally traced to the ‘Abbasid , where the process was developed by Arab scientists for pharmaceutical purposes.31 However, rudimentary stills have been discovered in China dating to the Eastern Han (25 –

220 C.E.), indicating that techniques for distillation predated the ‘Abbasids by several centuries.32 It is possible that this technology (or the idea of it) was transmitted from

China to the Muslim world following the Arab conquests of Central Asia in the mid- eighth century. However, regardless of the origins of the technology, the chemical processes involved were not perfected until later, in Europe during the twelfth century and in China under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).33 In the latter instance, the distilled liquor was called ‘araq,34 and while less widespread than wine, mead, or kumiss, it does appear occasionally in sources from the Timurid era. However, it is impossible to state with any certainty the potency of the ‘araq produced during this period. It should also be noted that the widespread commercial production and consumption of distilled

30 Ibid., 279. 31 According to Myers and Isralowitz this occurred around 800 C.E., whereas Rudi Matthee places this event in the tenth century. Myers and Isralowitz, Alcohol, 6; Rudi Matthee, “Exotic Substances: The Introduction and Global Spread of , Coffee, Cocoa, , and Distilled Liquor, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Roy Porter, ed. Drugs and Narcotics in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 28. See Chapter 1 for discussion of the Islamic prohibition on alcohol. 32 Needham and Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6, Part V, 226. 33 Matthee, “Exotic Substances,” 28; Needham and Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6, Part V, 226. 34 While ‘araq has come to refer to any variety of distilled liquors, at this time it appears to have referred specifically to distilled wine, i.e. brandy.

162 beverages did not occur until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, therefore falling outside of the scope of the present study.35

Alcohol History – The Story of Fermentation

Alcoholic beverages have been produced and consumed by humans for thousands of years. Unfortunately, a detailed account of the first drunken escapade (followed, most assuredly, by the first hangover) has not come down to us; however, it is estimated that this seminal event in occurred sometime during the Neolithic period,36 around 8000 B.C.E. This proverbial first drink was likely grape wine, due to the fact that grape juice ferments naturally without any intervention due to the presence of yeast on the fruit’s skin (see above). Archaeological evidence suggests that viticulture, or the cultivation of grapes specifically for the purpose of , was developed between

6000 and 5000 B.C.E. in either the between the Black and Caspian

Seas or the northern in western Iran. The varieties of grapes native to these regions are especially conducive to the fermentation process, which perhaps explains the origination of viticulture in this part of the world.37 As far as written evidence, the earliest references to alcoholic beverages (beer and grape wine) come from

35 Matthee, “Exotic Substances,” 28. 36 Also commonly referred to as the Late Stone Age, c. 8500-4000 BCE. 37 In contrast, the grapes native to , China, and the are smaller, more acidic, and contain less juice, limiting production and decreasing palatability. See Rod Phillips, A Short History of Wine (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 5-6; and Needham and Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6, Part V, 259.

163 around 2000 B.C.E. in , predating the emergence of commercial production in the same region by about five hundred years.38

In addition to grapes, alcoholic beverages can be produced naturally through the fermentation of various other fruits, as well as honey (mead), grains (beer), rice (sake), milk (kumiss), etc. Over the course of history, societies have favored different beverages primarily as a result of their productive capabilities and the accessibility of ingredients.

These factors are often determined, or at least largely influenced, by ecology, geography, and lifestyle (agricultural versus pastoral). This has given rise to a variety of distinct tastes and contributed to the diverse cultural associations attached to alcohol and drinking by different societies. Secondary alcohol tastes are often reflective of interactions with nearby societies and participation in long-distance trade. For example, pastoral nomads produced and consumed either mead or kumiss as their primary alcoholic beverage, but their participation in trade with sedentary agriculturalists gave them access to sake and various fruit wines. The widespread dissemination of alcohol tastes is also partially determined by the fact that some beverages are perishable, which impedes long-distance trade. Grape wine, for instance, lasts as long as its container is unopened, whereas the palm wine produced in many parts of Africa spoils within a few days of production regardless of how it is stored.

38 Needham and Huang, Science and Civilization in China, Volume 6, Part V, 257-58; Courtwright, Forces of Habit, 9-10.

164 Making Kumiss

As stated, kumiss, or fermented mare’s milk, figures prominently in the culture of

Central Asia as the primary alcoholic beverage produced by many pastoral nomadic groups.39 In addition to providing recreational intoxication, kumiss was an integral part of various ceremonies and therefore possessed a special cultural significance for steppe populations. The sharing of kumiss with guests represented hospitality and mutual respect, a symbolism that could not be replicated or replaced by another beverage. When leaders met to discuss politics, they opened the meeting by sharing a cup; when a new khan was elected, the participants imbibed, and when a new khan was elevated, he was served kumiss. Essentially, its consumption not only accompanied but validated political and social functions.

The prominent place of kumiss in steppe society and ceremonials garnered it a great deal of attention in records produced by outside observers, including European visitors to the Mongol courts. One account comes from William of Rubruck, a

Franciscan missionary who travelled through the Mongol Empire in the mid-thirteenth century, meeting with both of the Golden Horde (r. 1227-1255) and the Grand

Khan Möngke (r. 1251-1259) at Karakorum.40 Calling the beverage “cosmos,” Rubruck provides detailed descriptions both of Mongol drinking habits and of the production of kumiss. While the former will be discussed at length in Chapter 2, it is important at this

39 Technically, “kumiss” is the Turkish name for this drink, whereas the Mongols called it airag (not to be confused with the word for distilled alcohol, ‘araq). However, today “kumiss” is much more recognizable and will be used throughout the study as a matter of convenience. 40 Christopher Dawson, Mission to Asia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), xxi-xxiii.

165 point to elucidate the process by which kumiss was (and in some places continues to be) made. According to Rubruck, the Mongols produced kumiss by pouring freshly collected mare’s milk “into a large skin or bag and [then] churning it with a specially made stick which is as big as a man’s head at its lower end, and hollowed out; and when they beat it quickly it begins to bubble like new wine and to turn sour and ferment.”41

Ancient Greek historian described a similar process in his discussion of the manners and customs of steppe nomads, indicating that pastoralists have known the basics of fermenting mare’s milk since antiquity, though as in the case of wine, the exact origins and discovery of kumiss are unknown.42 By the time of the Mongol Empire, such varied sources as William of Rubruck, Marco Polo, and Ibn Battuta record that kumiss was not only consumed regularly and served important ceremonial functions, but also that entire herds of horses were kept solely for kumiss production. In more recent history, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European and Russian doctors touted kumiss as a veritable “cure-all,” especially for consumptive disorders such as tuberculosis. Such illustrious figures as Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov were reportedly prescribed kumiss treatments. The latter apparently gained a good deal of weight as a result of his kumiss therapy, though it did not succeed in curing his tuberculosis.43

Although kumiss possessed some potential health benefits, it soon became clear that its

41 William of Rubruck in Dawson, Mission to Asia, 98. 42 Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), 242. 43 Simon Karlinsky, ed. Anton Chekhov’s Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary, trans. Michael Henry Heim (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999), 388, 401-404.

166 restorative qualities had been greatly exaggerated and its prescriptive use all but disappeared by the time of the First World War.44

44 George L. Carrick, Kumiss or Fermented Mare’s Milk and Its Uses in the Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption and Other Wasting Diseases (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1881), passim; A. Myers, A Treatise on Kumiss; or, Milk Champagne: The Great Russian Remedy for Wasting, Debilitating and Nervous Diseases (San Francisco: Spaulding & Barto, Steam Book and Job Printers, 1877), passim; Mary Foote Henderson, Diet for the Sick: A Treatise on the Values of Foods, Their Application to Special Conditions of Health and Disease, and on the Best Methods of their Preparation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1885), 33-38, passim.

167

Appendix B: Translation of Shah Rukh’s Edict on Wine Drinking1

“Edict Forbidding Wine Drinking”

Officials from every land, including those of the Turks, , and Persians, are charged with enforcing piety in accordance with the Qur’an. Everywhere the white raiments of piety announce the victory banners of the Qur’anic message. In response to

God’s order, missionaries have succeeded in promoting God’s word, halting the commission of sins among those youths who would waste their days in pleasure and debauchery. Instead they spend their time working for the betterment of society. These youths were lured from the path by wine and by imbibing they became separated from

God’s grace and deprived of the joys of Paradise.

The tradition of drinking wine was thus stricken from the world, And even in the heavens, the stars overturned their .

The pious abandoned their desires and accepted God’s order. Of their own almost one hundred and thirteen officials, who previously reveled at banquets, repented and strove to follow God’s order. They shattered their wine goblets and traded the joys of earthly drunkenness for the intoxication of God’s words. And every longing for the joys of wine was replaced by the joy of obedience to God. The wine casks bled so freely

1 Special thanks to Saeed Honarmand for his assistance with this translation. The original Persian text can be found in Nizam al-Din ‘Abd al-Vasi Nizami, Mansha’ al-insha (Tehran: Daneshgah-i Milliy-i Iran: 1979), 164-5.

168 that they cried out for blood. The defeat of debauchery and sin was so complete that the musicians’ instruments began to lament, crying:

Oh! King who uprooted from the garden of time The plants of unbelief, fornication, and intoxication

Out of fear for the justice you brought forth The blood of wine dries up in the veins of grapes still on the vine.

Except in the eyes of the beloved, Who, by nature, make their lovers drunken without drink.

Your justice wiped two scourges from the earth: The drunken and the hungover.

In accordance with this decree flowing forth from the banquet of God, no one thought of the pleasures of wine nor dared drink the forbidden khamr, whether in public or in secret.

Everybody, elites and commoners alike should follow in this path and avoid committing the sin of drinking the forbidden khamr.

Pursuant to this order, the judges and officials in every should act according to God’s will and seek to strip the from hidden wine houses. In this effort, those who disobey this decree should be publicly humiliated.

The harp strings wept for the death of wine And all the beautiful young cupbearers Let their hair fall down about their sides.

Yet do not be overzealous in seeking out wrongdoers or in the application of punishment, for the elevation of religious law alone will compel people to set society aright. As evidenced with every passing day, the revival of religious law is sufficient to make the country flourish.

The king, who according to God’s order threw out the wine Now sprinkles rosewater as he bows to religion.

169 Appendix C: “A Drunken Babur Returns to Camp at Night”1

1 Farrukh Beg, 1589. The British Library [Slide No. 97626], Or. 3714.

170

Appendix D: Translation of Babur’s Pledge of Temperance1

“Decree of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur Ghazi”

We praise the acceptor of repentance who the penitent and who loves the pure, and we thank the giver who guides the sinful and pardons those who seek pardon.

And we pray for the best of his creation, Muhammad, and for his precious offspring and pure companions.

The mirrors of the thoughts of the intelligent, which are manifestations of beautiful forms of things and treasuries of pearls of designs of truth and correctness, will reflect the jewels of flowers of the notion that human nature is instinctively inclined to selfish pleasures and that the relinquishment of carnal desires is dependent upon divine help and heavenly assistance. The human soul is never far from an inclination to evil.

“Neither do I justify myself, since every soul is prone unto evil.” And the avoidance of evil is accomplished solely through the loving-kindness of the all-pardoning king. “This is the beauty of God; he will give the same unto whom he pleaseth; and God is endued with great bounty.”

The reason for composing this treatise is that, in accordance with the exigencies of humanity, in keeping with the customs of kings and regal necessities, and in

1 Babur, The Baburnama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, f. 312b-314 (pp. 381-383).

171 conformity with the custom of lords of high royal and military status, during the full bloom of youth some intemperances and a few indulgences were committed, but after a few days absolute regret and contrition occurred, and one by one those intemperances were abandoned and through true penance the gates of recourse to them were closed.

However, repentance of wine, which is the most important goal and the most significant desire, remained hidden behind a veil – “Affairs are mortgaged to their times” – and did not appear until these felicitous times, when through earnest endeavor the garb of holy war was taken on and, with the forces of Islam, we combatted the infidels. Then, from an otherworldly inspiration and heavenly voice we heard the happy phrase, “Is not yet time come unto those who believe that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of

God?” and to eradicate the instruments of sin we earnestly knocked on the gates of conversion. When the guide of divine assistance, in accordance with the words, “He who knocks on a door and perseveres will find,” opened the door of fortune, I commanded an initiation of this holy war, which is the greatest endeavor, that is, opposition to the carnal soul. In short, I sincerely gave voice to the words, “O lord, we have dealt unjustly with our own souls,” I inscribed upon the tablet of my heart the words, “I turn unto thee with repentance, and I am the first of the true believers,” and I actualized the inner calling for repentance from wine, which is the sought-after pearl hidden in the treasure house of my breast.

My servants, in conformity with the felicitous command, broke to smithereens – like the idols that, God willing, we will soon succeed in breaking – the vessels and goblets and all the gold and silver implements and paraphernalia, which in their

172 multiplicity and ornamentation beautified the assembly like heavenly bodies in the firmament, but which had reduced the glory of the holy law to the ground of humility and abasement, and cast every sherd to some unfortunate or poor person. By the felicity of this conversion, which will soon be rewarded, many of the elite of court were honored to repent – “People follow their kings’ religion” – and totally renounced the drinking of intoxicants. Still droves of those obedient to the precepts of religion are flocking hour by hour to attain this felicity. It is hoped that, in accordance with these words, “He who shows the way to good is like him who does it,” recompense for these actions will accrue during the fortunate days of the imperial lord and that through the blessing of this happiness victory and conquest will increase daily.

Upon the completion of this intention and the accomplishment of this hope, a decree obeyed by all the world was issued to the effect that within the protected realm

(may God protect her from calamities and rebellions) absolutely no creature would commit the sin of imbibing intoxicants or endeavor to acquire, produce, sell, purchase, possess, or transport [the] same. “Avoid them that may prosper.”

In gratitude for this victory and in thanksgiving for the acceptance of this sincere repentance, the ocean of regal grace swelled and made manifest waves of generosity, which are the causes for the flourishing of the world and the honor of human beings, and issued a decree abolishing the tamgha throughout the realm for Muslims, the proceeds from which were beyond the limit of calculation, since, notwithstanding the continuance of former rulers in collecting it, it is outside the confines of the law of the Lord of

Apostles. In no city, town, highway, byway, or port is the tamgha to be taken or exacted,

173 nor is any change or mutation to be allowed in the foundation of this order. “But he who shall change it after he hath heard it, surely the sin thereof shall be in those who change it.”

The path of the legions of regal affection, Turks, , Arabs, Iranians, Indians,

Persians, civilian and military, and all nations and classes of humanity is to seek succor and hope in the religion of him who is supported by all who know him. Let them occupy themselves with praying for eternal good fortune, and let them not transgress or deviate from orders. They must act in accordance with that which is commanded and rely upon the most noble, the most exalted for success. Written by majestic order on the twenty- fourth of Jumada I 922 [February 26, 1527].

174

Appendix E: Timurid Genealogy (simplified)

My Family

Temür 1336-1405

Umar-Shaykh Jahangir Miranshah Shah Rukh 1354-1394 1356-1376 1367-1408 1377-1447

Pir Sultan Bayqara Muhammad 'Ulugh Beg Baysunghur 1393-1423 Muhammad 1394-1449 1397-1433 1376-1407

Sultan Sultan Husayn Abu Sa'id Muhammad Bayqara 1424-1469 1418-1452 1438-1506

Sultan- Yadgar Sultan-Ahmad Mahmud Umar-Shaykh Muhammad 1451-1494 1456-1494 1453-1495 1452-1470

Babur 1483-1530

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