ʿAlāʾ Al-DAWLA Simnānī’S RELIGIOUS ENCOUNTERS AT THE MONGOL COURT NEAR TABRIZ Devin DeWeese The life and autobiographical writings of the celebrated Sufi ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla Simnānī (659/1261–736/1336) remain strangely unexplored by students of the political, cultural, and religious history of Ilkhanid Iran. His own long service, and that of his father and two uncles, at the Mongol court gave him a distinctive perspective on court affairs, and his legacy as a Sufi shaykh and prolific author facilitated the preservation of several intimate and self-referential accounts, among Simnānī’s own numerous works and those of his direct disciples, that offer fascinating vignettes of the cul- tural encounter entailed by the interaction of Mongol and Muslim elites in northwest ern Iran. The present study is intended to outline just one aspect of that encounter in the context of Simnānī’s life and the devel- opment of his Sufi career: the diverse religious influences to which he was exposed during the critical period following his initial turn to Sufis m, while in Ilkhanid service. That period saw an increasing tension between Simnānī’s wish to withdraw from court service, and his growing desire to travel to Baghdad to meet a particular Sufi teacher, on the one hand, and the efforts of the Mongol elite—including the īlkhān Arghun him- self—and his own family to keep him at the Mongol court near Tabriz, or, if that proved impossible, then at least to prevent him from going to ­Baghdad; those efforts included a series of religious encounters arranged for Simnānī while he was detained at the royal ordu near Tabriz for sev- eral months in 687/1288. These encounters no doubt had a lasting impact on Sim nānī himself, but Simnānī eventually did make his way to Baghdad, and the course his religious life took afterwards obviously colored his rec- ollection of the time he spent at the Mongol ruler’s court dis cussing spiri- tual disciplines and doctrines with practitioners of other paths, and with Arghun himself. Nevertheless, his accounts of that time in his life offer a glimpse of religious interaction in this era, as staged and “sponsored” by the Mongol elite, and of one remarkable individual’s efforts to make sense out of his own temporary engage ment with religious diversity. 36 devin deweese The outlines of ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla Simnānī’s life are relatively well known, thanks, most recently, to the study of Jamal Elias.1 Born into a politically prominent family of Simnān, he entered the service of Arghun at the age of 15, some nine years before Arghun assumed power in 683/1284; his paternal uncle, Jalāl al-Dīn, was Arghun’s vazīr from the beginning of his reign until 687/1288, when he was dismissed (his execution came a year later), while Simnānī’s maternal uncle, Rukn al-Dīn, and his father Sharaf al-Dīn were both among the loyal servants of Arghun who eventually ran afoul of rival offi cials under Ghazan and were executed (his father already in 695/1295, his uncle in 700/1301). ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla was spared his rela tives’ fate by his departure from the court to adopt the life of a Sufi; he says relatively little about Ghazan, or his famous conversion to Islam, in his writings, and it seems that he was closer to Öljeytü, in whose encamp- ment he spent considerable time even after he made known his wish to leave Arghun’s service (Öljeytü would later disappoint Simnānī, however, 1 Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ʿAlāʾ ad-Dawla as-Simnānī (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), with the biographical survey on pp. 15–31; see pp. 165–212 for the most thorough account to date of Simnānī’s writings. Among earlier studies may be mentioned Sayyid Muẓaffar Ṣadr, Sharḥ-i aḥvāl va afkār va āthār-i ʿārif-i rabbānī Abū’l-Makārim Rukn al-Dīn Shaykh ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla Simnānī (Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Dānishgāh, n.d. [ca. 1955–56]); Henry Corbin, “L’intériorisation du sens en herméneutique soufie iranienne (Ṣâʾinoddîn ʿAlî Torka Ispâhânî, ob. 830/1427 et ʿAlâoddawla Semnânî, ob. 736/1336),” Eranos-Jahrbuch, 26 (1957): 57–187 [137–172]; idem, En Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, t. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), section 2 (Shî’isme et Soufisme), ch. 4 (“Les sept organes subtils de l’homme selon ‘Alâoddawleh Semnânî (736/1336),” 275– 355); Marijan Molé, “Les Kubrawiyya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l’hégire,” Revue des études islamiques 29 (1961): 61–142 [76–109]; Fritz Meier, “ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī,” EI2 1 (1960): 346–347; Hermann Landolt, ed., Correspondance spiritu- elle échangée entre Nuroddin Esfarayeni (ob. 717/1317) et son disciple ‘Alaoddawleh Semnani (ob. 736/1336) (Tehran: Département d’Iranologie de l’Institut Franco-Iranien de Recher- che/Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1972; Bibliothèque Ira- nienne, vol. 21), esp. 10–21; Hermann Landolt, “Simnânî on Waḥdat al-Wujûd,” in Collected Papers on Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, ed. Mehdi Mohaghegh and Hermann Landolt (Tehran, 1349/1971; Wisdom of Persia series, vol. IV), 91–112; idem, “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Kāšānī und Simnānī über Waḥdat al-Wuǧūd,” Der Islam, 50 (1973): 29–81; idem, “Deux opuscules de Semnânî sur le moi théophanique,” Mélanges offerts à Henry Corbin, ed. S.H. Nasr (Tehran, 1977; Wisdom of Persia series, vol. IX), 279–319; Andreas D’Souza, “Simnani’s Cosmology and its Mystical Implications,” The Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies (Hyderabad, A.P.), 8/4 (Oct.–Dec., 1985): 94–126; Jamal J. Elias, “A Kubrawī Treatise on Mystical Visions: The Risāla-yi nūriyya of ʿAlāʾ ad-dawla as-Simnānī,” Muslim World, 83 (1993): 68–80; ʿAbd al-Rafīʿ Ḥaqīqat, Khumkhāna-yi vaḥdat: Shaykh ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla Simnānī, ʿārif-i buzurg-i qarn-i haftum va hashtum-i hijrī (Tehran: Shirkat-i Muʾallifān va Mutarjimān-i īrān/Chāpkhāna-yi Kāvīyān, 1362/1983); George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (London/New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 253; and the introductions to other publications of Simnānī’s works, including those of Thackston and Māyil Haravī noted below..