Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:14:51.834Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sufis and Sultans in post-Mongol Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Lawrence G. Potter
Lawrence G. Potter*
Affiliation:
Department of History, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the least-studied eras of Iranian history is that between the invasion of Changiz Khan (Genghis Khan) in the early 13th century and the establishment of the Safavid Empire early in the 16th. This was a time of unprecedented political upheaval when much of the Iranian world became subject to rule by Mongols and Turks. The period between the collapse of the (Mongol) Il-Khan dynasty in 1335, however, and the consolidation of the empire of Timur (Tamerlane) in the 1380s was an age of regionalism par excellence and one of cultural florescence. The most important of the minor dynasties that flourished at this time were the Muzaffarids in Fars, Iraq-i ‘Ajam and Kirman (1314-93), the Jalayirids in Iraq, Kurdistan and Azarbaijan (1336-1432), and, in Khurasan, the Karts at Herat (1245-1389) and the Sarbidars at Sabzavar (1336-81).

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1-4: Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era , 1994 , pp. 77 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is based on a chapter in my doctoral dissertation, “The Kart Dynasty of Herat: Religion and Politics in Medieval Iran” (Columbia University, 1992). I am most grateful to Profs. Richard W. Bulliet, Jo-Ann Gross, Carl W. Ernst and Simon Digby for comments on earlier drafts, and to Haideh Sahim for invaluable assistance.

References

1. For overviews, see Bausani, A., “Religion Under the Mongols,” in Boyle, J. A., ed., The Cambridge History of Iran (hereafter CHI), vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 538–49Google Scholar; Amoretti, B. S., “Religion in the Timurid and Safavid Periods,” in CHI vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 610–55Google Scholar; Mazzaoui, Michel M., The Origins of the Ṣafawids: Šī'ism, Ṣūfism, and the Ġulāt (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1972)Google Scholar; and Arjomand, Said Amir, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890, Center for Middle Eastern Studies publication No. 17 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 66–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Mazzaoui, Origins of the Ṣafawids, 38Google Scholar.

3. Bausani, “Religion Under the Mongols,” 543Google Scholar. Ghazan, dressed in a woolen cloak (ṣuf) was converted by a Kubravi shaykh from Khorasan (Charles Melville, “Pādshāhi Islām: The Conversion of Sultan Maḥmūd Ghāzān Khān,” in Pembroke Papers 1 [1990], Persian and Islamic Studies in honour of Avery, P. W., ed. Melville, Charles [Cambridge: Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, 1990], 159–77Google Scholar).

4. See further: Mohsen Kiyani (Mira), Tārīkh-e khāneqāh dar Īrān, Zaban va Farhange Iran 122 (Tehran: Tahuri, 1369 Sh./1990); Manuchehr Mortazavi, “Taṣavvof dar dawreh-ye ālkhānān,” Nashrīyeh-ye dāneshkadeh-ye adabīyāt-e Tabrīz 9 (1336 Sh./1958): 297–337; Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Trimingham, J. Spencer, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Zarrinkoob, Abdol-Hosein, “Persian Sufism in Historical Perspective,” Iranian Studies 3 (1970): 136–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Such was the case at Ardebil. See Morton, A. H., “The Ardabīl Shrine in the Reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp I,” Iran 12 (1974): 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Golombek, Lisa, “The Cult of Saints and Shrine Architecture in the Fourteenth Century,” in Kouymjian, D. K., ed., Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1974), 419–30Google Scholar.

7. Ibid., 427.

8. Golombek, Lisa and Wilber, Donald, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, vol. 1: Text. Princeton Monographs in Art and Archaeology, 46 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 48Google Scholar.

9. For example, he stayed at khāneqāhs, in Bokhara, Termez, Balkh and Nishapur (Battuta, Ibn, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325–1354, trans. Gibb, H. A. R. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1971], 3:554Google Scholar, 570, 573 and 584).

10. Rodwell, E. H., Ibn Yamin: 100 Short Poems, The Persian Text with Paraphrase (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1933), 44Google Scholar, “The Craze for Building.”

11. Terry Allen, Timurid Herat, Beihefte zum Tiibinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients: Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften) Nr. 56 (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1983), 47 fn. 99; 73–75. Allen, however, regards the Kart khāneqāhs as “the functional equivalents of Saljuq or Timurid madrasas; they were simply large religious foundations with royal support” (p. 47).

12. Isabel A. M. Miller, “The Social and Economic History of Yazd (c. A.H. 736/A.D. 1335-c. A.H. 906/A.D. 1500,” (Ph.D. diss., U. of London, 1990), 292.

13. Eaton, Richard M., Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

14. On this subject see Kiyani, Tārīkh-e khāneqāh, 502–10Google Scholar.

15. Limbert, John W., “Shiraz in the Age of Hafez” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1973), 197Google Scholar.

16. Paul, Jürgen, “Forming a Faction: The Ḥimāyat System of Khwaja Ahrar,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 23 (1991): 542CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Minorsky, V., “A Mongol Decree of 720/1320 to the Family of Shaykh Zāhid,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 16 (1954): 515–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. “(Letter) of Sultan Abu Sa'id Mirza Concerning the khāneqāh of Shaykh al-Islam Khwaja Razi al-Din Ahmad al-Jami, composed by ‘Abd al-Hayy,” in ‘Abd al-Hosayn Nava'i, Asnād va mokātebāt-e tārīkhī-ye Īrān, vol. 1, Az Taymūr td Shāh Esmā'īl, in series Entesharat-e Bongah-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketab, no. 145 (Tehran, 1341 Sh./1962), 314–15.

19. DeWeese, Devin, “The Eclipse of the Kubraviyah in Central Asia,” Iranian Studies 21 (1988): 61 and 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. On the Chishti attitude toward the state, see Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad, Some Aspects of Religion and Politics in India During the Thirteenth Century, 2nd ed. (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1974; repr. 1978), 240–48Google Scholar.

21. Ahmad, Aziz, “The Sufi and the Sultan in Pre-Mughal Muslim India,” Der Islam 38 (1962): 143Google Scholar.

22. Mohammad, Sayyed Mohammad b. Mobarak b. Kermani, ‘Alavi (Mir Khword), Siyar al-awliyā’ (Delhi: Chirangi Lai ed., 1302/1885), 135Google Scholar, cited in Nizami's, Khaliq Ahmad “Introduction” to Nizam ad-din Awliya: morals for the heart: conversations of Shaykh Nizam al-din Awliya recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi, trans. Lawrence, Bruce B., The Classics of Western Spirituality series (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 35Google Scholar.

23. Ernst, Carl W., Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center, Muslim Spirituality in South Asia series, ed. Schimmel, Annemarie (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 88–9Google Scholar.

24. Arjomand, Shadow of God, 82Google Scholar.

25. DeWeese, , “Eclipse of the Kubravīyah,” 45–83; Terry Graham, “Shāh Ni'matullāh Walī: Founder of the Ni'matullāhī Sufi Order,” in Lewisohn, L., ed., The Legacy of Mediceval Persian Sufism (London and New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992), 173–90Google Scholar. See also Aubin, Jean, “De Kûhbanân a Bidar: la famille Ni'matullahī,” Studio Iranica 20 (1991): 233–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. For more information on this neglected dynasty see my dissertation. Secondary sources include Browne, E. G., A Literary History of Persia, vol.3, The Tartar Dominion (1265–1502) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902; repr. 1976), 173–80Google Scholar; Spuler, Bertold, Die Mongolen in Iran: Politik, Verwaltung und Kultur der llchanzeit 1220–1350, 4th ed. (Leiden: Brill, E. J., 1985), 129–33Google Scholar; Masson, V. M. and Romodin, V. A., Istoriia Afganistana: s drevneishikh vremen do nachala 16 veka, (Moscow: Nauka Publishers, 1964), 1:295–327Google Scholar; and ‘Abbas Eqbal, Tārīkh-e mofaṣṣal-e Īrān: az estīlā-ye Moghol ta e'lān-e mashrūṭīyat, vol. 1, Tārīkh-e Moghol az ḥamleh-ye Changīz tā tashkīl-e dawlat-e Taymūrī, 4th impression (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 2536/1977), 366–79.

27. Le Strange, G., The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905Google Scholar; repr. Lahore: Al-biruni, 1977), 356.

28. On the geography of the region see Naval Intelligence Division, British Admiralty, Persia, Geographical Handbook Series, B.R. 525 (Oxford: Oxford University Press[?],1945), 39–47. Also see two standard Persian geographies: ‘Ali Razmara, Farhang-e joghrāfiyā'ī-ye Īrān, vol. 9, Ostān-e nohom: Khorāsān (Tehran: Dayere-ye Joghrafiya'i-ye Setad-e Artesh, Esfand 1329/March 1951), 84–5; and ‘Abd al-Reza Faraji, ed., Joghrāfīyā-ye kāmel-e Īrān, (Tehran: Sherkat-e Chap va Nashr-e Iran, 1366 Sh./1987), 1:625.

29. The 10th-century Arab geographers counted 180 villages as dependencies (Strange, Le, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 356–57Google Scholar); in the early 13th century Yaqut counted 200 (Yaqut b. ‘Abd Allah al-Hamawi, Mu'jam al-buldān, trans. C. B. de Meynard, Dictionnaire géographique, historique et littéraire de la Perse et des contrées adjacentes [Paris, 1861; repr. Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1970], 150); and in the early 14th century Mostawfi counted 200 (The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub composed by Ḥamd-Allāh Mustawfī of Qazwīn in 740 [1340], trans. G. Le Strange, E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, 23, part 2 [Leiden: E. J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1919], 151).

30. Battuta, Ibn, Travels 3:580Google Scholar.

31. Known to the 10th-century Arab geographers as Khasht, to Mostawfi as Jasht and at present as Khwaja Chisht or Chisht-e Sharif, it was originally known as Karzul, but was renamed Chisht by Abu Eshaq (the founder of the khāneqāh) after a town in his native Syria (Abu'l-Qasem b. Ahmad Jayhani, Ashkāl-e ‘ālam, ed.. ‘Ali b. ‘Abd al-Salam Kateb [Mashhad: Astan-e Qods-e Razavi, 1368 Sh./1989], 174). I am indebted to Dr. Mehrdad Izady for this reference.

32. Le, Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, 410Google Scholar (“Khasht“).

33. Mostawfi, Nuzhat-al-Qulūb, 152Google Scholar. Refer to the Persian version of this text for the correct spelling of the name (Gibb Memorial Series, 23, part 1 [1915]: 154).

34. Abru, Hafez, Joghrāfiyā-ye Ḥāfeẓ Abrū: qesmat-e rob'-e Khorāsān, Harāt, ed. Haravi, Mayel, Manabe'-e Tārīkh va joghrafiya-ye Iran, 28 (Tehran: Entesharat-e Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran, 1349 Sh./1970), 92Google Scholar.

35. Gellner, Ernest, Saints of the Atlas, The Nature of Human Society series (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969)Google Scholar; also idem, “Doctor and Saint,” chap, in his Muslim Society, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 32 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. 1985), 114–30.

36. The sources at our disposal to study the orders at Jam and Chisht, unfortunately, are limited. The political chroniclers—notably Hafez Abru—almost completely ignore them. Utilized here is a biography of Shaykh Ahmad and his descendants entitled Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, written in 1523 by a disciple, Darvish ‘Ali Buzjani (ed. Heshmat Mo'ayyad, Persian Texts Series, 29, ed. E. Yarshater [Tehran: Entesharat-e Bongah-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketab, 1345 Sh./1966]). Also useful is the Fard'ed-e Ghiyāī, a collection of correspondence assembled by Jalal al-Din Yusef Ahl around 836/1433 and presented to Shahrokh's vizier, Khwaja Ghiyas al-Din Pir Ahmad (ed. Heshmat Mo'ayyad, 2 vols, Zaban va adabiyat-e Farsi series, nos. 50 and 53 [Tehran: Entesharat-e Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran, no. 260, 2536/1977 and no. 297, 1358 Sh./1979]).

Investigating the history of Chisht is even more problematic. The Chishtiyeh became one of the most influential orders in medieval India, and as such have received considerable attention, notably by the Indian scholar Khaliq Ahmad Nizami. See his Some Aspects of Religion and Politics; also idem, “Čishtiyya,” in EI2. For a different viewpoint see Gerhard Böwering, “Češtīya,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica (hereafter Elr). However, virtually all research has focused on the subcontinent; no sources are known which would throw light on the order in Ghur. Historians, including Juzjani who exhaustively chronicles the Ghurids, do not mention Chisht or the Chishtis. In India, the early Chishti shaykhs chose not to record their own history, which has frustrated modern historians. The most important early hagiographical source, composed between 1350 and 1380, is Mir Khword, Siyar al-awliyā', Mo'assaseh-ye Entesharat-e Eslami, no. 21 (Lahore: Markaz-e Tahqiqat-e Farsi-ye Iran va Pakestan, 1398/1978). The Siyar al-awliyā’ is partially based on one of the classic works on Indian Sufism, Fawā'id al-fu'ād, composed in the 1320s. The most significant later account is Mawlana ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami's Nafahāt al-uns min ḥażarāt al-quds, an authoritative biographical dictionary of over 600 Sufi saints (ed. M. Towhidi-Pur [Tehran: Ketabforushi-ye Sa'di, 1336 Sh./1958]).

37. On Shaykh Ahmad see H. Moayyad, “Aḥmad-e Jām,” EIr (full bibliography).

38. Ibid.

39. Jovayni, ‘Ala’ al-Din ‘Ata Malek, Tārīkh-e jahān-goshā, trans. Boyle, John Andrew as The History of the World-Conqueror (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), 1:145Google Scholar.

40. Sayf b. Muhammad b. Ya'qub al-Harawi, The Ta’rikh Nama-i-Harat (The History of Harát), ed. Muhammad Zubayr as-Siddiqi (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1944; repr. Tehran: Khayyam, 1352 Sh./1973), 102–7 (hereafter, Tārīkh-e Harāt).

41. Lisa Golombek, “The Chronology of Turbat-i Shaikh Jām,” Iran 9 (1971): 27–44. By examining the extant buildings and epigraphic and literary evidence, Golombek has attempted to reconstruct the complex structural history of the shrine. See also O'Kane, Bernard, “Tāybād, Turbat-i Jām and Timurid Vaulting,” Iran 17 (1979): 87–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. The chief place of pilgrimage in Khorasan around the year 1400 was Mashhad. (Clavijo, Ruy González de, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406, trans. Strange, G. Le, The Broadway Travellers series [London: George Routledge & Sons, 1928], 185)Google Scholar.

43. Moayyad, “Aḥmad-e Jām.” At the time of Buzjani's writing, almost four centuries after the death of Shaykh Ahmad, there had been an unbroken chain of leaders from among his descendants (Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 110).

44. Moayyad, “Aḥmad-e Jām“; also Babur, Zahir al-Din Mohammad, The Bābur-nāma in English, trans. Beveridge, Annette Susannah (London: Luzac, 1922; repr. 1969), 711Google Scholar, 714 and 776. She was married to Babur in 912/1506 and died in 940/1534.

45. Moayyad, “Aḥmad-e Jām.”

46. Aubin, Jean, “Le Khanat de Čagatai et le Khorassan (1334–1380),” Turcica 8 (1976): 34Google Scholar. This article is of fundamental importance for an understanding of this period.

47. Abbas Rizvi, Saiyid Athar, A History of Sufism in India, vol.1, Early Sufism and its History in India to A.D. 1600 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1978, repr. 1986), 114–15Google Scholar.

48. Bosworth, C. E., “The early Islamic history of Ghūr,” Central Asiatic Journal 6 (1961): 116–33Google Scholar; idem, “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000–1217),” in CHI 5:157–66; idem, “Ghūrids,” in El2. See also Gaston Wiet, “Commentaire historique,” in André Maricq and Gaston Wiet, Le Minaret de Djam: la Decouverte de la capitale des sultans ghorides (XII-XIII siècles), Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, 16 (Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1959), 31–54.

49. Wiet, , “Les Coupoles de Tshisht,” in Maricq, and Wiet, Le Minaret de Djam, Appendice 1, 69–70Google Scholar.

50. Jami, Nafaḥāt al-uns, 326–9Google Scholar. Khwaja Mawdud Chishti is today considered one of the four great Sufis buried in Afghanistan (L. Dupree, “Saint Cults in Afghanistan,” in American Universities Field Staff Reports, South Asia Series, vol. 20, no. 1 [May 1976]: 9).

51. Currie, P. M., The Shrine and Cult of Mu ‘īn al-Dīn Chishtī of Ajmer, Oxford University South Asian Studies Series (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

52. Siddiqui, Iqtidar Husain, “The Early Chishti Dargahs,” in Troll, C. W., ed., Muslim Shrines in India: Their Character, History and Significance, in series Islam in India: Studies and Commentaries, IV (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 4–7Google Scholar.

53. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad, The Life and Times of Shaikh Farid-u'd-Din Ganj-i-Shakar (Aligarh: Muslim University, 1955)Google Scholar.

54. I am indebted to Mr. Simon Digby for calling several such sources to my attention. See also Fawd'id al-fu'ād, trans. Lawrence, 180.

55. Golombek, Lisa, The Timurid Shrine at Gazur Gah, Art and Archaeology Occasional Paper 15 (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1969), 81Google Scholar.

56. Jami, Nafaḥāt al-uns, 326–9Google Scholar, is the main source for this incident. A Chishti version of the encounter is contained in Ilah-diyah Chishti's Siyar al-aqṭāb, completed in 1056/1646. See Digby, Simon, “To Ride a Tiger or a Wall,” in Callewaert, Winand M. and Snell, Rupert, eds., According to Tradition: Hagio graphical Writing in India (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994)Google Scholar.

57. Nizami, Some Aspects of Religion and Politics, 175–7Google Scholar.

58. Rizvi, , History of Sufism in India, 98Google Scholar; Ahmad, “The Sufi and the Sultan,” 147Google Scholar.

59. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 241Google Scholar.

60. Aubin, Jean, “Un Santon Quhistānī de l'époque timouride,” Revue des Études Islamiques 35 (1967): 207Google Scholar.

61. Moayyad, “Aḥmad-e Jām.”

62. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 244Google Scholar.

63. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 100Google Scholar.

64. Mo'in al-Din Mohammad Zamchi Esfezari, Rawżāt al-jannāt fī awṣāf madīnat al-Harāt, ed. Sayyed Mohammad Kazem Imam (Tehran: Entesharat-e Daneshgah-e Tehran, Part 1 (1338 Sh./1959), 475, cited by Moayyad in comments to Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 143.

65. Mir Khword, Siyar al-awliyā', 199Google Scholar. Also discussed in Digby, Simon, “Tabarrukāt and Succession among the Great Chishti Shaykhs of the Dehli Sultanate,” in Frykenberg, R. E., ed., Delhi Through the Ages: Essays in Urban History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 68–9Google Scholar.

66. Mir Khword, Siyar al-awliyā', 221Google Scholar. The approximate date may be deduced in light of the fact that the most serious Chaghatay attacks on India took place between 1300 and 1305 (Ahmad, Aziz, “Mongol Pressure in an Alien Land,” Central Asiatic Journal 6 [1961]: 187Google Scholar). This fits in with the fact that Mir Khword's grandfather died in 1311 (Storey, C. A., Persian Literature: A Bio-Bibliographical Survey, vol. 1, part 2 [London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1953, repr. 1972], 942Google Scholar).

67. On samā’ see Lawrence, Bruce B., “The Early Chishtī Approach to Samā',” in Israel, M. and Wagle, N. K., eds., Islamic Society and Culture: Essays in Honour of Professor Aziz Ahmad (New Delhi: Manohar, 1983), 69–93Google Scholar; Ernst, Eternal Garden, 147–54Google Scholar.

68. Currie, Shrine and Cult, 52–3Google Scholar.

69. Ernst, Eternal Garden, 155–68Google Scholar; also Lawrence, Bruce B., “Early Indo-Muslim Saints and Conversion,” in Friedmann, Yohanan, ed., Islam in Asia, vol. 1, South Asia (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1984), 109–45Google Scholar.

70. Gross, Jo-Ann, “The Economic Status of a Timurid Sufi Shaykh: A Matter of Conflict or Perception?,” Iranian Studies 21 (1988): 84–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71. See further Kiyani, Tārīkh-e khāneqāh, 310–28Google Scholar.

72. Lambton, Ann K. S., Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia: Aspects of Administrative, Economic and Social History, llth-14th Century, Columbia Lectures on Iranian Studies, no. 2, ed. Yarshater, Ehsan (Albany: State University of New York Press for Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), 322–3Google Scholar; Savory, Roger, Iran Under the Safavids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 12Google Scholar.

73. Savory, Iran Under the Safavids, 14Google Scholar.

74. Eaton, Richard M., “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Bābā Farīd,” in Metcalf, B. D., ed., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 339Google Scholar.

75. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 102Google Scholar. One kharvār or “ass-load” equalled approximately 300 kg.

76. Ibid., 101.

77. Ibid., 103.

78. Ibid., 104–5.

79. Ibid., 107.

80. Nikitine, B., “Essai d'Analyse du Ṣafvat-us-Ṣafā,” Journal Asiatique 245 (1957): 392Google Scholar.

81. Graham, “Shāh Ni'matullāh Walī,” 187Google Scholar.

82. The exact location is unclear. On place names consult D. Krawulsky, Ḫorāsān zur Timuridenzeit nach dem Tārīḫ-e Ḥāfeẓ-e Abrū (verf. 817–823 h.), Beihefte zum Tiibinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Nr. 46/1, Edition und Einleitung, and Nr. 46/2, Übersetzung und Ortsnamenkommentar (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1982 and 1984). See here “Bāghand” in 1:38 (Persian) and 2:35 (German).

83. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 102–3Google Scholar. On his family see Charles Melville and ‘Abbas Zaryab, “Chobanids,” in EIr.

84. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 101Google Scholar.

85. In the case of the Juybari shaykhs of Bokhara in the 16th century, rent on orchards and vineyards was collected in cash (Davidovich, E. A., “Some Social and Economic Aspects of 16th Century Central Asia,” Central Asian Review 12 [1964]: 267Google Scholar).

86. Battuta, Ibn, Travels 3:581Google Scholar. This possibly only dates from the 1320s. A decree of the Il-Khan Abu Sa'id likewise granted the Safavid shrine at Ardebil immunity from taxes (Minorsky, “Mongol Decree,” 516).

87. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 103Google Scholar.

88. al-Harawi, Sayf, Tārīkh-e Harāt, 157–8Google Scholar.

89. Fasih Khwafi,, Mujmal al-tavārīkh, ed. Farrokh, Mahmud (Mashhad: Ketabforushi-ye Bastan, 1339 Sh./1960), 3:23–4Google Scholar, cited in Lambton, Continuity and Change, 321Google Scholar.

90. This raises the problem of defining the office of shaykh al-Eslām at this time. Bulliet suggests that the term originated in the Saljuq period for a person at the head of a city's educational system who had the power to certify teachers’ credentials (Bulliet, Richard W., “The Shaikh al-Islām and the Evolution of Islamic Society,” Studia Islamica 35 [1972]: 53–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Limbert found that by the Muzaffarid period this was not the case in Shiraz. However, aside from observing that it was held by the most pious and learned Sufi shaykhs, perhaps second only to the king in power, he could not give a more specific explanation (Limbert, “Shiraz in the Age of Hafez,” 133 and 160). During the period covered by this study, the term shaykh al-Eslām was obviously a high title reserved for the most eminent shaykhs. In the writing of Buzjani, of the descendants of Shaykh Ahmad it was given alone to the great Shehab al-Din. The others—even those who headed the khāneqāh—are simply referred to as “khwaja.”

91. al-Harawi, Sayf, Tārīkh-e Harāt, 396–8Google Scholar.

92. Ibid., 466. Earlier, in 688/1289, Qotb al-Din had advised the people of Herat to close the city gates when Amir Ayachi, a Nikudari raider, arrived at Herat while Malek Rokn al-Din Kart was absent at Khaysar (ibid., 381).

93. A well-known incident. See, for example, Boyle, “Dynastic and Political History,” 383–4Google Scholar (evidently from Rashid al-Din); also Barbier de Meynard, “Extraits de la chronique persane d'Herat” (translation of Esfezari's Rawżāt al-jannāt) in Journal Asiatique, 5th series, vol.17 (April-May 1861): 478, hereafter Esfezari/de Meynard, “Extraits”.

94. al-Harawi, Sayf, Tārīkh-e Harāt, 437–9Google Scholar; Esfezari, Rawżāt al-jannāt, 435–7Google Scholar; Esfezari/ de Meynard, “Extraits,” 477–8Google Scholar.

95. This was one of the most famous clashes between the Karts and Il-Khans and has been widely recounted. See, for example, Boyle, “Dynastic and Political History,” 401Google Scholar; Abru, Hafez, Chronique des rois mongols en Iran [section from his Ẕayl-e jāme’ al-tavārīkh], trans. Bayani, K. (Paris: Librairie D'Amérique et d'Orient, 1936), 2:17— 29Google Scholar; Esfezari, Rawżāt al-janādt, 444–52Google Scholar; Meynard, Esfezari/de, “Extraits,” 481–7Google Scholar; also Ghiyas al-Din Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar fī akhbār-e afrād-e bashar, ed. Homa'i, Jalal (Tehran: Khayyam, 1333 Sh./1954), 3:372–6Google Scholar.

96. For example, E'temadi, Guya, “Darbār-e molūk-e Kart,” Āryānā 2 (Sawr 1323/May 1944): 50Google Scholar.

97. Malek Fakhr al-Din had earlier agreed to give Öljeitü 1,000 dinars a year in tribute (Eqbal, Tārīkh-e mofaṣṣal, 372Google Scholar).

98. On the Chaghatay attacks on Herat see Kempiners, Russell George Jr.,, “The Struggle for Khurâsân: Aspects of Political, Military and Socio-Economic Interaction in the Early 8th/14th Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1985), 137–47Google Scholar; Meynard, Esfezari/de, “Extraits,” 495–9Google Scholar.

99. Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 203–4Google Scholar; Esfezari, Rawżāt al-jannāt 1:469Google Scholar.

100. al-Harawi, Sayf, Tārīkh-e Harāt, 680Google Scholar.

101. Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 204Google Scholar; Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 105Google Scholar.

102. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 105Google Scholar.

103. Mir Khword, Siyar al-awliyā', 222Google Scholar.

104. Esfezari, Rawżāt al-jannāt 1:422Google Scholar. This was at the direction of Abaqa.

105. al-Hosayni, ‘Abd Allah, Resāleh-ye mazārāt-e Harāt, ed. Ahrari, ‘Abd al-Karim (Herat: Matba'eh-ye Danesh, 1310 Sh./1932)Google Scholar. For a description and contents of the index see Iraj Afshar, “Maqṣad al-eqbāl = Resāleh-ye mazārāt-e Harāt,” in Majallehye dāneshkadeh-ye adabīyāt va ‘olūm-e ensānī (Tehran University), vol. 12, no. 1 (1343 Sh./1964): 51–65. The newer edition of Fekri Saljuqi (Kabul, 1967) was not available to me.

106. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 103Google Scholar.

107. Ibid., 100.

108. al-Harawi, Sayf, Tārīkh-e Harāt, 553, 558 and 624Google Scholar.

109. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, note by Moayyad, 141Google Scholar.

110. Ibid., 145; Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 386Google Scholar.

111. Shabankareh'i, Mohammad, Majma’ al-ansāb, ed. Mohaddas, Mir Hashem (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1363 Sh./1984), 306Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr. Stephen Album for this reference. See also the article by Aubin, Jean, “Le Quriltai de Sultan-Maydan (1336),” JA 279 (1991): 175–97Google Scholar.

112. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 105Google Scholar.

113. Ahl, Yusef, Farā'ed-e Ghiyāsī, document 55, 1:241Google Scholar.

114. On Mo'in al-Din Jami see Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 107–8Google Scholar; Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar 3:386Google Scholar; E'temadi, “Darbār-e molūk-e Kart,” 49Google Scholar; and Gharjestani, Mohammad Esma'il, “Dāneshmandān-e mo'āṣer-e dūdmān-e Kart,” Āryānā 18, no.l (Dalv 1338/January 1960): 51Google Scholar (from Khwandamir). Aubin, “Le Khanat de Čaġatai,” 30, considers Mo'in al-Din the strongman of the triumvirate that ran the government.

115. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 108Google Scholar.

116. In Yusef Ahl, Farā'ed-e Ghiyāī, Central Library of Tehran University, folio 335a-335b, cited by Moayyad in his notes to Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 146Google Scholar.

117. Krawulsky, Ḫorāsān zur Timuridenzeit 1:32Google Scholar, 2:31 (“Sar-e Pol-e Tābān“). Zir-e Pol was possibly in the Morghab district, Karucheh and Faraheh in Fushanj (ibid. 1:39, 2:36).

118. Tauer, Felix, ed., Cinq Opuscules de Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū concernant Vhistoire de I'lran au temps de Tamerlan, Supplement 5 to the Archív Orientální (Prague: L'Académie Tchécoslovaque des Sciences, 1959), 43Google Scholar. This Persian text is the best source for the later Kart period, from the accession of Mo'ezz al-Din Kart in 1331 until the downfall of the dynasty (hereafter Opuscules).

119. Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar 3:381Google Scholar. Khwandamir is the only historian to identify any of these “shaykhs of Jam” by name.

120. Tauer, Opuscules, 42Google Scholar.

121. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 107Google Scholar.

122. Barthold, V. V., Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, vol. 2, Ulugh-Beg, trans. V. and Minorsky, T. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1958; repr. 1963), 22Google Scholar.

123. Manz, Beatrice Forbes, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 17Google Scholar.

124. On Shaykh Zayn al-Din see Jami, Nafaḥāt al-uns, 498–501Google Scholar. For accounts of the meeting between Shaykh Zayn al-Din and Timur see Barthold, Four Studies, 20–22Google Scholar; Khwandamir, Ḥabīb al-siyar 3:543Google Scholar, trans. Thackston, Wheeler in A Century of Princes: Sources on Timurid History and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989), 108Google Scholar; Tauer, Opuscules, 61–2Google Scholar; and Paul, Jiirgen, “Scheiche und Herrscher im Khanat Cagatay,” Der Islam 67 (1990): 307–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the shaykh's tomb see Mustafavi, Sayyid Mohammad Taqi, “Le Masdjid-e Mowlānā de Tāiyābād,” Āthār-é Īrān 3, no. 2 (1938): 179–99Google Scholar.

125. Ahl, Yusef, Farā'ed-e Ghiyāī, document 104, 1:471–5Google Scholar.

126. Fasih, Majmal 3:113Google Scholar (under“year 780/1378).

127. Digby, Simon, “The Sufi Shaykh and the Sultan: A Conflict of Claims to Authority in Medieval India,” Iran 28 (1990): 71–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Digby's, important article, “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India,” Puruṣārtha 9 (1986): 57–77Google Scholar

128. “Maktūb-e Ḥażrat-e Shaykh al-Eslāmī Mawlānā Abū Bakr Tāyebādī be Amīr Taymūr …,” in ‘Abd al-Hosayn Nava'i, Asnād va mokātebāt-e tārīkhī-ye Īrān, vol. l,Az Taymūr tā Shāh Esmā'īl, in series Entesharat-e Bongah-e Tarjomeh va Nashr-e Ketab, no. 145 (Tehran 1341 Sh./1962), 1–3.

129. Important examples are Timur's expulsion of Shah Ne'matollah Vali from Transoxiana and Shahrokh's expulsion of Qasem Anvar from Herat. See Aubin, Jean, Matériaux pour la biographie de Shâh Ni'matullah Walî Kermânî, Bibliothèque Iranienne, vol. 7 (Paris: Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient and Tehran: Département d'lranologie de l'lnstitut Franco-Iranien, 1956), 11–18Google Scholar.

130. Tauer, Opuscules, 62Google Scholar.

131. Fasih, Mujmal 3:116Google Scholar (under year 782/1380).

132. Buzjani, Rawżat al-rayāḥīn, 110Google Scholar.

133. Subtelny, Maria Eva, “The Cult of ‘Abdullāh Anṣāri Under the Timurids,” in Bürgel, C. and Giese, A., eds., God is Beautiful and He Loves Beauty (festschrift for Annemarie Schimmel) (Bern: Peter Lang, 1994), 377–406Google Scholar.

134. Golombek, Gazur Gah, 82–3Google Scholar.

135. Jami, Nafaḥāt al-uns, 362Google Scholar.

136. Paul, “Forming a Faction,” 541Google Scholar.

137. Digby, Simon, “Qalandars and Related Groups: Elements of Social Deviance in the Religious Life of the Dehlī Sultanate of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Islam in Asia, 73Google Scholar.

138. McChesney, R. D., Waqfin Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 308CrossRefGoogle Scholar.