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The Economic Status of A Timurid Sufi Shaykh: A Matter of Conflict or Perception?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jo-Ann Gross
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Extract

The word “Sufi” is believed by some to be derived from the word “suf,” denoting a kind of woolen garment worn by ascetics. The wearing of this garment symbolizes the Sufi's renunciation of material, worldly concerns and his complete absorption in God. Throughout the history of the Sufi orders, this symbol of the humble woolen cloak has often stood in contrast with the actual economic status attained by many Sufi shaykhs. In her book Mystical Dimensions of Islam, A. Schimmel drew attention to this contrast:

The history of the political role assumed by mystical leaders in Islamic communities has still to be written. And one enigma remains to be resolved: how so many of those who preached poverty as their pride became wealthy landlords and fitted perfectly into the feudal system, amassing wealth laid at their feet by poor, ignorant followers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 1-2: Soviet and North American Studies on Central Asia , 1988 , pp. 84 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1988

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Footnotes

*

This paper originated as part of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, New York University, 1982. I would like to thank the Social Science Research Council, The United States Department of Education, Fulbright-Hays Travel Grant Program, and the International Research and Exchanges Board for their generous support of the research for this project which was undertaken in 1979-80.

References

1 Schimmel quotes Hujwiri to summarize the definitions of Sufism. Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (North Carolina, 1975), p. 14.Google Scholar Some assert that the Sufi is so called because he wears a woolen garment (jāma-yi ṣūf), others that he is so called because he is in the first rank (ṣaff-i awwal), others say it is because the Sufis claim to belong to the aṣḥāb-i ṣuffa (the people of the Bench who gathered around the Prophet's mosque). Others, again, declare that the name is dervied from ṣafā (purity).

2 Ibid., p. 238

3 Such works include: Algar, H., “The Naqshbandi Order: A Preliminary Survey of its History and Significance,” Studia Islamica 44(1976), 123–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birge, J.K., The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (London, 1937)Google Scholar; Cahen, C., “Baba Ishaq, Baba Ilyas, Hadji Bektashi et quelques autres,” Turcica 1(1969), 53–64Google Scholar; Digby, S., “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Mediaeval India,” Purusartha 9(1986), 57–77Google Scholar; Eaton, R.M., The Sufis of Bijapur 1300-1700 (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar; Faroqhi, S., Der Bektaschi Orden in Anatolien (Vienna, 1981)Google Scholar, “Seyyid Gazi as Seen Through Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Sources,” Turcica (1981), 90-122, “Agricultural Activites in a Bektashi Center: The Tekke of Kizil Deli 1750-1830,” Südost-Forschungen 35(1976), 69–96Google Scholar, “The Tekke of Haci Bektaş: Social Position and Economic Activities,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7(1976), 183–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar, “Vakif Administration in Sixteenth Century Konya, the zaviye of Sadreddin-i Konevi,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17(1974), 145–172Google Scholar; W. Fusfeld, “The Shaping of Sufi Leadership in Dehli, The Naqshbandiyya Mujadidiyya, 1750-1920,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1981; Gilsenan, M., Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt: A Essay in the Sociology of Religion (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Gellner, E., Saints of the Atlas (Chicago, 1969)Google Scholar; Hourani, A., “Sheikh Khalid and the Naqshbandi Order,” in Hourani, and Stern, (eds.), Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition (South Carolina, 1974)Google Scholar; Kissling, H.J., “The Sociological and Educational Role of the Darvish Orders in the Ottoman Empire,” American Anthropologist 56(1954), 23–35Google Scholar; Lawrence, B., “Islam in India: The Function of Institutional Sufism in the Islamization of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Kashmir,” in Martin, R. (ed.), Islam in Local Contexts (Leiden, 1982), 27–43Google Scholar; Melikoff, I., “Le problème kizilbaş,” Turcica 6(1975), pp. 49–67Google Scholar, “Les babas turcomans contemporains de Mevlana,” in Bildiriler, Mevlana'nin 700. Olum Yildonumu Dolayisiyle Uluslararasi Mevlana Semineri (Ankara, 1973), 268–274Google Scholar; Winter, M., “Sha'rani and Egyptian Society in the Sixteenth Century,” Asian and African Studies 9(1973), 313–338Google Scholar, “The Writings of ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani -- A Sufi Source for the Social and Intellectual Life of Sixteenth-Century Egypt,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1972, Trimingham, J.S., The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar

4 Faroqhi, 1981, 1976, 1974

5 Eaton, The Sufis of Bijapur

6 Gilsenan, Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt

7 Winter, “Sha'rani and Egyptian Society,” p. 314

8 Digby, “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority,” 62-69

9 There are four biographies extant on the life of Khwaja Ahrar. The earliest, the Majālis-i ‘Ubaydallāh Aḥrār (India Office DP 890) by Jalal al-din Abd al-Awwal Nishapuri (a disciple and son-in-law of Ahrar) was written sometime before Abd al-Awwal's death in 1500. This work is also known as Masmū'āt. The Silsilat al-'ārifīn was written by Burhan al-din Samarqandi (known as Mawlana Muhammad Qazi). Institute Vostokovedeniia, Tashkent, #4452/I. Qazi joined Ahrar in 1480 and stayed with him during the last ten years of Ahrar's life. The best known and largest, and at present single, published source on the Naqshbandi order and Ahrar is the Rashaḥāt ‘ayn al-ḥayāt, Mu'iniyan, Ali Ashghar, ed. (Tehran, 1970)Google Scholar. Written by Fakhr al-din Ali b. Husain al-Wa'iz al-Kashifi (known also as al-Safi), it was completed in 1503-04. The last biographical source, is the Manāqib-i Aḥrār, Institut Vostokovedeniia, Tashkent, #9730. Mawlana Shaykh, a disciple and one of Ahrar's overseers, is believed to have collected and copied the information in it. Four historical chronicles which are significant for this study are the Ḥabīb al-siyār, 4 vols., by Ghiyath al-Din Khwandamir, Abd al-Husain Nawa'i, ed. Tehran, 1955); the Rawḍat al-ṣafā', by Mirkhwand, , (Tehran, 1960-61)Google Scholar; the Maṭla’ al-ṣa'dayn (Tehran, 1949)Google Scholar, written by Kamal al-Din Abd al-Razzaq Samarqandi, and the Tārīkh-i Abū al-Khayr Khānī, by Mas'udi b. Uthman Kuhistani (Tashkent, C478, Aziatskii Muzei). O.D. Chekhovich's publication of documents for Ahrar's land and property transactions in Samarkandskie Dokumenty (Moscow, 1974)Google Scholar, is indispensable for understanding Ahrar's economic position in Central Asia. Khwaja Ahrar's own works include the Faqarat al-‘ārifīn, Institut Vostokovedeniia, #2355 and India Office, Ethé 1929; Risāla-yi dhikr, Institut Vostokovedeniia, #5460; Risāla-yi walīdiya, Institut Vostokovedeniia, #526; and his letters contained in the Majmū'āt-i Murāsalāt, Institut Vostokovedeniia, #3735/II.

10 V. Viatkin, “Iz biografii Khadzhi Akhrara,” Turkestanskie Vedomosti 147(1904)

11 The earliest discussions of Khwaja Ahrar by Russian scholars such as V.L. Viatkin, N.E. Veselovski, and N.G. Mallitskii, emphasized the great beneficial Influence which Khwaja Ahrar exerted. Viatkin, V.L., “O Khodzha-Akhrara-gaz,” Turkestanskie Vedomosti 3(1898)Google Scholar, and “Iz biografii khadzhi Akhrara,” Turkestanskie Vedomosti (1904), pp. 692-93; Mallitskii, N.G., “Izvestiia Tashkentskoi Gorodskoi Dumy,” (Tashkent, 1915)Google Scholar; N. Veselovski, “Pamiatnik Khodzhi Akhrara v Samarkande” Vostochnie Zametki (1895), pp. 323-24. A.N. Boldyrev's article on the historiography of Khwaja Ahrar is striking in its frank criticism of the Soviet treatment of Khwaja Ahrar. Boldyrev, A.N., “Eshche paz k vosprosu o Khodzha-Akhrare.” in Dukhovenstvo i Politicheskaia Zhizn na blizhnem i srednem vostoke v periode feodalizma (Moscow, 1985), pp. 47–63.Google Scholar In it, Boldyrev reviewed Soviet scholarship on Khwaja Ahrar, and called for a reevaluation of the established views of this shaykh and the Naqshbandi order as a whole. V.V. Barthold's work has probably had the greatest influence on the negative perceptions of Khwaja Ahrar, both in Soviet circles and the West. See especially Barthold, , “Ulug-Bek i Khodzha Akhrar,” Turkestanskie Vedomosti 193(1915)Google Scholar, and Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, Vol. II, Ulugh Beg, V. and T. Minorsky, trans. (Leiden 1963). Two early views of Khwaja Ahrar's economic and political role are Ivanov, P.P., K Istorii feodalnogo zemlevladeniia v srednei azii v 16-17th vv (Moscow, 1954)Google Scholar and Iakubovskii, A. Iu. “Cherty obshchestvennoi i kulturnoi zhizni epokhi Alishera Navoi,” in Ali Sher Navoi -- Sbornik Statei (Moscow, 1946), p. 5–30.Google Scholar In this study, Iakubovskii depicted Ahrar as a wealthy and greedy landlord. See also Nabiev, R., “Iz istorii politiko-ekonomicheskoi zhizni Mavarannakhra XV v. (Zametki o Khodzha-Akhrare)” in Velikii Uzbekskii Poet (Tashkent, 1948)Google Scholar. Chekhovich's great contributions to the study of Ahrar are her publications on Ahrar's waqf, and her appraisal of Ahrar's political influence, which were based on a full use of primary sources. These works include her best known, Samarkandskie Dokumenty, and numerous articles.

12 Barthold, V.V., Four Studies, Vol. III, pp. 33–34Google Scholar; Vol. II, p. 168

13 For the Caucasus, see: Henze, Paul, “Fire and Sword in the Caucasus: The Nineteenth Century Resistance of the North Caucasian Mountaineers,” Central Asiatic Survey 2(1983), p. 5–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bennigsen, Alexandre, “Muslim Guerrilla Warfare in the Caucasus 1918-1928,” Central Asiatic Survey 2(1983), pp. 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mankiev, A.A., “Iz istorii klerikalno-Musulmanskoi mysli v Checheno-Ingushetii,” Sotsiologiia ateizm, religiia (Groznyi, 1972), pp. 36–64Google Scholar, cited by Bennigsen, A. and Windbush, S.E., Mystics and Commissars: Sufism in the Soviet Union (London; 1985), p. 169Google Scholar. For the Andijan Revolt of 1898, see Beatrice Forbes Manz, “Central Asian Uprisings in the Nineteenth Century: Ferghana Under the Russians,” Russian Review (forthcoming). For Sufi involvement in Ch'ing Inner Asia see Fletcher, Joseph, “Ch'ing Inner Asia c. 1800,” in Twitchet, D. and Fairbank, J., eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10, Late Ching, 1800-1911 (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 35–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Rossabi, Morris, “Cracks in the Ch'ing Empire: Muslim Revolts,” in Rossabi, M., China and Inner Asia (London, 1975, pp. 166–191Google Scholar. On the Naqshbandiya and the Afghan resistance, see Roy, Olivier, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar and O. Roy, “Sufism in the Afghan Resistance,” Central Asiatic Survey (1983), pp. 61-79.

14 H. Algar, “The Naqshbandi Order,” p. 133

15 Ibid., p. 133-34

16 Khwaja Ahrar's political role, and the controversial interpretation of that role, was taken up by this author in J. Gross, “Khoja Ahrar: A Study of the Perceptions of Religious Power and Prestige in the Late Timurid Period,” Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1982, and “Multiple Roles and Perceptions of a Sufi Shaikh: Symbolic Statements of Political and Religious Authority,” in a forthcoming book devoted to the Naqshbandi order, Éditions des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, forthcoming.

17 Majālis-i Aḥrār, fol. 62a

18 Ibid., fol. 60b

19 See S. Digby's comments on the exercise of supernatural powers as presented in hagiography, “The Sufi Shaikh as as Source of Authority,” p. 60-63; and J. Gross, unpublished paper, “Pious Sentiment and Reportage in Hagiography,” presented at the Middle East Studies Association Conference, New Orleans, November, 1985.

20 Silsilat al-'ārifīn, fol. 175a; Manāqib-i Aḥrār, fols. 120a-123b. See the Maṭla’ al-sa'dayn, pp. 1025-28 and 1072-1075

21 E.A. Davidovich, Review of Ivanov's, P.P. Khoziaistvo Dzhuibarskikh Sheikhov, in Sovietskia Etnografiia 3(1955), p. 187–192Google Scholar

22 On soyurghāl see: Belenitskii, A., “K istorii feodalnogo zemlevladeniia v Srednei Azii i Iran v timuridskuiu epokhu,” Istorik-marksist 4(1941)Google Scholar; Deny, J., “Un soyurghal du timouride Śahruḫ en écriture ouigoure,” Journal Asiatique 245(1957), 253–66Google Scholar; Ivanov, P.P.,” Khozaistvo Dzhuibarskikh Sheikhov (Moscow, 1954)Google Scholar; Fragner, B., “Social and Internal Economic Affairs,” in Jackson, Peter and Lockhart, Laurence (eds.) The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 504–511Google Scholar; and Minorsky, V., “A Soyurghal of Qasim b. Jahangir Aq-qoyunlu (903/1498),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 9(1937-39), 927–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Petrushevskii, I.P., “K istorii instituta soiurgala,” Sovietskoe vostokovedenia 6(1949), pp. 244-45Google Scholar, and Zemledelie i agrarnye otnosheniia v Irane XIII-XIV vekov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960), pp. 272–74Google Scholar

23 “Waqf,” Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden reprint, 1961, pp. 624-627

24 On ṭamghā, see B. Fragner, “Social and Economic Affairs,” pp. 540-41; on the taxation system, see Petrushevsky, I.P., “The Socio-Economic Condition of Iran Under the Il-Khans,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, Boyle, J.A. (ed.) (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 532–534Google Scholar, Petrushevskii, Zemledelie, Lambton, Ann K.S., Landlord and Peasant in Persia: A Study of Land Tenure and Land Revenue Administration (Oxford, 1953Google Scholar; reprinted 1969), and Fragner, “Social and Economic Affairs,” pp. 533-56

25 On the politics and culture of the Timurid period, see: Allen, Terry, Timurid Herat (Weisbaden, 1983)Google Scholar; The Arts of the Book in Central Asia, 14th-16th Centuries, Gray, Basil (ed.) (Colorado, 1979)Google Scholar; Linda Komaroff, “The Timurid Phase in Iranian Metalwork: Formulation and Realization of a Style,” Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1984; Beatrice Forbes Manz, “Politics and Control under Tamerlane,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1983; Forbes Manz, B., “The Ulus Chaghatay Before and After Timur's Rise to Power,” Central Asiatic Journal 27(1983), pp. 79–100Google Scholar, and “Administration and Delegation of Authority in Temur's Dominions,” Central Asiatic Journal 20(1976), 191–207Google Scholar; O'Kane, Bernard, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan (Costa Mesa, 1987)Google Scholar; Subtelny, Maria Eva, “Ali Shir Nava'i: Bakhshi and Beg,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies III-IV(1979-80), 797–807Google Scholar, and “The Poetic Circle of the Court of the Timurid Sultan Husain Baiqara and its Political Significance,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1979; Woods, John, “The Rise of Timurid Historiography,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46(1987), pp. 81–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 M. Rogers, “Central Asian Waqfiyyas of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century: The Endowments of Khwaja Ahrar,” paper presented at the International Seminar on Social and Economic Aspects of the Muslim Waqf, Jerusalem, June 24-28, 1979, p. 31; Davidovich, pp. 197-92

27 Molchanov, A.A., “A Characterization of the Tax System in Herat in the Time of ‘Ali Shir Nava'i,” in Rodonachalnik Uzbekskoi Literatury (Tashkent, 1940), pp. 156–162Google Scholar. For Nava'i's waqf, see Ali Asghar Hekmat's introduction to his translation of Ali Shir Nava'i's Majālis al-nafā'is (Tehran, 1323/1945)Google Scholar. See also M. Subtelny, “Ali Shir Nava'i,” 1979-80

28 This is presumably the kharaj. Manāqib-i Aḥrār, fol. 132

29 Nabiev, R.N., “Iz istorii politiko-ekonomicheskoi zhizni Mavarannakhra XV v. (Zemetki o Khodzha-Akhrare) in Velikii Uzbekskii Poet (Tashkent, 1948), pp. 43–44Google Scholar. Nabiev utilized a collection of letters known as the Majmū'at-i murāsalāt, or Albom Navoi, Institut Vostokovedeniia, # 3735/II. According to A. Urunbaev, the collection contained 594 letters, including those of Nava'i, Jami, Mir Abd al-Awwal, Khwaja Ahrar, and Khwaja Ahrar's son, Yahya. 128 are those of Ahrar. Unfortunately I have not acquired access to these letters. A. Urunbaev published Jami's letters in 1982. See Pisma-Avtografi Abdalrakhmana Dzhami iz Alboma Navoi (Tashkent, 1982)Google Scholar.

30 According to the Rashaḥāt ‘ayn al-ḥayāt and the Silsilat al-'ārifīn, Ahrar's great-grandfather was Khwaja Muhammad who was “from the lineage of Baghdad and was from Khwarazm.” He was a disciple of Shaykh Abu Bakr Qaffal al-Sheshi, a great scholar of the Shafi'i school. Rashaḥāt, Vol. II, p. 366; Silsilat, fol. 37b.

31 Samarqandi, Silsilat al-'ārifīn, fol. 162b

32 Ali b. Husayn Kashifi, Rashaḥāt ‘ayn al-ḥayāt, p. 404

33 Ibid., pp. 404-405

34 Ibid., p. 405

35 Davidovich, p. 190

36 Rogers, 1979, p. 3

37 Rashaḥāt, p. 405; Also Mawlana Shaykh, Manāqib-i Aḥrār, hereafter cited as Manāqib, Institut Vostokovedeniia, Tashkent, #8237/1, fol. 105a, and Silsilat, fol. 165b

38 Manāqib, fol. 37b-38b

39 Nabiev, p. 38. Further research on Ahrar's role in trade and commerce must await the availability of Ahrar's correspondence concerning such matters.

40 Rashaḥāt, p. 536

41 Manāqib, fol. 6b

42 Ibid., fol. 96a

43 Ibid., fol. 26a

44 Ibid., fol. 105b

45 Manāqib, fol. 13a

46 Rasḥāhat, p. 405.

47 Z.A. Kutbaev, “K istorii vakufnykh vladeniyi Khodzha Akhrara i ego potomkov,” Akademiia Nauk Uzbeksoi SSR, Institut Vostokovedeniia, #579, Dissertation for the Doktorat, Tashkent, 1970. Documents of the Tsarist administration remain in the Uzbekistan State Archives in Tashkent. They provide important information about the former administration and specifically the extent of waqf in the hands of Ahrar's descendants. The interest in waqf properties in Central Asia also stimulated scholarly work on the subject of Ahrar's waqf. Among the scholars who treated this subject were L.N. Sobolev, M.N. Rostislavov, V.L. Vyatkin, and A.P. Khorashin. The later works of Ivanov, Barthold, Chekhovich, and Kutbaev expanded this interest with the discovery of new documents and a better understanding of Ahrar's waqf within the framework of Timurid society. M. Rogers brought Chekhovich's work on Ahrar's landownership to the attention of Western scholars in his article on Central Asian waqfīyyas, in which he reviewed Chekhovich's conclusions and appraised Ahrar's economy, Rogers, M., “Waqfiyyas and Waqf Registers: New Primary Sources for Islamic Architecture,” Kunst Des Orients 11(1976-77), 182–196.Google Scholar

48 Chekhovich, O.D., Samarkandskie Dokumenty XV-XVI Century (Moscow, 1974)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as SD, p. 51. The denomination given for all transactions is in ‘adlī dinars, or copper coins. For more on copper currency in fifteenth century Central Asia and on monetary-trade relations, see Davidovich, E., “K organizatsil obmena mednykh monet v Srednei Azii kontsa XV-nachala XVI vv.” Ak. Nauk Tadzhikskoi SSR 20(1960), pp. 61–64Google Scholar and “O vremeni maximalnogo razvitiya tovarnodenezhnykh otnoshenii Sredeni Azii (K postanovke problemy) Narody Azii i Afriki 6(1965), pp. 83–91.Google Scholar

49 SD, pp. 51-53

50 Ibid., pp. 56-57

51 Ibid., pp. 59-61

52 Ibid., pp. 65-68

53 Ibid., pp. 72-78

54 Ibid., pp. 85-87

55 Ibid., pp. 90-92

56 Ibid., pp. 96-100

57 Ibid., pp. 102-104

58 Document 10, SD, pp. 107-174; Document 11, SD, pp. 236-262; SD, pp. 107-293

59 Rogers, 1976-77, p. 194. It should be noted that it is impossible to make an absolute distinction between Ahrar's endowments as waqf ahlī and waqf khayrī, as pointed out earlier.

60 Kutbaev, Z. A., “Interesny dokument po Srednei Azii pamiatnik,” Obshchestvennye Nauki v Uzbekistane 12(1968), p. 36.Google Scholar

61 See Ivanov, P.P., Khoziaistvo Dzhuibarskikh sheikhov, (Leningrad, 1954).Google Scholar