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Shah Isma‘il’s Poetry in the Silsilat al-Nasab-i Safawiyya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Amelia Gallagher
Amelia Gallagher*
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, Niagara University
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Abstract

This article examines the four poems attributed to Shah Isma‘il Safavi that are included in the seventeenth-century genealogy of the Safavid dynasty, the Silsilat al-Nasab-i Safawiyya. The article includes translations and commentary on the four poems, offering insight into the religiosity and concerns both of Shah Isma‘il and the Silsilat's author, Husayn ibn Shaykh Abdal-i Zahidi.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 6 , November 2011 , pp. 895 - 911
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2011

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References

1 See Roemer, Hans, “The Safavid Period,” in The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1986), 6: 189–350;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Minorsky, Vladimir “The Poetry of Shāh Ismā‘īl I,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 4 (1939–42): 1007–53.Google Scholar

2 Silsilatu'n-Nasab-i Ṣafawiyya, Persian MS H.12, Cambridge.

3 Silsilät-ul-Näsäb: Généalogie de la dynastie Säfävy de la Perse (Berlin, 1924).

4 I discuss this and other issues surrounding Shah Isma‘il’s poetry in my dissertation, “The Fallible Master of Perfection: Shah Ismail Safevi in the Alevi Bektaşi Tradition” (McGill University, 2004). I did not, however, address his poetry included in the Silsilat.

5 Turkhan Gandjei, , ed., Il Canzoniere di Šāh Ismā‘īl Ḫaṭā’ī (Naples, 1959), # 207 and #16.Google Scholar

6 On the European image of Shah Isma‘il, see Brummett, Palmira, “The Myth of Shah Ismail Safavi: Political Rhetoric and ‘Divine’ Kingship,” in Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays, ed. by Tolan, John Victor (New York, 1996), 331–59.Google Scholar See also Membré, M., Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia (1539–1542), trans. with intro. and Notes by Morton, A. H. (London, 1993).Google Scholar

7 Browne, Edward G., “Notes on an Apparently Unique Manuscript History of the Safawi Dynasty of Persia”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1921): 395–418; Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī (Aligarh, 1939), 101.Google Scholar

8 Described in Minorsky, Vladimir, ed., Persia in A.D. 1478–1490, An Abridged Translation of Fadlullāh Khūnjī's tārīkh-i ‘ālam-ārā-yi aminī (London, 1957).Google Scholar

9 Minorsky, “The Poetry of Shāh Ismā‘īl I”, 1026.

10 Babayan, Kathryn, “The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shi‘ism,” Iranian Studies 27 (1994): 135–61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Newman, Andrew J., “The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ‘Alī al-Karakī and Safawid Shiism,” Welt des Islams, 33 (1993): 66–112.Google Scholar See also Abisaab, Rula, Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire (London, 2004).Google Scholar

11 Minorsky, “The Poetry of Shāh Ismā‘īl I,” 1009.

12 Our understanding of the social conditions that led to this development remains lacking, however. For a concise summary of the political situation of the Qizilbash in Ottoman territory, see Zarinebaf-Shahr, Fariba, “Qizilbash ‘Heresy' and Rebellion in Ottoman Anatolia during the Sixteenth Century,” in Anatolia Moderna, Yeni Anadolu, VII (Paris, 2000), 1–15.Google Scholar The Qizilbash tribes which developed into religious sectarian groups in Ottoman territory adopted the term “Alevi” by the twentieth century.

13 I base the following summary on Browne, “Notes on an Apparently Unique Manuscript History,” 395–418.

14 See the shrine records examined in Morton, A. H., “The Ardabil Shrine in the Reign of Tahmasp I,” Iran, 12 (1974): 31–64 and (1975): 39–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Browne, “Note on an Apparently Unique Manuscript History,” 396.

16 “Chinaman” is most likely the meaning of the makhlas Khata'i in the historical corpus. Later works categorized as pseudo-Khata'i draw on the meaning khata (error, fault, sin).

17 I am basing the historical oeuvre of Shah Isma‘il on the three oldest divans: Sackler gallery, Paris I and Tashkent. The Paris I and Tashkent dīvāns are published: Gandjei, ed., Il Canzoniere di Šāh Ismā‘īl Ḫaṭā’ī, and Azizaga Memedov, ed., Shah Ismaiyl Khatai: Asarlari, 2 vols. (Baku, 1966–73). The Sackler manuscript is unavailable for consultation at present; a copy of its contents provided by Wheeler Thackston was used here (Dīvān of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ḫaṭā'ī, MS, Sackler Gallery, s86.0060, transcription by Wheeler Thackston). Thackston makes the case for dating the Sackler manuscript as the oldest of Shah Isma‘il’s known divans. See his article, “The Diwan of Khata‘i: Pictures for the Poetry of Shah Isma‘il I,” Asian Art, 1 (1988): 37–63.Google Scholar As the Silsilat anthology does not match the works of any of these divans precisely (and the Sackler MS is incomplete), Zahidi's likely source was the Ardabil version, dated from the reign of Shah ‘Abbas (r. 1587–1629) and mentioned by Minorsky in “The Poetry of Shah Isma'il I,” 1009.

18 My translations aim to maintain the integrity of poetic images in a literal way, and I consider matters of style and form only secondarily. In the poetic context, when a word remains in the original language, I have adopted the pre-reform Turkish transliteration system (i.e., Kur'an rather than Qur'an, Hata'i rather than Khata'i).

19 Gandjei, ed., Il Canzoniere di Šāh Ismā‘il Ḫaṭā’ī, # 22.

20 This composition also appears in the Paris version of Shah Isma‘il's divan: Gandjei, Il Canzoniere di Šāh Ismā‘il Ḫaṭā’ī, # 5.

21 “Two arch bows” (kab kavuseyn) is a Qur'anic reference (53:7) to the beatific vision beheld by the Prophet Muhammad during his ascension (mi‛raj). It was the only space that stood between the prophet and the Divine throne.

22 The nexus across the eschatological inferno over which humanity passes during Final Judgment.

23 The Arabic “Lan terani” is the Divine response to Moses’ request to see God (Qur'an 7:143). Moses is instructed to turn to the mountain opposite him instead to view the Divine reflection.

24 A Qur'anic reference to the miraculous transformation of the blaze that was intended to execute Abraham into a bed of roses (21:69).

25 See Birge, John Kingsley, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (Harford, 1937), 132–34.Google Scholar

26 For poetic examples of the triad from a Shabak community, see Bruinessen, Martin Van, “A Kizilbash Community in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Shabak,” Les Annalles de l'autre Islam, 5 (1998): 185–96.Google Scholar

27 Sarwar, History of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī, 63; Thackston, Wheeler M., ed. and trans., Mirza Haydar Dughlat's Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the Khans of Moghulistan (Cambridge, 1996), 155–56.Google Scholar

28 Uzunçarşılı, Ismail Hakkı, Osmanlı Tarihi, 8 vols. (Ankara, 1983), 2: 250.Google Scholar

29 A version of this poem appears in the Tashkent manuscript. See Memedov, Shah Ismaiyl Khatai: Asarlari, 1: # 466.

30 “One who has arrived”; one who has achieved mystical union. Eren, with its connotations of bravery, is another term used for Khata'i's elite dervish warriors.

31 Addressed by Bashir, Shahzad, “Shah Isma‘il and the Qizilbash: Cannibalism in the Religious History of Early Safavid Iran,” History of Religions, 45 (2006): 234–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 The Safavid accounts differ regarding the sequence of succession, however. See Morton, Andrew, “The Early Years of Shah Isma‘il in the Afżal al-tavārikh and Elsewhere,” Pembroke Papers, 4 (1996): 27–51.Google Scholar

33 A reference to ‘Ali's heroics at the battle of Khaybar (629 CE/7AH); Islamic historians credited ‘Ali with the victory over this Jewish tribal stronghold.

34 Reference to the Qur'anic verse 7:143. See note 20 above.

35 See my article “Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafevī and the mi‘rāj: Ḫaṭā'ī's Vision of a Sacred Assembly,” in The Prophet's Ascension: Cross-cultural Encounters With The Islamic Mi‘raj Tales (Bloomington, IN, 2010), 313–29.Google Scholar

36 Stoyanov, Yuri, “Islamic and Christian Heterodox Water Cosmogonies from the Ottoman period—Parallels and Contrasts,” Bulletin of SOAS, 64 (2001): 27–29.Google Scholar

37 Babayan, Kathryn, Monarchs, Mystics and Messiahs: Landscapes of Early Modern Iran (Cambridge, 2002), xvi.Google Scholar

38 Browne, Edward G., Modern Times (1500–1924), vol. 4 of Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, 1902–1929), 58.Google Scholar

39 Morton, “The Early Years of Shah Isma‘il,” 30.

40 Morton, A. H., “The Ardabil Shrine in the Reign of Shah Tahmasp I,” IRAN, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 12 (1974): 36.Google Scholar

41 Morton, “The Early Years of Shah Isma‘il,” 30–31.

42 See Abisaab, Rula Jurdi, “New Ropes for Royal Tents: Shaykh Bahā’i and the Imperial Order of Shah ‘Abbas (996–1038/1587–1629)”, Studies on Persianate Societies, 1 (2003): 35.Google Scholar

43 For such episodes, see Babayan, “The Safavid Synthesis”; Savory, Roger, “A Curious Episode in Safavid History,” in Islam and Iran (Edinburgh, 1971), 461–73.Google Scholar