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NADIR SHAH'S PECULIAR CENTRAL ASIAN LEGACY: EMPIRE, CONVERSION NARRATIVES, AND THE RISE OF NEW SCHOLARLY DYNASTIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2016

James Pickett
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Abstract

Over the course of the 18th–early 20th centuries, a curious narrative emerged in Central Asia wherein the Turko-Persian monarch Nadir Shah Afshar was converted from Shiʿism to Sunnism by a group of Islamic scholars outside of Bukhara. While this legend was rooted in Nadir Shah's theological ambitions to bring Shiʿism back into the Sunni fold as a fifth school of canonical law, the memory of that event in the subsequent two centuries was intimately tied to the establishment of several scholarly dynasties, which managed to perpetuate themselves all the way to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. This article engages the memory of this mythological conversion to explore sharpening conceptions of sectarian divisions and the role of genealogy in projecting spiritual authority. Most broadly, it argues that—far from a passing depredation—the Afsharid Empire profoundly shaped the geopolitical and social landscape of Persianate Asia.

Keywords

ConversionIslamic HistoryPersianShiʿaSunnism
Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 491 - 510
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: This research is indebted to thoughtful feedback by Julie Stephens; the anonymous reviewers provided by IJMES; and—at earlier stages—Stephen Kotkin, Michael Cook, Jo-Ann Gross, Hannah-Louise Clark, Behnam Sadeghi, Assef Ashraf, and Thomas Welsford. I am most especially grateful to Andreas Wilde for his frank critique and generosity with sources.

1 The Charbakr shrine complex is located only a few kilometers outside of Bukhara. See Schwarz, Florian, “From Scholars to Saints: The Bukharan Shaykhs of Guybar and the Ziyarats to the Four Bakr,” in Iz Istorii Kul'turnogo Naslediia Bukhary: Sbornik Statei, vol. 6 (Bukhara: Izd. “Uzbekistan,” 1998Google Scholar).

2 Sharif Jan Makhdum Sadr Ziyaʾ, Tarjumih-i Hal-i Abaʾ wa-Ajdad-i Hazrat-i Kaʿbagahi Am wa-Awlad wa-Atbaʿishan, ms. Institut Vostokovedeniia Akademiia Nauk Uzbekistana (IVANUz) no. 1304/IV, 116b-117a.

3 Ziyaʾ, Tarjumih-i Hal-i Abaʾ wa-Ajdad, 116–117b. Iran's transition from a predominantly Hanafi and Shafiʿi legal sphere to a Shiʿi one was at the time of this disputation only a little over a century old—even though Sunnis and Shiʿa alike venerated the House of the Prophet. Amir Arjomand, Said, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 28, 105–6Google Scholar.

4 Manghit accounts portrayed Abu al-Fayz as submitting without a fight, with an emphasis on the role of Muhammad Hakim Khan Manghit and Rahim Bey Manghit as intermediaries, while Kazim described an actual battle in which Nadir Shah defeated the Manghit father–son duo. Kazim, Muhammad, ʿAlam Ar-ayi Nadiri (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-i Zawwar, 1985), 790–91Google Scholar. Andreas Wilde suggests that this encounter was unlikely to have taken place since it was only mentioned in Kazim's account. Wilde, What Is Beyond the River? Power, Authority and Social Order in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Transoxania (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2016), 364.

5 Ziyaʾ, Tarjumih-i Hal-i Abaʾ wa-Ajdad, 116–117b.

6 Nadir Shah was from a Turkmen tribe and probably raised as a Shiʿa, though his views on religion were complex and often pragmatic. Lockhart, L., Nadir Shah: A Critical Study Based Mainly upon Contemporary Sources (London: Luzac & Co., 1938), 21Google Scholar. Given this Turkic ethnic background, coupled with Persianate high culture (a combination similar to that of the Manghits), Nadir Shah is characterized here as “Turko-Persian,” following Canfield, Robert L., “Introduction: The Turko-Persian Tradition,” in Turko-Persia in Historical Perspective, ed. Canfield, Robert L (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1–34Google ScholarPubMed.

7 As understood here, Central Eurasia's “even longer” 19th century runs from 1747 to 1917, from the collapse of Nadir Shah's empire to the Bolshevik Revolution.

8 See, for instance, Bregel, Yuri, “The New Uzbek States: Bukhara, Khiva and Khoqand c. 1750–1886,” in The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age, ed. Cosmo, Nicola Di, Frank, Allen J., and Golden, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 392–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mukhtarov, A., “The Manghīts,” in History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 5, ed. Adle, Chahryar and Habib, Irfan (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2003), 53–62Google Scholar; and Soucek, Svat, A History of Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chap. 14. Similarly, Central Asia appears as a relatively unimportant conquest in studies of Nadir Shah's life and rule, and the conversion narrative is absent entirely. Axworthy, The Sword of Persia; Lockhart, Nadir Shah; Tucker, Ernest, Nadir Shah's Quest for Legitimacy in Post-Safavid Iran (Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 2006Google Scholar). This is also true of much of the Iranian secondary literature: ʿQadiyani, Abbas, Tarikh, Farhang wa-Tamaddun-i Iran dar Dawra-i Afshariyyih wa-Zandiyyih (Tehran: Farhang-i Maktub, 2005), 41Google Scholar.

9 Remarkably, the vast Afsharid Empire has yet to receive comprehensive treatment. Lockhart's classic study does not critically engage the chronicle sources (despite promising just that in the title). Lockhart, Nadir Shah. Michael Axworthy offers an imaginative biographical treatment of the conqueror, but relies heavily on the previous study. Axworthy, The Sword of Persia; Welsford, Thomas, “Review of Axworthy's The Sword of Persia,” Journal of Islamic Studies 20 (2009): 109–13Google Scholar. Historians have offered useful insights into how Nadir Shah legitimated his rule, but studies of the business of running an empire are for the most part limited to Soviet and Iranian scholarship. Tucker, , Nadir Shah's Quest for LegitimacyGoogle Scholar; Arunova, M. R., Gosudarstvo Nadir-Shakha Afshara: Ocherki Obshchestvennykh Otnoshenii v Irane 30-40-x Godov XVIII Veka (Moskva: Izd. Vostochnoi Literatury, 1958Google Scholar); Petrushevskii, I. P., Ocherki po Istorii Feodalʹnykh Otnoshenii v Azerbaidzhane i Armenii v XVI-Nachale XIX vv (Leningrad: Izd. Leningradskogo Gos. Ordena Lenina, 1949Google Scholar); Turab Sardadwar, Abu, Tarikh-i Niẓami wa-Siyasi-yi Dawran-i Nadir Shah Afshar (Tehran: Sitad-i Buzurg-i Artishan, 1975Google Scholar).

10 See, for example, Cohn, Bernard S., “The Census, Social Structure, and Objectification in South Asia,” in Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, ed. Cohn, Bernard S. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 224–54Google Scholar; Pandey, Gyanendra, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990Google Scholar); and Werth, Paul W., “From ‘Pagan’ Muslims to ‘Baptized’ Communists: Religious Conversion and Ethnic Particularity in Russia's Eastern Provinces,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (2000): 497–523Google Scholar.

11 Scholarship on the premodern period tends to characterize sectarian boundaries as fluid and overlapping. McChesney, Robert D., “‘Barrier of Heterodoxy’?: Rethinking the Ties between Iran and Central Asia in the 17th Century,” Pembroke Papers 4 (1996): 231–67Google Scholar; Bayly, Susan, “The Limits of Islamic Expansion in South India,” in Islam and Indian Regions, ed. Libera Dallapriccola, Anna and Zingel-Avé Lallemant, Stephanie (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993), 453–90Google Scholar.

12 An early exception (corroborated by this study) is Cole, Juan, Roots of North Indian Shīʿism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722–1859 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1989Google Scholar).

13 DeWeese, Devin, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994Google Scholar); Purohit, Teena, The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

14 Ho, Engseng, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Schwarz, “From Scholars to Saints: The Bukharan Shaykhs of Guybar and the Ziyarats to the Four Bakr.”

15 Works on Nadir Shah often mention Rahim Bey's conscription into the Afsharid army in 1740, but do not follow his career after the empire's collapse. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 187–90; Floor, Willem M., The Rise and Fall of Nader Shah: Dutch East India Company Reports, 1730–1747 (Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers, 2009Google Scholar); Avery, Peter, “Nādir Shāh and the Afsharid Legacy,” in The Cambridge History of Iran: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, ed. Avery, P., Hambly, G. R. G., and Melville, C. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 3–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Axworthy, The Sword of Persia. Conversely, literature from the Central Asian side emphasizes the agency of Rahim Bey and mentions Nadir Shah in passing. Mukhtarov, “The Manghits”; Bregel, “The New Uzbek States”; Soucek, A History of Inner Asia.

16 On this title, see Bregel, Yuri, The Administration of Bukhara under the Manghïts and Some Tashkent Manuscripts, Papers on Inner Asia, no. 3 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2000Google Scholar).

17 Bregel, “The New Uzbek States: Bukhara, Khiva and Khoqand c. 1750–1886,” 394. On Nadir Shah's invasion of Khwarazm, see Abdurasulov, Ulfatbek, “Ot Arabshakhidov k Kungradam: Dinamika i Politicheskii Landshaft Khorezma v Period Pravleniia Dvukh Dinastii,” O'zbekiston Tarixi 2 (2013): 20–22Google Scholar.

18 Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?

19 Bregel, “The New Uzbek States,” 394–95.

20 After all, even the Russian Empire has been characterized as a “hodgepodge of conflicting jurisdictions distinguished by no guiding principle of government.” Rieber, Alfred, “The Sedimentary Society,” in Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia, ed. Clowes, Edith W., Kassow, Samuel D., and West, James L. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 344Google Scholar. See also Kołodziejczyk, Dariusz, “What Is Inside and What Is Outside? Tributary States in Ottoman Politics,” in The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Kármán, Gábor and Kuncevic, Lovro, The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, v. 53 (Leiden: Brill, 2013Google Scholar).

21 Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 796. This is also confirmed by numismatic evidence: Fedorov, Michaelet al., Sylloge Numorum Arabicorum Tübingen: Buhārā/Samarqand XVa Mittelasien/Central Asia I (Tübingen, Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 2008), 54Google Scholar.

22 Kazim acknowledges that the khuṭba and sikka were implemented in the name of the Tuqay-Timurid ruler after Nadir Shah left the region—for instance, during the brief enthronement in 1747 of ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, Abu al-Fayz's twelve-year-old son. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1120.

23 Ibid., 1111. The fact that Kazim's chronicle makes a point of mentioning that Bihbud Khan ordered that the sikka and khuṭba be implemented in Nadir Shah's name in 1747 implies that such was not the case during the intervening period—but the evidence is inconclusive.

24 Dominant historiography places the rise of the Manghit dynasty in 1740 immediately after Nadir Shah moved on to Khwarazm. Mukhtarov, “The Manghits,” 55.

25 Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 830, 936.

26 The ruler of Badakhshan enjoyed a degree of independence not so different from that of the ruler of Bukhara, who was also granted the title of padishah. Nadir Shah's chronicler makes it clear that Mirza Nabat never bent his knee to the World Conqueror (sar az iṭāʿat-i ṣāhib-i qirān na pīchīd). Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1099. These events receive no mention in a chronicle about the Yarid dynasty of Badakhshan, despite Afsharid forces swarming through central Eurasia in the middle of Mirza Nabat's reign. Fazl ʿAli-Bek Surkhafsar and Sang-Muhammad, Taʿrikh-i Badakhshan, Istoriia Badakhshana, ed. A.N. Boldyrev (Leningrad: Izd. Leningradskogo Universiteta, 1959).

27 Mirab Munis, Shir Muhammad, Firdaws al-Iqbal: History of Khorezm, trans. Bregel, Yuri (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 66Google Scholar.

28 The most detailed treatment of this political landscape can be found in Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?

29 Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 796.

30 Ibid., 802.

31 Bihbud Khan had already proved his mettle by putting down a rebellion in Astarabad on the southeastern shore of the Caspian Sea and campaigning in the Kipchak steppe. Ibid., 1103. See also Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?, 344. Bihbud's further exploits in Turkestan are absent in most narrative accounts of Nadir Shah's empire, though they are briefly mentioned in Shaʿbani, Riza, Tarikh-i Ijtimaʿi-yi Iran dar ʿAsr-i Afshariyya (Tehran: Muʾassasih-i Intisharat-i Nawin, 1986), 539–40Google Scholar.

32 Abu al-Fayz requested the intervention of Nadir Shah's forces when the very outskirts of Bukhara began to be plundered. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1101–2. ʿIbad Allah Khatayi was formerly a member of Abu al-Fayz Khan's retinue (az chākirān), which he may have entered during the Kipchak invasion that devastated much of Transoxania in the 1720s. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1101. On the scope of the devastation in Central Asia during the first half of the 18th century, see Sela, Ron, The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chap. 6.

33 As will be shown subsequently, Nadir Shah clearly invested his confidence in Rahim Bey as well by appointing him to the same position (atalïq) as his father, preferring a system of overlapping jurisdiction to balance potential rivals against one another. Kazim describes his atalïq-ship as equivalent to authority in Bukhara (ṣāḥib-i ikhtiyār dar ān mamlakat), but also one ostensibly subordinate to the Tuqay-Timurid monarch (dar khadamāt-i pādishāh)—whereas Bihbud Khan's appointment to the post of sardar was over all of Turkestan (rather than just Bukhara) and included no such caveats vis-à-vis the padishah. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1102–3.

34 Manghit chronicles assert Muhammad Hakim Khan's death as the direct cause of the rebellions, implying that a Manghit was already effectively the glue holding Bukhara together. While Manghit chronicles indicate that rebellions broke out already in 1744, they did not grow severe enough to provoke a response from Nadir Shah until the end of 1746, which fits poorly with this explanation. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1094; Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?, 487.

35 When news of this perfidy reached Nadir Shah in Mashhad, he rebuked Rahim Bey for not telling him sooner, and gave him an army to avenge the transgression. Muhammad Yaʿqub Bukhari, Risala-i Muhammad Yaʿqub Bukhari, ms. Sankt-Peterburgskii Filial Instituta Vostokovedenii, Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk: Institut Vostochnykh Rukopisei no. 1934, 3b; Sharif Jan Makhdum Sadr Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, ms. IVANUz, no. 1304-II, 38; Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?, 606.

36 For a discussion of the many ways in which Manghit chronicles depicted legitimacy in relation to Nadir Shah, see Kügelgen, Anke von, Legitimatsiia sredneaziatskoi dinastii mangitov v proizvedeniiakh ikh istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv. (Almaty: Daik-Press, 2004), 233Google Scholar; and Axworthy, Michael, The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 233–45Google Scholar.

37 Imam Husayni Chishti, Husayn Shahi, ms. Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library (Patna, India) no. 530, 7b–8.

38 Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1120. The conventional narrative generally attributes the decision to depose Abu al-Fayz and put his son on the throne as coming directly from Rahim Bey. Mukhtarov, “The Manghits,” 55. Sadr Ziyaʾ, however, wrote that it was Nadir Shah's preference to keep a Chinggisid on the Bukharan throne. Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 38. For several other versions of how this decision came to pass, see Wilde, What Is Beyond the River?, 616–17.

39 The Bukharan (and Khoqand) chronicles do not shy away from the fact that Rahim Bey executed Abu al-Fayz. Abu al-Fayz warned Bihbud Khan of the plot in advance, but Bihbud Khan doubted the veracity of the news of Nadir Shah's death, not believing Rahim Bey capable of such an act. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1122.

40 Muhammad Kazim explicitly attributed their treachery to their shared Sunni maẓhab and similar customs. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1124–25.

41 In one Bukharan chronicle, it is at this point that Rahim Bey put ʿAbd al-Muʾmin bin Abu al-Fayz on the throne as a compromise, having fought Bihbud Khan to a standstill. Bukhari, Risala-i Muhammad Yaʿqub, 3b-4. After various intrigues in Balkh, Bihbud Khan ended up returning to Astarabad, where he joined another sardar’s campaign into the Kipchak steppe, never again to contest Rahim Bey's supremacy in Bukhara. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 1136.

42 This succession was remarkably similar to power struggles throughout the region. For instance, when Ahmad Abdali, founder of the Durrani Afghan dynasty, learned of Nadir Shah's assassination, he immediately took a force of 3,000 to protect the slain emperor's harem. Then “at dawn he clashed with a group of Qizilbash renegades and evil Afshar who were plundering the royal coffers, routed them, and took charge of all the money and valuables.” Soon after proclaiming the Durrani dynasty, Ahmad Abdali managed to seize several years’ worth of revenue bound for Nadir Shah's court on its way from Kabul and Peshawar provinces. Katib Hazarah, Fayz Muhammad, The History of Afghanistan: Fayz Muhammad Katib Hazarah's Siraj al-Tawarikh, vol. 1, trans. McChesney, Robert D. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 11–12Google Scholar.

43 Von Kügelgen emphasizes the continued salience of claims to Chinggisid lineage even after the Manghit rise. Von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia sredneaziatskoi dinastii mangitov v proizvedeniiakh ikh istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 50. This was also true of the Timurids, who did not enjoy patrilineal descent from Chinggis Khan, but nevertheless justified their rule through Chinggisid ideology. Subtelny, Maria, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Sela, Ron, Ritual and Authority in Central Asia: The Khan's Inauguration Ceremony, Papers on Inner Asia, no. 37 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2003), 4Google Scholar.

45 Forbes Manz, Beatrice, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 21Google Scholar; Sela, Ritual and Authority in Central Asia: The Khan's Inauguration Ceremony, 34–35; Broadbridge, Anne F., Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 179–81Google Scholar.

46 The first ruler of the Qongrat Dynasty (r. 1804−6) in Khiva ordered the writing of a royal chronicle immediately after deposing the Chinggisid puppet and proclaiming himself khan. Bregel, Yuri, “Tribal Tradition and Dynastic History: The Early Rulers of the Qongrats according to Munis,” Asian and African Studies 16 (1982): 381–82Google Scholar.

47 When Nadir Shah's son, Rizaʿ Quli, conquered Balkh in July 1737, the city was ruled by the Chinggisid Abu al-Hasan Khan. However, the real power was held by the atalïq. Kazim, ʿAlam Ara-yi Nadiri, 576.

48 The importance of Timur to the Mughals for justifying their rule is well known (e.g., Balabanlilar, Lisa, “Lords of the Auspicious Conjunction: Turco-Mongol Imperial Identity on the Subcontinent,” Journal of World History 18 [2007]: 1–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and even the nearby Ming dynasty invented a Timurid connection to valorize their house. Erkinov, Aftandil, “Fabrication of Legitimation in the Khoqand Khanate under the Reign of ʿUmar-Khan (1225–1237/1810–1822): Palace Manuscript of ‘Bakhtiyar-Nama’ Daqayiqi Samarqandi as a Source for the Legend of Altun Bishik,” Manuscripta Orientalia 19 (2013): 3–18Google Scholar. Similarly, just as Nadir Shah kept Safavid figureheads on the throne until 1740 (hence Nadir Shah's title Tahmasp Quli Khan, “slave of Tahmasp”), Karim Khan Zand kept Shahrukh (Nadir Shah's grandson) installed in Khurasan. See Perry, John R., Karim Khan Zand (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006)Google Scholar.

49 The direct connection between Nadir Shah and the end of Chinggisid rule was made explicit by some Central Asian chroniclers. See, for example, Jumʿa-Quli Khumuli, Tarikh-i Khumuli, ms. IVANUz no. 37, 185a.

50 Von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia sredneaziatskoi dinastii mangitov v proizvedeniiakh ikh istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 84.

51 Subtelny, Timurids in Transition, 38, 109.

52 Von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia Sredneaziatskoi Dinastii Mangitov v Proizvedeniiakh Ikh Istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 50.

53 The Central Asian ʿulamaʾ welcomed the expression of piety, of course, but preferred to view themselves in the role of the teacher rather than fully cede Islamic authority to the monarch. For instance: Mir Salman Samarqandi, Tafsil u Bayan-i Dawlat-i Jamaʿat-i Manghit az Zaman-i Rahim Khan, ms. Sankt-Peterburgskii Filial Instituta Vostokovedenii, Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk: Institut Vostochnykh Rukopisei no. 667, 178a.

54 Mughal rule was already being rolled back by emergent polities such as the Marathas, but the British were acutely aware of the Mughal emperor's humiliation before Nadir Shah (quite similar to that of Abu al-Fayz Khan, in that both were restored to the throne as vassals), and that awareness fueled colonial expansion. Sanjay Subrahmanyam even hypothesizes an alternate history in which an enduring Afsharid empire fended off the Europeans well into the 19th century: “Un Grand Dérangement: Dreaming an Indo-Persian Empire in South Asia, 1740–1800,” Journal of Early Modern History 4 (2000): 337–78.

55 Cole, Roots of North Indian Shīʿism in Iran and Iraq, 230–31.

56 Numerous examples of south–north traffic are evident in Muhammad Mazhar Mujaddidi, Manaqib al-Ahmadiyya wa-Maqamat al-Saʿidiyya, ms. IVANUz no. 2933/II (e.g., 218–222b). See also Gross, Jo-Ann, “The Naqshbandīya Connection: From Central Asia to India and Back (16th–19th Centuries),” in India and Central Asia: Commerce and Culture, 1500–1800, ed. Levi, Scott (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), 232–59Google Scholar.

57 Of course, the founder of the Mujaddidi branch—Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi—died over a century before Nadir Shah's conquests; and the earliest Mujaddidi preachers showed up in Bukhara already at the end of the 17th century (i.e., Hajji Habib Allah). Nevertheless, the appeal of those doctrines can be traced to the “the decay of the Ashtarkhanid [i.e., Tuqay-Timurid] rule in the first half of the 18th century,” which was a consequence of the Afsharid conquest. DeWeese, Devin, “‘Dis-Ordering’ Sufism in Early Modern Central Asia: Suggestions for Rethinking the Sources and Social Structures of Sufi History in the 18th and 19th Centuries,” in History and Culture of Central Asia, ed. Babadjanov, Bakhtiyar and Yayoi, Kawahara (Tokyo: University of Tokyo, 2012), 262Google Scholar.

58 Babadzhanov, Bakhtiar, “On the History of the Naqshbandiya Mujaddidiya in Central Mawara'nnahr in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” in Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, ed. von Kügelgen, Anke, Kemper, Michael, and Frank, Allen (Berlin: Klaus, Schwartz, Verlag, 1998Google Scholar); von Kügelgen, Anke, “Rastsvet Nakshbandiia-Mudzhaddidiia v Srednei Transoksanii s XVIII–Do Nachala XIX vv.: Opyt Detektivnogo Rassledovaniia,” in Sufism v Tsentral'noi Azii, ed. Khismatulin, A. A. (St. Petersburg: Filologicheskii Fakul'tet Sankt-Peterburskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 2001), 275–30Google Scholar; DeWeese, “‘Dis-Ordering’ Sufism in Early Modern Central Asia.”

59 Von Kügelgen, “Rastsvet Nakshbandiia-Mudzhaddidiia v Srednei Transoksanii s XVIII–do Nachala XIX vv.: Opyt Detektivnogo Rassledovaniia,” 278–79.

60 Pickett, James, “The Persianate Sphere during the Age of Empires: Islamic Scholars and Networks of Exchange in Central Asia 1747–1917” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2015Google Scholar), chap. 3.

61 Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India; Cohn, Bernard S., Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996Google Scholar); Makdisi, Ussama, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2000Google Scholar).

62 Although the colonial impact on intrareligious boundaries has not received sustained investigation in the Russian case, parallel literature has demonstrated the Russian impact on ethnic boundaries: Abashin, S. N., “Empire and Demography in Turkestan: Numbers and the Politics of Counting,” in Asiatic Russia: Imperial Power in Regional and International Contexts, ed. Uyama, Tomohiko (New York: Routledge, 2012), 129–50Google Scholar; and Khalid, Adeeb, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998Google Scholar).

63 Again, the chronology here parallels that in Cole, Roots of North Indian Shīʿism in Iran and Iraq, chap. 9.

64 McChesney, “‘Barrier of Heterodoxy’?”

65 Muhammad Wafa-yi Karminagi, Tuhfat al-Khani, ms. IVANUz, no. 2721, 23a–b, 27a. It should be noted as well, however, that the very same chronicler later praised Nadir Shah (e.g., f. 110a) and the order he imposed, which Wolfgang Holzworth has described as the “gentleman's way of conquest.” Holzworth, “Relations between Uzbek Central Asia, the Great Steppe and Iran, 1700–1750,” in Shifts and Drifts in Nomad–Sedentary Relations, ed. Stefan Leder and Bernhard Streck (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2005), 204.

66 This translation assumes that kufr (infidelity), as it appears in the manuscript, was intended as kāfir (infidel), though the meaning remains the same either way. Khumuli, Tarikh-i Khumuli, 189b. Despite asserting Nadir Shah's Shiʿism (f. 185a), Khumuli's account portrays him as a fair arbiter between the sects in his theological project, and even suggests that his murder at the hands of the Qizilbash was a consequence of his sympathy toward Sunnism. Ibid., 187a–b.

67 Kimura, Satoru, “Sunni–Shiʿi Relations in the Russian Protectorate of Bukhara, as Perceived by the Local ʿUlamaʾ,” in Asiatic Russia: Imperial Power in Regional and International Contexts, ed. Uyama, Tomohiko (London: Routledge, 2011), 189–215Google Scholar.

68 Anti-Shiʿa sentiment comes through in legal notebooks of the period. For instance, one such ruling declares Shiʿi cities as part of the Abode of War (dār al-ḥarb) and enjoins Sunni rulers to wage war against them. Untitled legal manual, designated Sbornik vypisok iz sochinenii po fikkhu i iuridicheskikh kazusov, ms. RNBOR no. F 924 D 558, 392b. ʿAbd al-Ghafur Turkistani describes in his memoir the execution of a Tashkent shop owner for cursing the first three Rightly Guided caliphs while venerating ʿAli (c. 1830s). ʿAbd al-Ghafur Turkistani, Bayan-i Dastan-i Sarguzasht-i ʿAbd al-Ghafar Turkistani, ms. Rossiskaia Natsional'naia Biblioteka, Otdel Rukopisei, no. Khanykov 53, 19a.

69 Von Kügelgen suggests that Hadizada (i.e., “son of Hadi”) was none other than ʿAtaʾ Allah, a figure discussed subsequently. Von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia sredneaziatskoi dinastii mangitov v proizvedeniiakh ikh istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 242.

70 Hadizada, Safarnama-i Qazi Hadi Khwaja az Bukhara ba Iran, ms. IVANUz no. 5255/XVIII, 150b–155a. See also von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia sredneaziatskoi dinastii mangitov v proizvedeniiakh ikh istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 242.

71 Algar, Hamid, “Shiʿism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century,” in Shiʿism, ed. Luft, Paul and Turner, Colin, vol. 1 (New York: Routledge, 2008), 330Google Scholar. ʿAbd Allah ibn Husayn al-Suwaydi confirms Hadi Khwaja's role in the discussions. One Mulla Umid Sudur, quite likely the same individual as Mirza Umid of the opening passage of this article, also appears on the list of Central Asian scholars. ʿHusayn Suwaydi, Abd Allah ibn, Muʾtamar al-Najaf (Egypt: al-Matbaʿa al-Salafiyya, 1973), 40Google Scholar.

72 Robert McChesney argues that in many contexts even the very term “Shiʿism” is misleading because it conjures modern binaries not applicable to the early modern period. Instead, the alternative ahl al-baytism (people of the house [of the Prophet Muhammad]) serves to describe the reverence for the Prophet's family that cut across sectarian lines and was particularly prominent in Sufi orders of all stripes. Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 34.

73 Central Asian sources often considered all Iranian religious personages to be Qizilbash, whatever their actual status. For instance, some notes jotted down on scrap paper during one of Alexander Kun's Central Asian expeditions refer to Nadir Shah himself as one of the Qizilbash (Nadīr [sic] az Qizilbāsh āmada). “Fragmenty iz istorii Srednei Azii ot o epokhe Nadir-shakha i Abdully-khana,” Sankt-Peterburgskii Filial Instituta Vostokovedenii Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk: Arkhiv Vostokovedov, F 33 O 1 D 140.

74 Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 233; Algar, “Shiʿism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century,” 330–32. This encounter in Najaf was also mentioned in three of the Manghit chronicles. Von Kügelgen, Legitimatsiia Sredneaziatskoi Dinastii Mangitov v Proizvedeniiakh Ikh Istorikov, XVIII–XIX vv., 242.

75 Algar, “Shiʿism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century,” 330–31; Suwaydi, Muʾtamar al-Najaf, 40–44.

76 Safarnama-i Qazi Hadi Khwaja az Bukhara ba Iran, 152b. The signed document itself is included in Nawaʾi's collection of Afsharid documents; Hadi Khwaja's name is apparently not among the discernable seals, but several of his colleagues attested by Suwaydi indeed appear. ʿAbd al-Husayn Nawaʾi, Shah, Nadirwa-Bazmandaganash Hamrah ba Namaha-yi Sulṭanati wa-Asnad-i Siyasi wa-Idari (Tehran: Intisharat-i Zarin, 1990), 339Google Scholar.

77 Nadir hoped that securing such an accord with the Ottomans would at once deprive them of a convenient casus belli for waging war against Iran and cast him as a defender of Shiʿism. Toward the end of his reign, after many battles with the Ottomans, Nadir abandoned his calls for a Jaʿfari maẓhab. Tucker, Ernest, “Nadir Shah and the Jaʿfari Madhhab Reconsidered,” Iranian Studies 27 (1994): 163–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Indeed, the composition of the scholars in attendance partly explains why the Ottomans had so little interest in it. Algar, “Shiʿism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century,” 332.

79 Nawaʾi, Nadir Shah wa-Bazmandaganash Hamrah ba Namaha-yi Sulṭanati wa-Asnad-i Siyasi wa-Idari, 338–39.

80 Safarnama-i Qazi Hadi Khwaja az Bukhara ba Iran, 153a.

81 Ibid., 153 marginalia and 154a. The rupees Nadir Shah was handing out in Iraq presumably originated from his famous sack and pillage of Delhi in 1739.

82 Ibid., 155a, marginalia. It does not specify who did the appointing.

83 My gratitude to Andreas Wilde for sharing this text with me.

84 The Mulla Bashi was the highest religious authority under the Safavids. Sefatgol, Mansur, “From Dar al-Saltana-yi Isfahan to Dar Al-Khilafih-i Tihran,” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Gleave, Robert (New York: Routledge, 2009), 76–77Google Scholar.

85 Muhammad Sharif ibn Muhammad Naqi, Taj al-Tawarikh, ms. IVANUz no. 2092, 308b–310.

86 Taj al-Tawarikh, 310a.

87 Ibid., 312a.

88 Nadir Shah convened the debate in order to “expose the correct path and legal school” (barāyi iẓhār-i maslak wa-maẕhab-i ṣawāb) and to “eliminate doubt and dissention” (mawād-i shubha wa-khalal az mā bayn mundafiʿ wa-silsila-i nizāʿ wa-jadal rā az ṭarafayn munqaṭiʿ sāzand). Taj al-Tawarikh, 307b–308b.

89 Taj al-Tawarikh, 311b.

90 Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, m.s. Biblioteka Vostochnogo Fakul'teta, Sankt-Peterburgskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet no. 854, 676b.

91 Hakim Khan, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 344. Muhammad Yaʿqub Bukhari, who was the twelfth son of the second Manghit ruler, Daniyal Ataliq (r. 1759–85), referenced a delegation of ʿulamaʾ and umarāʾ sent to Charbakr, but emphasized the role of Manghit dynasty founder Rahim Khan (r. 1747–59) and did not mention any theological debates. Bukhari, Risalih-i Muhammad Yaʿqub Bukhari, 2b–3b. Another account puts Eshan Imla at the Charbakr parlay, but mentions no conversion. Anonymous, Zikr-i Tarikh-i Abu al-Fayz Khan, 266a.

92 By contrast, in the Safarnama-i Qazi Hadi Khwaja it is the Bukharan scholar who performs a religious service for Nadir.

93 That servant, Muhammad Sharif, used the wealth to become a scholar in his own right and eventually built an eponymously named madrasa where Muhammad Hakim Khan, the chronicle's author, studied. Hakim Khan, Muntakhab al-Tawarikh, 345.

94 DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde, 6, 11. Gauri Viswanathan further emphasizes the power of such an event: Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), xi.

95 Sharif Jan Makhdum Sadr Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, ms. IVANUz, no. 1304-II, 37. Ziyaʾ also mentions Nadir Shah's royal gift to Eshan Imla and the subsequent founding of the Muhammad Sharif madrasa—where Ziyaʾ’s own father, ʿAbd al-Shakur, taught for a time—on that largesse. Ziyaʾ, Tarjuma-i Ahwal-i Qazi ʿAbd al-Shakur, ms. IVANUz no. 1304/IV, 103b.

96 Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 37b.

97 Ibid., 38–39b.

98 Ziyaʾ, Tarjuma-i Ahwal-i Qazi ʿAbd al-Shakur, 116b–117.

99 Other scholars (usually ten) tapped into the memory of Nadir Shah's conversion as well, and some of those scholars initiated family dynasties of their own. For instance, Mirza Umid (mentioned in the introductory quote in this article) and his descendants were rewarded handsomely: Mirza Umid was appointed qazi, his son Sabir'jan personally tutored one of Amir Haydar's sons, another son—Mirza Sharif—became a famous mufti, and his grandson Karamat Allah continued the tradition of princely tutoring. Ziyaʾ, Tarjuma-i Ahwal-i Qazi ʿAbd al-Shakur, 117a–b, 119a–b.

100 Enseng Ho writes: “genealogy presents a linear aspect which may be pressed into service as a vehicle for narrative.” Ho, The Graves of Tarim, xxiii.

101 However, a major section of Mir Musayyab Bukhari's work traces Hadi Khwaja's ancestry all the way back to the Prophet. Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, ms. Biblioteka Vostochnogo Fakul'teta, Sankt-Peterburgskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet no. 854, 6–8b. Also, Suwaydi lists him first among the Central Asian delegates to Najaf, and with the title al-ʿalāma (learned scholar) and baḥr al-ʿilm (ocean of knowledge). Muʾtamar al-Najaf, 40.

102 Nizam al-Din Khwaja Husayni (d. 1199/1785f) was the first qāżī-yi kalān (chief judge) appointed by the founding Manghit ruler, Rahim Khan (r. 1747–59). He was also allegedly one of the “ten scholars” who converted Nadir Shah to Sunnism (as against the “seven” reported by Suwaydi in Najaf), but that service did not save him when Shah Murad Manghit found him guilty of corruption and impious behavior. Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 39b.

103 The Majmaʿ al-Arqam describes the supreme judge (qāżī al-qużāt synonymous with qāżī-yi kalān) as subordinate to the shaykh al-Islam. Levi, Scott and Sela, Ron, eds., Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2010), 270Google Scholar.

104 Ākhūnd was an honorific title given to the mudarris of the Kokultash madrasa; it also had the more general meaning of teacher.

105 Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 43a, 45b.

106 Documents bear ʿAtaʾ Allah's shaykh al-Islam seal from at least 1788–89. Welsford, Thomas and Tashev, Nouryaghdi, eds., A Catalogue of Arabic-Script Documents from the Samarqand Museum (Samarqand–Istanbul: International Institute for Central Asian Studies, 2012), 56Google Scholar.

107 Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, 640–41b, 676b. On Muhammad Siddiq, see Babadzhanov, “On the History of the Naqshbandiya Mujaddidiya in Central Mawara'nnahr in the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” 395–96.

108 Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, 676b; Abu al-Barakat al-Mulaqqab bi-Padishah ʿAziz Khwaja Mirgani Razawi, Manaqib wa-Maqamat-i Sayyid Muhammad ʿAtaʾ Allah Shaykh al-Islam, ms. Rossiskaia Natsional'naia Biblioteka, Otdel Rukopisei, Sankt-Peterburg no. P.n.s. 200, 3.

109 Memory of ʿAtaʾ Allah was also perpetuated through the sanctification of his tomb, which (along with that of his father) was reported as a pilgrimage destination in an early 20th-century Tatar pamphlet. Muhammad ʿArif al-Muʿazi, Tarikh-i Bukhara wa-Tarjumat al-ʿUlamaʾ (Tarikh-i Muʿaziyyih) (Orenburg, Russia: Din u Maʿishat, 1908), 17.

110 Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, 729b–730.

111 Abu al-Barakat Razawi, Manaqib wa-Maqamat-i Sayyid Muhammad ʿAtaʾ Allah Shaykh al-Islam, 64a.

112 Rahmat Allah married the daughter of Sadr al-Din Khwaja. Mir Musayyab Bukhari, Kitab-i Maqamat-i Mashayikh, 725a. Sadr al-Din was the son of Padishah Khwaja, whose presence at Najaf is attested by Suwaydi. Muʾtamar al-Najaf, 40.

113 Marjani, Wafayat al-Aslaf wa-Tahiyyat al-Akhlaf, 139b. Based on document evidence, Rahmat Allah was legally active since at least 1799–1800. Welsford and Tashev, A Catalogue of Arabic-Script Documents from the Samarqand Museum, 68–69.

114 Abu al-Barakat Razawi, Manaqib wa-Maqamat-i Sayyid Muhammad ʿAtaʾ Allah Shaykh al-Islam, 49a.

115 Eshan Sharif Khwaja was legally active from at least 1818 to 1819, as military judge (qāżī-yi ʿaskar) from 1820 to 1821, and qāẓī-yi kalān from 1826 to 1827, with a last document reference from 1841. Welsford and Tashev, A Catalogue of Arabic-Script Documents from the Samarqand Museum, 78.

116 Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 45b.

117 Ibid., 45b–46.

118 Ibid., 48b–49.

119 Ibid., 49a.

120 Dudoignon, Stéphane A., “Faction Struggles among the Bukharan Ulama during the Colonial, the Revolutionary and the Early Soviet Periods (1826–1929): A Paradigm for History Writing?,” in Muslim Societies: Historical and Comparative Aspects, ed. Tsugitaka, Sato (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 62–96Google Scholar.

121 Ziyaʾ, Tarjuma-i Ahwal-i Qazi ʿAbd al-Shakur, 116b.

122 Welsford and Tashev, A Catalogue of Arabic-Script Documents from the Samarqand Museum, 128, 140–42.

123 Ziyaʾ, Tazkar-i Ashʿar, 289–90; Afzal Pirmasti, Afzal al-Tazkar fi Zikr al-Shuʿaraʾ wa-l-Ashʿar, ms. IVANUz, no. 2303, 51a–b.

124 Muhtaram, Tazkirat al-Shuʿara, 96b; Pirmasti, Afzal al-Tazkar fi Zikr al-Shuʿaraʾ wa-l-Ashʿar, 51–51b.

125 Welsford and Tashev, A Catalogue of Arabic-Script Documents from the Samarqand Museum, 48.

126 Ziyaʾ, Nawadir Ziyaʾiyyih, 43.

127 Ibid., 48b.

128 McChesney, Robert D., “Central Asia's Place in the Middle East: Some Historical Considerations,” in Central Asia Meets the Middle East, ed. Menashri, David (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 42Google Scholar.