`ali al-karaki (d. 1534); by andrew newman (47 pp., 1993)

The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ʿAlī al-Karakīand Safawid ShiismAuthor(s): Andrew J. NewmanSource: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 33, Issue 1 (Apr., 1993), pp. 66-112Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1571204Accessed: 29/11/2008 18:26

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Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993)

THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN:

Arab Shiite Opposition to 'Ali al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism1

BY

ANDREW J. NEWMAN Oxford

It is a conventional wisdom of Safawid studies that, following the establishment of Twelver Shiism, the Safawid shahs induced large numbers of Arab Twelver clerics to migrate to Iran to assist in the propagation of the faith in Safawid territory. In Western-language scholarship the assertion that large numbers of Arab Twelver ulama

responded to invitations by Safawid rulers-particularly the first two, IsmCil (905/1499-930/1524) and Tahmasp (930/1524-984/ 1576)-to leave their homeland to settle in Safawid territory dates at least to the work of E.G. Browne. More than fifty years ago, Browne suggested there was a paucity of Twelver scholars in early Safawid Iran and wrote that Bahrayn and Jabal CAmil "furnished the bulk" of the "learned [Twelver] Arabs" introduced by IsmaCil into Iran following his profession of the faith at the Safawid capture of Tabriz in 907/ 1501.2 More recent scholars have only echoed this suggestion,3 at least tacitly assuming IsmaCil's profession of faith

1 The author would like to thank Professor Wilferd Madelung and Drs. Yann Richard and Nikki Keddie for their criticism of earlier drafts of this paper. The er- rors herein are his responsibility alone.

2 E.G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia 4 (London, 1953, reprint of the original 1924 edition), 360, 406-407.

3 See, for example, Jean Aubin, "Etudes Safavides.I. Shah Ismacil et les Nota- bles de l'Iraq Persan", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, II (1959), 54; idem, "La Politique Religieuse des Safavides", in Le Shi'isme Imamite (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), 239; S.H. Nasr, "The School of Ispa- han", in M.M. Sharif, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy 2 (Wiesbaden, 1966), 906, 906n8, citing Browne; ibid; idem, "Religion in Safavid Persia", Iranian Studies 7 (1974), 274; S.A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 131, 136, 107, 122f, esp. 128- 133. See also Erika Glassen, "Schah IsmaCil I. und die Theologen seiner Zeit", Der

THE MYTH OF THE CLERICAL MIGRATION TO SAFAWID IRAN 67

at once rendered Safawid territory an acceptable, indeed inviting, haven for Arab Twelver clerics living under Sunni domination.

The purpose of the present essay is to challenge the continued use- fulness of this "migration thesis" with reference to the first half- century following IsmCail's profession. Far from there having been a massive migration of Arab Twelver clerics to Safawid Iran, close examination of the actions and movements of both established and younger Arab Twelver clerics show that a number of clerics from the

Hijaz, the Persian Gulf area of Bahrayn-on the eastern Arabian coast-, Arab Iraq, and the Jabal CAmil area of Lebanon rejected the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism in this period. Cleri- cal disquiet with the Safawids stemmed from such factors as the abruptness of IsmSCil's conversion to Twelver Shiism; the consistently extremist nature of Safawid religio-political discourse which, following Tabriz, was an unorthodox amalgamation of non-Shii and Shii religious expression and policies; the lack of interest in and understanding of the doctrines and practices of the faith among the Safawid elite; the constant uncertainty surrounding the future of the Safawid polity; and, in particular, the manner in which one of their number, the Lebanese CAll al-Karaki (d. 940/1534), associated himself with and represented the Safawid court in this period. At the same time, throughout this period Sunni rulers-the Ottomans in particular-avoided alienating Twelver clerics living in their territory. In sum, for Arab Twelver clerics resident in Sunni-controlled domains, remaining in their homeland was preferable to migrating to Safawid territory.

Islam, 48, no. 2 (1972), 262-265, esp. 264n40, citing Browne, ibid; Roger Savory, Iran Under the Safavids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 30; Ann K.S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam; an Introduction to the Study of Is- lamic Political Theory; the Jurists (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), 266-268, 266n12 citing Glassen, ibid; Norman Calder, "Khums in Imami Shii Jurispru- dence from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century, A.D.", Bulletin of the School of Orien- tal and African Studies 45, part 1 (1982), 46; Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii Islam (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), 108; and Albert Hourani, "From Jabal CAmil to Persia", BSOAS, 49, part 1 (1986), esp. 136f. In Arabic, see 'All Mroueh, Al- Tashayyuc bayn Jabal cAmil wa- Iran (London: Riad El- Rayyes Books, 1987), 43, giving an unspecified reference to Phillip Hitti.

A.J. NEWMAN

The Problematic Aspects of Safawid Shiism

The impression of Twelver Shiism confronting Arab Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory throughout the first fifty years after Tabriz can only have been negative. Clerical unease with the Safawid association with the faith stemmed from the abruptness of Ismdil' s interest in and conversion to the faith; the extreme nature of Safawid religious expression which, after Tabriz, comprised an unorthodox blend of non-Shii and Shii allusions; the Safawid elite's clear lack of interest in the specifics of the faith; and critical

military defeats suffered by the Safawids less than fifteen years after Tabriz which suggested the transient nature of the Safawid Shii ex-

periment. IsmSCil's interest in Twelver Shiism had no precedence in early

Safawid history. Founded by Shaykh Safi al-Din (d. 735/1334), the early leadership espoused no Twelver, let alone Shii or other distinctly separatist, religious discourse, nor did they claim CAlid family connections or descent from any of the twelve Imams or other members of the Prophet's family. Under Safi al-Din the order's adherents were in fact mainly Shafici Sunnis, and in its early years the order enjoyed good relations with the established Sunni political authorities.4

During Junayd's period of leadership of the movement, begin- ning in 851/1447, the order embraced a new extreme religio- political discourse and offensive military strategy. The adoption of both was the function of and in response to changes in the order's social composition, particularly the influx of supporters drawn from the poorer peasantry and tribal nomads, and the antagonism of these elements to existing political and socio-economic structures.5

4 Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the $afawids, Freiburger Islamstudien, Bd. 3.) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1972), 46-53, 54-56. See also Aubin, "Etudes. I", 42, 45; Adel Allouche, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict, 906-962/1500-1555 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983), 32-38; I.P. Petrushevsky, Islam in Iran, originally published in Russian in 1966 and translated from the Russian by Hubert Evans (London: The Athlone Press, 1985), 314; Arjo- mand, ibid, 78.

5 See Petrushevsky, ibid, 316-21; Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont, Les Otto- mans, les Safavides, et leurs Voisins (Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1987), 13-14; Jean Aubin, "L'Avenement des Safavides Reconsidere (Etudes Safavides III)", Moyen Orient et Ocian Indien 5 (1988), 4.

68


The new discourse included praise for Junayd as "the Living One, there is no God but he". Followers from Anatolia and elsewhere also viewed Haydar (864/1460 - 893/1488), Junayd's son and successor, as God.6 Such rhetoric encouraged the new offensive military strategy which, despite an uneven record, culminated in the capture of Tabriz some fifty years later.

Ismacil was fourteen in 907/1501 - 1502 when the Safawids seized Tabriz and he made his profession of faith. This profession was less the result of any profound study and appreciation of the doctrines and practices of Twelver Shiism by IsmCil or the forces at the centre of the tribal confederation than the culmination of the messianic radicalism adopted underJunayd, further encouraging and cement- ing the profound sense of separation from, and hostility among the order's followers to, the existing socio-economic and political structure as dominated by Sunni Muslims. The socio-economic outlook of the Qizil Bash political hierarchy itself was, however, fundamen- tally conservative: meaningful changes to the underlying structures of society were not to be effected, let alone tolerated.7 As formulat- ed by that hierarchy immediately prior to and especially after Tabriz Safawid religious discourse was less concerned with compatibility with any single religious doctrine than with legitimising a highly hi- erarchical structure within the Safawid order itself and the authority of the elite within that structure, the primacy of the leader's position in particular. Such a highly stratified structure of authority assured the authority of the elite to articulate and impose its conservative worldview on and among the order's adherents.

In this context, Safawid religious discourse was necessarily as extreme as that of Ismicil's immediate, non-Twelver predecessors. While some elements of this discourse emphasized the affinity with

6 The contemporary Sunni court chronicler Fadlallah b. Ruizbihan al-Khunji alleged the veneration of Haydar was such that the daily religious duty of namaz (prayer) and other public manifestations of Muslim worship were neglected. See Mazzaoui, ibid, 73, citing al-Khunji's Td 'rikh-i CAlam Ard-yi Aminf. Allouche (ibid, 43-44) cited an early tenth/sixteenth century Turkish source stating Junayd expressed some Shii tendencies and claimed CAlid lineage. See also Mazzaoui, ibid, 54; Arjomand, ibid, 79-80; Momen, ibid, 101-102.

7 On the essential socio-economic and political conservatism of the Safawid sys- tem, see Aubin, "Etudes. I", passim; Petrushevsky, ibid; Aubin, "Revolution Chiite et Conservatisme. Les Soufis de Laihejan, 1500-1514 (Etudes Safavides.

A.J. NEWMAN

the distinctively Sufi roots of the movement8-encouraging the continued allegiance of the order's followers-, that discourse also focused on the presence on earth of a superior, implicitly divine, ruler in society who was both political leader and ultimate arbiter in all matters of faith and practice.9 In both its extreme nature and in its non-Twelver references, such rhetoric was certainly incompatible with Twelver orthodoxy.

The expression of the Safawids' understanding of Ismi'il's relationship to Twelver Shiism itself was frequently clearly extreme: claims for his imamate, as his pretensions to identification with other divinities, were a constant feature of IsmS'il's reign.10 In 911/1505, for example, four years after Tabriz' capture, in the Arabic preface to a firman inscribed in Isfahan's Masjid-i Jumac, Isma'il was described as "khalifat al-zaman (the successor of the age), the

II.)", Moyen Orient et Ocean Indien I (1984), passim; idem, "Etudes III", passim, esp. 125f.

8 IsmiCil's appeals to both the earlier egalitarian nature of the movement and the distinctly militant form of Sufism then prevailing in the order may be seen in his poetry, where he addressed his followers variously as ghdzi (raider), isuf, and akhi (brother), and used such mystical terms as ahl-i iqrar (men of recognition) and ahl-i haqq (men of truth). See Vladimir Minorsky, "The Poetry of Sha.h Ismicil I", BSOAS, 10 (1942), 1042a, 1043a, 1044a, 1047a. Aubin ("Etudes. I", 51) suggested Ismacil's consistent use of such rhetoric served to blur the distinction between the decadence of his private conduct in this period and the public image he wished to project of himself as the fighting leader of a militantly ascetic Sufi order. See also idem, "Etudes III", 36-57; Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, 47, 47n80; note 22.

9 By contrast with the references in the previous note, therefore, Ismcil's poetry also contained references to himself not only as of the same essence as "of the adherents of the wall'"-i.e. Imam CAlIYbut also "God's light ... the Seal of the Prophets . . . the Perfect Guide . . . the Absolute Truth", and "Jesus, son of Mary", and such earlier, pre-Islamic Persian rulers as Faridufn, Jamshid, and Za- hak, Rustam and Alexander. See Minorsky, ibid, 1042a, 1048a- 1049a, 1047a, and note 8. See also Mazzaoui, ibid, 73; Allouche, ibid, 153-156; Arjomand, ibid, 80-81; note 16.

10 Secondary-source authors have suggested that soon after Tabriz Ismacil became unhappy with the divine status attributed him by his followers. See the account of a Venetian merchant in Iran from 917/1511-927/1520 "that Ismael (sic) is not pleased with being called a god or a prophet", cited in Lambton, ibid, 265- 266. See also Roger Savory, "The Principal Offices of the Safavid State Dur- ing the Reign of Ismacil I (907-30/1501-24)", BSOAS 23, part 1 (1960), 91; Arjo- mand, ibid, 110. Aubin ("Etudes III", 129) has identified this merchant as Fran- cesco Romano. On concern for the spread of Safawid propaganda in Anatolia, see Bacque-Grammont, ibid, 17-49, and passim. See also note 63.

70


spreader of justice and beneficence, al-imam al-'adil al-kamil (the just, the perfect Imam), al-hadi (the guide), al-ghazi, al-wdl[ ..."11 An inscription on a coin minted in Kashan the next year, 912/ 1506, referred to him as al-sul.tn al-cddil (the just sultan), as did that on a coin minted twelve years later in Mashhad in 924/1518.12 Although such terms as al-imam al-Cddil (the just Imam) and al- sul.dn al-Cadil could have secular implications, in Twelver Shii discourse they could also refer to the Hidden Imam himself.13 Given claims for IsmaCil's identification with other, non-Shii,

11 Lutfallah Hunarfar, Ganjineh-i Asar-i Ta'rnkhi-yi Isfahdn (Isfahan, 1344), 86-87. On the particular socio-political context of thisfirman, see Aubin, "Etudes. I", 58-59, and idem, "Etudes. II", 11.

12 H.L. Rabino, "Coins of the Shahs of Persia", Numismatic Chronicle, IVth series, 1908, 368; Sibylla Schuster-Walser, Das Safawidische Persien im Spiegel eu- ropdischer Reiseberichte, 1502-1722 (Hamburg, 1970), 45.

13 The intent of such terms has been the subject of some discussion in the field of Twelver Shii studies. Calder has argued they referred to the Imam himself while Madelung and Arjomand have suggested they referred to a just secular ruler. Madelung in particular has noted the term imam al-asl, as used by Jacfar b. al-Hasan, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 676/1277), was a clear reference to the Imam, in contrast to the terms cited above. More recently Sachedina has suggested Twelver scholars employed some caution in their discussions of rightful authority during the occultation of the Imam, especially when in the minority, and that the specific legal context determined whether the terms "the just Imam" or "the just sultan" in a legal text referred to the Imam or secular authority. See W. Madelung, "A Treatise of the Sharif al-Murtad. on the Legality of Working for the Govern- ment (Mas'alafi'l-camal maCa'l-Sultian)", BSOAS, vol. 43, part 1 (1980), 18-31; Ar- jomand, ibid, 21-23, and notes therein; Norman Calder, "Judicial Authority in Imami Shii Jurisprudence", Bulletin, British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 6, no. 2 (1979), 106; idem, "Legitimacy and Accommodation in Safavid Iran: The Juristic Theory of Muhammad Baqir al-Sabzevari (d. 1090/1679)", Iran XXV (1987), esp. 91 -92; A.A. Sachedina, The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam (New York: Ox- ford University Press, 1988), passim, esp. 89-118, 192, 226, 232-236. For use of the term imanm al-asl, see JaCfar b. al-Hasan, al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Shartdii al-Islam (Najaf, 1389/1969), 2:11-12, and Sachedina, ibid, 170, 193, 199, 270n47. It ought to be noted these clerical authors were all in the Usuill tradition. See also notes 42, 43, 46, 48, 50, 51. The intended meanings of these references stand in contrast to the intentions behind the term al-sultian al-'adil as it appeared on coins issued between 743/1342-1343 and 745/1344-1345 in reference to the Ilkhanid Sulayman, who lacked the messianic aspirations of the early Safawid shahs. See John Masson Smith, Jr., The History of the Sarbadar Dynasty, 1336-1381 A.D. and its Sources (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), 195-196. See also Ismaiil's references in his poetry to himself as Muhammad Mustaf-a, the seal of the Prophet's "reappearance", and references to the sixth Imam JaCfar al-Sadiq (d. 148/765) and the eighth Imam CAll Musai Rida (d. 203/818) in Minorsky, ibid, 1048a, 1049a; Arjomand, ibid, 80.

A.J. NEWMAN

divinities, the use of such terms with reference to the shah only exploited this ambiguity of meaning to bolster IsmaCil's pretensions to the imamate. Like identification with these other personalities, claims to the imamate would reinforce the larger-than-life image of the leader among the poorer peasants and tribal nomads who formed the bulk of the Safawid levies in this period. Such claims would also appeal to similarly receptive elements of the Twelver community throughout the region as a whole-not as well-versed in the details and technicalities of the largely Arabic-language Twelver legal deci- sions and religious terminology as the higher ranks of the educated Twelver clergy-, if not also elements of Iran's urban and rural population.

Ismacil's reign also witnessed efforts to reconstruct Safawid lineage so as to establish the CAlid descent of Shaykh Safi al-Din, the founder of the order and, by extension, that of his familial succes- sors. Indeed, the Safawid claim was to have been descended from the line of the fifth Imam, Miusa al-Kazim (d. 183/799).14 Court officials echoed these claims of CAlid lineage.15 Together with the exploitation of the ambiguity of the religious terminology-and, indeed, reinforcing the suggestion the Safawids intended that terminology to refer to the shah as the Imam-, this genealogy further legitimised claims for Ismic'i's imamate and thus his authority within the order, Safawid territory, and the larger Twelver community.

The efforts both to establish familial ties with the cAlids and to lay claim to the imamate, inasmuch as they were mutually reinforcing, occasionally converged. In 926/1519, for example, twenty years after the capture of Tabriz and six years after the Safawid capture of Baghdad and the nearby Shii shrine cities, an inscription on a wood- en panel of a box at the grave of Imam Miusa, from whom the Safawids had now 'proven' their descent, referred to the com-

14 See the study of manuscripts of $afwat al-aJfa, the eighth/fourteenth century account of the Shaykh's life, by Z.V. Togan, "Sur l'Origine des Safavides", Melanges Louis Massignon 3 (Damas: Institut Francais de Damas, 1957), passim. See also Mazzaoui, ibid, 46-51, 20, and his references to Ahmad Kasravi's research on Safawid lineage. See also Allouche, ibid, 157-168, and note 6.

15 In his Habib al-Siyar the Safawid court chronicler Ghiyath al-Din Khwan- damir (d. 943/1536?) described Ismicil as "the heir to the caliphate of cAll". See Lambton, ibid, 275. The phrasing alluded to both familial and religio-political associations. See also the discussion below and note 66.

72


mand-no doubt also publicly proclaimed-to build the box as having been issued by "al-sultan al-'adil al-kamil ... Shih Ismiil? .16

The radical Safawid religious polemic, denied any possibility of contributing to some new socio-economic order, did manifest itself in a militant religious separatism which emphasized the necessity of constant struggle against both Shii and Sunni opponents. The former included encounters with the MushaCshac and the Qizil Bash rebellion of Shih Qull, both movements with socio-economic and religio-political characteristics similar to those of the Safawids following the accession of Junayd.

In southern Iraq, the social origins of the MushaCshac movement were as tribal-based as the later, militantly messianic Safawid order. Its leadership espoused an aggressively messianic Shiism which resembled elements of the Safawids' own radical social and religious rhetoric. Moreover, by the early tenth/sixteenth century, the Mushacshac movement-like the Safawids-had adopted clear expressions of commitment to the Twelver faith.17

Given the exclusivity inherent in the Safawid identification with the faith, such expressions were by definition illegitimate. Following the Safawid capture of Baghdad and the shrine cities in 914/1508, the MushaCshac leadership pledged fealty to Ismacil and gifts were exchanged. Nevertheless, later that year the joint rulers of the confederation were killed by the new Safawid governor of Shushtar, most likely on Ismacil's orders. The murders provoked an outburst among the adherents of the MushaCshac, Basra and al-Ahsa ex- periencing especially violent anti-Safawid outbursts.18

16 Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Al Yasin, Ta'rfkh al-Mashhad al-Kd.zim (Bagh- dad, 1387/1967), 71. The last two references noted appeared after the Safawid defeat at Chaldiran, discussed below, and were thus clearly efforts to re-emphasize Ismacil's divine pretensions as a rallying point for the confederation following this disaster. Thus, Ismi'il's apparent turn inwards after Chaldiran, evident in his poetry (Allouche, ibid, 156), was not evident in post-Chaldiran references to him in the Twelver Shii context. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 179.

17 In 914/1508, for example, coins with distinctly Twelver inscriptions were minted by the Mushacshac governor of Shushtar. See Jasim Hasan Shubbar, Ta'rikh al-MushaCshaCiyin wa Tardjim Acld'ihim (Najaf, 1385/1965), 216-217, 85- 87. Cf. Momen, ibid, 102; Arjomand, ibid, 76-77.

18 See the references cited in note 17, and also Shubbar, ibid, 86n2, where 924/1518 is given as the year of the leaders' execution. Cf. Arjomand, ibid.

A.J. NEWMAN

Several years later, in 917/1511-1512, Shah Quli, of the Qizil Bash Takkaliu tribe, launched a rebellion in Ottoman territory against Sultan Bayazid II. When the rebellion was crushed, the remaining rebels fled to Safawid territory, plundering a caravan of merchants along the way. Ismiail had offered Shah Quli no military assistance and now he received these refugees with some little warmth. Eventually he distanced himself further from their cause and subjected them to some persecution.

The Safawid hostility to this rebellion may be traceable to the Safawid desire to avoid conflict with the Ottomans at this point and Ismdail's dismay at the havoc wrought by Shah Qull's partisans on trade routes important to the Safawids.19 However, inasmuch as the supporters of the radical socio-religious message of Shah Quli, like that of the later Safawids and the Musha'shac, were drawn especially from the rural peasantry and nomadic elements and as that message itself paralleled that of the Safawids, the latter themselves were certainly concerned that same aggressiveness not be rekindled among their own followers.20

Safawid Shiism's continuing capacity for generating militant anti-Sunni attitudes and activities among its supporters was certainly evident in the years following Tabriz. In the ten years following Tabriz Safawid armies captured much of present-day Iran and eastern Iraq from Sunni opponents.

The apparent Safawid commitment to Twelver Shiism was be- lied, however, by the very limited degree of Safawid interest in and understanding of the faith. Indeed, the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism was generally limited to public profession of faith, scattered, officially-sponsored persecution of Iranian Sunnis, formal

19 Petrushevsky, ibid, 324. On IsmSCil's attitude during the period before Chal- diran, see also Jean-Louis Bacque-Grammont, "Etudes Turco-Safavides, I. Notes sur le Blocus du Commerce Iranien par Selim Ier", Turcica, 6 (1975), 74-75; Al- louche, ibid, 94-95. Ismgal was less concerned with Qizil Bash rebellions in Otto- man territory when these were under Safawid control. See, for example, Allouche, ibid, 96-98. On the Safawid involvement in the later Chelali rebellion, after Chal- diran, see Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, 272-275; Allouche, ibid, 128. See also note 27 below.

20 On the social composition of Shah Quli's movement, see Petrushevsky, ibid, 316-317, and especially 324. On its messianism, see Bacque-Grammont, ibid, 27n42; note 62. Compare Arjomand, ibid, 110, and Momen, ibid, 106.

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cursing of the Sunni caliphs,21 and wars against the Ottomans and the Uzbegs-the latter as much rooted in military and political, as religious, conflicts. At the centre of the Safawid polity especially, for example, there is little evidence IsmiCil's interest in and knowledge of the doctrines and practices of the faith were ever more than super- ficial. During his five-year exile prior to the capture of Tabriz Ismacil's teacher Shams al-Din al-Lahiji (d. 912/1506- 1507) in- structed the future Safawid ruler in the Qur'an and some works in Arabic and Persian, but himself appears to have known little of Twelver doctrine and practice. The shah's personal behaviour also suggested little acquaintance with and interest in that doctrine and practice.22

As for the ruling political hierarchy, after Tabriz religious creden- tials were not a criterion for holding positions at court. Appoint- ments to such temporal posts as amir al-umard', qurchibdshi, and wazir in this period depended primarily on status within the broader Safawid socio-political formation. As a result, none of these appoin- tees were professing Twelvers, let alone Arab Twelver clerics.23 Probably more important to the Arab Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory, of those appointed to the post of sadr, the supposed head of the religious classes,24 none was a professing Twelver

21 Aubin, "Etudes I", 54-56, 58; Savory, "The Principal Offices . .. Ismicil I", 103; Momen, ibid, 109; Aubin, "Etudes III", 43. See also notes 29, 32, 39.

22 See Aubin, "Etudes III", 48f. See also notes 8, 68. On Lahiji, see the references cited in note 25.

23 Savory, "The Principle Offices . . . IsmaCil", 93-102. On the socio-political composition of the Safawid leadership, see Aubin, "Etudes. I", 60f, 78; Petru- shevsky, ibid, 322-323; Aubin, "Etudes. II", passim; idem, "Etudes III", 112-118, 120. The story that at Ismicil's profession of faith in Tabriz no book of Twelver doctrine or practice was immediately available as a reference, if not abso- lutely accurate, reflects the degree of the leadership's prior familiarity with the details of the faith. See Hasan-i Rumlu, Ahsdn al-Tawdrikh (Tehran, 1357), 86. See also Mazzaoui, ibid, 80, 6, 28n2; Arjomand, ibid, 106; Momen, ibid, 108. In a further indication of poor Safawid familiarity with key texts of the faith, Qawdcid al- Isldm, attributed to al-Hasan b. Yuisuf, al-Allama al-Hilli (d. 726/1325), eventually located according to court chronicler Rumlu, is not a title listed as a work of al- cAllama. Mazzaoui suggested this work was al-'Allama's Qawdcid al-Ahkdm. See also notes 36, 55.

24 On the post of sadr see, for example, Aubin, "Etudes. I", 54; Savory, "The Principal Offices.. IsmaCil I", 103-105; idem, "The Principle Offices of the Safawid State During the reign of Tahmasp I (930-984/1524-1576)", BSOAS, 24,

A.J. NEWMAN

scholar or lay believer, let alone an Arab. As with other court posts, appointment as sadr did not depend on faith. Indeed, the first sadr was Isma'1l's teacher al-Lahiji.25

part 1 (1961), 79-83; idem, "Safavid Persia", in P.M. Holt, etal., eds., The Cam- bridge History of Islam, vol. 1, "The Central Islamic Lands" (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1970), 402-03; Lambton, "Quis Custodiet Custodes? Some Reflections on the Persian Theory of Government", Studia Islamica 5 (1955), 134f; idem, State, 268; Gottfried Herrmann, "Zur Entstehung des Sadr-Amtes", in Die Islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, Festschriftfiir Hans Robert Roemer zum 65. Geburtstag, Ulrich Haarmann and Peter Bachman, Beiruter Texte und Stu- dien, Bd. 22 (Beirut, 1979), 278-295; Arjomand, ibid, 123-127, 301n7.

25 On those who held the post of sadr in this period, see Rumlu, ibid, 20; Aubin, "Etudes. I", 53-54, 69-71, 73, 76; Mazzaoui, ibid, 86; Savory, "The Principle Offices ... IsmaCil", 103-105, 97, 102; Aubin, "Etudes. II", 11-13, 20; Savory, "The Principal Offices ... Tahmasp", 65; Arjomand, ibid, 116, 106-107; Caro- lineJ. Beeson, "The Origins of Conflict in the Safawid Religious Institution" (un- published Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1982), 79-86; Momen, ibid, 108; Aubin, "Etudes III", 115-116. Arjomand (ibid, 107) cited the late tenth/sixteenth century court chronicle Takmilat al-Akhbir that "there was no doubt" of the Shiism of the sixth sadr, Amir Jamal al-Din al-Astarabadi, who held office until 931/1524-1525. In fact, al-Astarabadi was not especially well-versed in Twelver doctrine and practice. He was a student of the Iranian Sunni philosopherJamal al- Din al-Dawwani (d. 908/1502), who himself had rejected IsmaCil's claims to the imamate. See Mirza Muhammad Baqir al-Khwansari, Raudit al-Jannat, M.T. al- Kashfi and A. Ismacilyin, eds., (Tehran-Qum, 1390- 1392), 8:71; Mazzaoui, ibid, 85; Arjomand, ibid, 96, 97-98, 179; Aubin, "Etudes. I", 59. Rumlfi (ibid, 248- 249), who completed his chronicle in 985/1577-1578, noted an agreement between CAli al-Karaki and al-Astarabadi for exchange of instruction in philosophy by al- Astarabadi for teaching of the tenets of Twelver Shiism by al-Karaki-an account accepted by Nfirallah al-Shushtari (d. 1019/1610-1611) in his Majalis al-Mu'minFn 2 (Tehran, 1354), 233-234, and such later Twelver biographers as al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:211 -214, Muhsin al-Amin, Acyin al-Shia (Damascus, 1935f), 41:176-177, and al-Husayn b. Muhammad Taqi al-Nfuri, Mustadrak al-Wasd'il 3 (Tehran, 1382), 432. See also Mroueh, ibid, 46-47. Having mentioned this exchange, Rumlu wrote "no one rendered greater service to the faith". Lambton understood the latter statement as referring to al-Astarabadi. Twelver biographers, however, interpreted it as applying to al-Karaki. See Lambton, "Quis", 134-135; al- Khwansari, ibid, 4:369; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176-177; al-Nfiri, ibid, 3:432; and the sources cited in the discussion on al-Astarabadi below. On remuneration al- Astarabadi received for his services, see Aubin, "Etudes III", 97, 166. In his Khuldsat al-Tawdrikh 1 (Tehran, 1359, 296-298), completed in 999/1590, the court chronicler Qa7di Ahmad Qummi reported the agreement for the exchange in lessons as between al-Karaki and Mansur al-Dashtaki (d. 948/1541), appointed co-sadr in 936/1529. Although Savory accepted this rendition of the exchange in his "The Principle Offices ... Tahmasp", 82, biographies of al-Dashtaki's life contain no mention of such instruction. Cf. the earlier account of Rumlu, ibid, 391- 394, al-Khwansarri, ibid, 7:176-179, and the discussion of al-Dashtaki below.

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The politico-military fortunes of the Safawids in this period could only have been an added concern to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory. On the one hand, although the first ten years following the capture of Tabriz were generally ones of victory for Safawid armies, the depredations suffered by local populations in the constant warring, among the different Safawid tribes and between the Qizil Bash armies and their Shii and Sunni opponents, appear to have been horrendous.26

Perhaps more importantly, less than fifteen years after Tabriz the Safawids suffered two important defeats at the hands of their Sunni enemies. At least partly as a result of conflicts internal to the Safawid leadership in 918/1512, two years after IsmSail's capture of Khura- san, Uzbeg armies defeated the Safawids near the Oxus and seized Herat, Mashhad, and TUis. Although the Safawids retook these areas two years later, in 920/1514, the Ottomans inflicted a major defeat on the Safawids at Chaldiran in Azerbaijan. Many highrank- ing Safawid officials, including the former and current sadr, were killed in this battle. Two years after Chaldiran, in 922/1516, the Qizil Bash governor of Khurasan split from the central authority and retained virtual autonomy for six years. To outsiders, these events could only have suggested the continued viability of the Safawid experiment-however extremist and extremely violent- was uncertain.

Sunni fortunes in this period, by contrast, clearly seemed on the rise. Uzbeg successes against the Safawids have been recounted. As for the Sunni Ottomans, three years after Chaldiran, in 923/1517, they gained control over Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Hijaz.27

See also our forthcoming entry on Mansuir al-Dashtaki in Encyclopaedia Iranica on disagreements between him and Dawwani.

26 Aubin, "Etudes III", 69f. 27 Bacque-Grammont has suggested the psychological warfare waged by Is-

ma.il against the Ottomans following Chaldiran successfully portrayed a stronger image, to foreign powers for example, of the Safawid position than was really the case. See Bacque-Grammont, Les Ottomans, e.g. 275f, and passim. Especially after the fall of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Hijaz to the Ottomans, the extent to which Shii clerics living in these areas, not formally associated with the Ottoman government, were also mislead by Safawid propaganda is not clear, however. See also note 16 on Ismiicl's continued extremist Shii rhetoric after Chaldiran. Selim's imposition of a trade blockade against the Safawids after Chaldiran, although its

A.J. NEWMAN

In sum, the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism offered few positive images to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory in this period. Relative to the order's historical lack of interest in the faith, Ismaeil's abrupt conversion was problematic. The Safawid religious discourse after that profession was as extreme as it had been since Junayd's reign and, now combining both elements of its earlier non-Shii expression together with Shii allusions, clearly unorthodox. The Safawid elite's interest in and knowledge of the details of the faith was limited and prospects for the continued viability of the Safawid polity were, at best, uncertain.

The unease these aspects of Safawid Shiism generated among or- thodox Twelver clerics was compounded by the very public manner in which one of their number did associate himself with the Safawids very soon after the capture of Tabriz and the profession of faith by IsmdCil.

CAli al-Karaki at the Court of IsmSceil

CAli b. al-Husayn al-Karaki, later given the title "al-Muhaqqiq al-Thani" (the second investigator), is frequently cited in the secondary sources as one of the large number of Arab clerics said to have migrated to Safawid territory in this period.28

Al-Karakl's association with the Safawid court began very soon after the capture of Tabriz. Born in the late 860s/1450 - 1460s in the

Jabal cAmil village of Karak Nuh, al-Karaki studied in Syria and Cairo early in his life. Al-Karaki's association with the Safawid Shiism began almost immediately upon Ismicil's profession of faith in 907/1501. In 908/1503, al-Karaki was present at the Safawid capture of Kashan and, presumably with court authority and approval, endorsed the rulings of a local Sunni qada, allowing the latter to keep his post after the qadi had agreed to IsmaCil's call to curse the Sunni caliphs.29 In 909/1504 al-Karaki settled in Najaf with some finan-

impact on the Safawid economy is unclear, may have contributed to a low image of Safawid prospects by these clerics. On this blockade, see idem, "Etudes Turco- Safavides. I".

28 See the sources in notes 3 and 94, and Mroueh, ibid, 44. 29 Al-Shushtari, ibid, 2:233-234. See also al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194f; al-Nuri,

ibid, 3:432; al-Amin, ibid, 41:179. See also notes 32 and 39.

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cial support from the court. In 910/1505 he was in Isfahan with Is- ma'il. In 914/1508 al-Karaki and Baghdad's Shii naqib had been jailed by the Aq-qiuyunlu. When the Safawids captured Baghdad that year, both were released and joined Ismcil in his tour of the Shii shrine cities and al-Hilla.30 Two years later, in 916-917/1511, al-Karaki was with Ismacil at the capture of Herat.31

Al-Karaki did not hesitate to openly utilize his religio-legal knowledge and skills to support specific aspects of Safawid Shiism in this period, including the more extreme manifestations of the Safawid identification with and expression of the faith. Thus, as will be discussed in greater detail below, he consistently defended the extreme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism. In 916/1511, the year Herat was captured, for example, al-Karaki completed and dedicated to Ismacil "Nafahat al-Lahut fi LaCn al-Jibt wa'l-Taghfit" in which he argued for the legality of cursing the Sunni caliphs, thereby lending support to a practice already adopted by Ismacil.32

Sometime between the capture of Herat and the battle of Chaldir- an several years later, al-Karaki replied for Ismacil to questions addressed him by the Ottoman Sultan Selim, including questions as to why Ismacil had destroyed the tomb of the Sunni jurist Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767) in Baghdad at the Safawid capture of the city in 914/1508.33 Such efforts not only represented al-Karaki's approval

30 Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwdr, 108 (Tehran, 1392/1972), 28- 34; Agha Buzurg Muhammad al-Tehrani, al-DharCa ild Tasd.nf al-Sh:Ca (Tehran and Najaf, 1353-1398), 1:124, 122; Rumlu, ibid, 677-678, ad. 914/1508; W. Madelung, "al-Karaki", El2, 4:610. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 133.

31 Mirza CAbdallah al-Isbahani Afandi, Riyad al-CUlama (Qum, 1401) 3:445; al- Khwansarl, ibid, 4:363; al-Nuri, ibid; al-Amin, ibid, 41:176f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 24:250-251; Mroueh, ibid, 46. On the conquest of Khurasan and its consequences for the Qizil Bash, see Aubin, "Etudes. II.", 15f.

32 Al-Tehrani, ibid, 24:250-251; al-Amin, ibid, 41:180; ICjaz Husayn al- Kantfiri, Kashf al-Hujub (Calcutta, 1914), 284; Madelung, ibid; Arjomand, ibid, 165. On Ismail's policy of cursing the caliphs, see al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:194nl. See also notes 21, 39. On actions by Ottoman jurists against the Safawids, see Bacque- Grammont, Les Ottomans, 51-53, 115; Allouche, ibid, 111-112, 170-173. On the Ottoman use of Friday prayer services to denounce Ismiail, see Allouche, ibid, 128.

33 Anonymous, 'Alam Ard-yi Shah Ismd'il, Asghar Muntazir $ihib, ed., (Tehran, 1349), 516. On the damage done by Ismail to the tomb and the Ottoman repairs undertaken following the capture of Baghdad in 941/1534, see 'Abbas al- CAzzawl, Ta'rfkh al-cIraq bayn Ihtilalayn (Baghdad, 1369/1949), 4:30-32; Aubin, "Etudes III", 45; note 85.

A.J. NEWMAN

for these specific instances of anti-Sunni extremism, but lent further legitimacy both to the Safawid's extreme anti-Sunni rhetoric and confrontations with Sunnism both at home and abroad and thus also, more generally, to the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism.

As discussed below, al-Karaki's support for the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism extended to support for the extremist claims made by the Safawids concerning IsmaCl' s relationship to the faith itself. For eight years after Tabriz, at least until 916/1510, al- Karaki endorsed the Safawids' use of such terms as al-sultin al-Cddil and al-imdm al-ddil to refer to Ismcil, thereby encouraging the shah's exploitation of the ambiguity of meaning of these terms to bolster the shah's claim to the imamate.

Al-Karaki was well-compensated for his association with and the services he rendered the court. In addition to the remuneration he received as early as 909/1504, mentioned above, al-Karaki received land grants-including several villages-in Arab Iraq from Ismacil, probably after the capture of Baghdad in 914/1508.34 After the capture of Herat two years later, in 916/1510, Ismacil granted al-Karaki additional administrative authority in Safawid territories, also apparently in Arab Iraq, and an annual stipend of 70,000 dinars, which al-Karaki distributed among his students.35 Between 922/1516 and 931/1525, the year after Ismacil's death, al-Karaki spent much time in Safawid-controlled Najaf, from where he could easily oversee his eastern-Iraqi financial affairs.36

34 Al-Karaki completed his khardj essay in 916/1510 in defense of his acceptance of land grants in Iraq likely received in this period. See CAli b. al-Husayn al-Karaki, "QatiCat al-Lajaj fl Hall al-Kharaj", in, Kalimmat al-Muhaqqiqmn (Qum, 1402), 161 - 162. See also W. Madelung, "Shi'ite Discussions on the Legality of the Kha- raj", in, Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Is- lamisants, Rudolph Peters, ed., (Leiden: Brill, 1981),194n4, and the sources cited in the notes above. Both al-Karaki's service to the court and remuneration appear to have predated that of al-Astarabadi, appointed sadr after Chaldiran in 920/1514, on whom see note 25.

35 See the sources cited in the notes above, note 96, and al-Nuri, ibid, 3:431. 36 Al-Karaki's movements can be dated by iyazdt: in 924/1518, 928/1521,

929/1522, and 931/1524 he was in Najaf. See al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:58-59, 60f; al- Tehrani, ibid, 1:212, 214-215, 213; Afandi, ibid, 1:26, 30. It is therefore unlikely the reference to "Shaykh Zayn al-Din CAll" as being in Herat from 928/1521- 930/1523, in Habib al-Siyar referred to al-Karaki. See Afandi, ibid, 3:444-445, and

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The Open Opposition to Safawid Shiism. Criticism frdm theffIyjz, the Gulf and Arab Iraq

The most problematic evidence supporting the migration thesis cited by Browne and echoed by more recent scholars must be the characterizations of Amal al-Amul and Lu 'lu'at al-Bahrayn as biographies "entirely devoted" to those Twelver clerics who came to Iran "tto make the process of transforming Iran into a Shiite land possi- ble".37 Although such characterizations are unjustified,3 they are probably at least implicitly accepted by other commentators as well.

The factors contributing to Twelver clerics' general unease with Safawid Shiism have been discussed. Careful consideration of the actions and movements of Arab scholars in the first half-century after Tabriz discloses specific instances of clerical rejection of Safawid Shiism. The disapproval of clerics in the H:ijaiz, the Gulf, and Arab Iraq, for example, was open and vocal, and focused especially on al-Karaki-'s conduct in his capacity as an official, openly- acknowledged associate of the court and therefore a representative of the court's understanding and expression of the faith. Some clerics were particularly concerned with al-Karak-i' s clearly Usi:li tendency to favour expansion of the role and authority of the faqihi in the absence of the Imiim. In many instances the unease with

note 60. Court chroniclers frequently were not conversant with matters and men of religion. See our "Towards a Reconsideration of the 'Isfahan School of Philosophy': Shaykh Bahii'i and the Role of the Safawid CUlamii', Studia Iranica, Tome 15, fasc. 2 (1986), 177 -178n39, and notes 23, 55. Cf. Arjomand, i'bid, 133.

37 The citations are from Nasr, "Religion", 274. See also Browne, ibid; Aubin, "Etudes. IL", 54. See also Nasr, "Spiritual Movements, Philosophy and Theology in the Safavid Period", in Cambridge History of Iran, VI, Peterjackson and Laurence Lockhart, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 661.

38 Amal al-Amil, completed in 1098/1687, contains one section of over 200 biographical notices on cAmili scholars well-known throughout Shii history and a second of more than 1000 notices on non-cAmili scholars alive from the onset of Twelfth Imiim's occultation. Of the more than 133 full entries in al-Bahriini's Lu'- lu 'at al-Bahrayn, completed a century later, about half are biographies of clerics of the Safawid-period or later. Of the latter, less than thirty-nearly all of the second Safawid century-possess the nisba Bahririni. See Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-H-urr al-c,Amili, Amal al-Amilfi- Tardjim c Ulamd Jabal CAmil (Baghdad, 1385/1965 -1966) and Yi?isuf al-Bahriini, Lu'lu'at Ba4raynfl'l-Ijdzdt wa Tardjim Ryjel al-HadzNt (Beirut, 1406/1986). For details on both works, see al-Tehrainr, ibid, 2:350, 18:379-380. See also Hourani, ibid, 139.

A.J. NEWMAN

which these clerics viewed al-Karaki's association with Safawid Shiism mirrored broader popular discontent.

In the Hijaz, the implementation of policies based on the extreme anti-Sunnism of Safawid Shiism produced distress within the Twelver community. Sometime after Tabriz IsmaCil instituted the practice of openly reviling the early Sunni caliphs. Al-Karak' s open association with this policy began soon after his affiliation with the Safawids commenced. As recounted above, at the capture of Kashan in 908/1503 he allowed a local Sunni qd.di to retain his position after the latter agreed to curse the caliphs. In 916-917/1511, al-Karaki authored "Nafahat al-Lahut" in which he approved openly reviling the Sunni caliphs. Indeed, al-Karaki was generally well-known for his reviling both of the caliphs and past Sunni scholars and for encouraging his students to do the same. The cursing of the caliphs led to complaints from the Hijazi Twelver community to fellow clerics in Safawid territory. According to Sayyid NiCmatallah al-Jaza'iri (d. 1112/1710), Twelver clerics in Mecca complained to the ulama in Isfahan "you revile their imams in Isfahan and we in al-Haramayn are chastised for this cursing and reviling."39 The nature of the chastisement is not clear. There could only have been resentment against al-Karaki for his association with and promotion of this policy, however, and, together with the riots in Basra and al-Ahsa sparked by Isma'il's murder of the MushaCsha' leadership, the unease within the Twelver community in the Hijaz and the Gulf at the appearance of Safawid Shiism in the region was clearly substantial.

Al-Karakl's association with and acceptance of remuneration from the Safawid court was also the subject of criticism by Twelver clerics. Perhaps the earliest condemnation of al-Karaki's court af- filiations was the censure of his acceptance of financial favours from the court by an unidentified group of clerics upon his settlement in Arab Iraq, in 908/1503 or 909/1504, soon after al-Karaki had joined the court and had settled in Iraq, soon after IsmCail's profession of the faith.40 As this rebuke came after al-Karakl's settling

39 Al-Bahrani, ibid, 153; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:362; Muhammad b. Sulayman Tunukabuni, Qisas al-Ulamad (Tehran, n.d.), 347-348; al-Amin, ibid, 41:178; Mroueh, ibid, 46.

40 In his kharaj essay, completed in 916/1510, al-Karaki referred to a group of

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in Arab Iraq, it seems likely these clerics were themselves based there.

The details and implications of the clerical criticism of al-Ka- raki's acceptance of remuneration from the court are perhaps best understood by consideration of the exchanges between al- Karaki and Ibrahim b. Sulayman al-Qatifi (d. after 945/1539), be- ginning within ten years of Tabriz. Al-Qatifi, by birth from the eastern Gulf area of Bahrayn, had settled in Najaf by 913/1507, the year before the Safawid capture of Baghdad. He then moved to al-Hilla.41

The first of the confrontations between the two occurred sometime between the Safawid capture of Baghdad, in 914/1508, and 916/1510, when al-Qatifi journeyed to Mashhad, met, and debated al-Karaki. According to al-Qat.ifi's description of this debate in his "al-RisMla al-Ha'iriyya", an essay completed within several years of his return to Najaf, al-Karaki challenged al-Qatifi's refusal of gifts from al-hukkdm (rulers)-a clear allusion to an attempt by Ismaiil to win favour with al-Qatifi. Al-Qatifi replied acceptance of such gifts was makrih (reprehensible)-a ruling in agreement with those of earlier Usuli Twelver clerics on the legality of accepting gifts from al-zalim (the oppressor) or al-j 'ir (the tyrant)-and added that al-Karaki ought to have hesitated before pursuing any relationship with IsmaCil.42 According to his own record of this encounter, al-Qatifi did not formally define IsmaCil as al-ja'ir or al-.zlim,

clerics who had challenged his acceptance of financial favours from the court when he had settled in Arab Iraq, likely a reference to his having settled in Arab Iraq as early as the dates given. Al-Karaki noted he had replied to their objections, citing supporting akhbdr and fatdwi. See al-Karaki, ibid, and note 52.

41 Al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 165-166; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:134; 'All b. al-Hasan al- Bahrani, Anwdr al-Badrayn (Najaf, 1377/1957-1958), 282.

42 Al-Qatifi mentioned this confrontation with al-Karaki and explicitly referred to Ismacil's attempt to enlist his services in his later khardj essay. There he noted he had also argued shubha (judicial doubt) ought to have compelled al-Karaki to re- fuse the shah's gifts which, as the concept of "hesitation", was a clearly Akhbari line of argument. As will be discussed below, al-Qatlfi's criticism of al-Karaki in his later khardj essay was more decidedly, and openly, Akhbari. See al-Qatifi, "Al- Siraj al-Wahhaj", in Kalimdt al-Muhaqqiqin, 291 f. See also notes 44, 48 and 51. On points of dispute between Usulis and Akhbaris, see our two-part "The nature of the Akhbari/Usuli dispute in late Safawid Iran", BSOAS, LV, part 1, (1992), 22-51, part 2 (1992), 250-261.

A.J. NEWMAN

although in his use of these terms al-Qatifi was certainly referring to Ism?il.43

According to al-Qatifi, al-Karaki countered acceptance of such gifts was "obligatory or recommended"- a formulation used by Usull scholars in reference to the legal status of accepting gifts from al-sul.tan al-'adil or al-imam al-'adil. Inasmuch as the ambiguity inherent in these terms was being exploited in other instances to bolster Ismall's pretensions to the imamate, the use of such terms by al-Karaki-as a religious scholar certainly aware of their alternate

meanings-amounted to a public declaration of his acceptance of Isma'il's characterizations of himself as the ultimate arbiter of the faith's doctrines and practices.

Al-Karaki's interpretations were apparently shared by other clerics in this period: attending al-Karaki in his encounter with al-Qatifi in Mashhad were a number of other, unidentified clerics.44 That Ism-ail had also sent gifts to al-Qatifi suggests a wide-ranging effort

by the court to win the adherence of the clerical class. The clerics in Mashhad had perhaps accepted some benefaction from the court for having performed, or in hope of performing, some court service.

The second confrontation between the two, the well-known exchange of khardj essays, began shortly after their Mashhad confron-

43 The Akhbari scholar al-Shaykh al-$aduiq (d. 381/991-992) had defined al-zalim as a false claimant to the imamate. See A.A.A. Fyzee's translation of al-$aduq's al-ICtiqdddt in A Shicite Creed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), 107. See also Joseph Eliash, "Misconceptions Regarding the Juridical Status of the Iranian cUlama", International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 10, no. 1 (Febru- ary, 1979), 17; Sachedina, ibid, 34. In later Usfiul writings, however, as with the terms al-sultdn al-cddil, al-sul(idn al-jd'ir and al-imdm al-jd'ir also referred to secular authority. See, for example, Sachedina, ibid, 93-94, 99, 170. Al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli made rulings similar to al-Qatifi's, using al-ji 'ir and al-zalim interchangea- bly, in corresponding sections of his Shardi'i al-Isldm, 2:10 - 12, and al-Mukhtafsar al- NJfiC (Najaf, 1383/1964, 145), as did al-Hasan b. Yusuf, al-cAllama al-Hilli in his Qawa'id al-Isldm (Qum, n.d., 1:122) and Tahrfr al-Ahkam (Mashhad, n.d., 1:163). See also note 13.

44 Al-Qatlfi's essay is summarized in al-Bahrani, Lu'lu'at, 161-163. See also Afandi, ibid, 1:15f; al-Khwansari, ibid, 1:25; al-Tehrani, ibid, 6:4. The reference by al-Bahrani to a further, similar, but undated, confrontation in Iraq between the two men specifically over al-Qatifi's refusal of the gifts of Tahmasp most likely also referred to the Mashhad encounter. For details of the other issues debated at this confrontation in Mashhad, and the Akhbari-style of al-Qatifi's rejoinders, see al- Bahrani, ibid.

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tation. In 916/1510, al-Karaki completed his kharaj essay "Qatiat

al-Lajaj" to refute opposition which had arisen since his confrontation with al-Qat.ifi in Mashhad, particularly criticisms arising from al-Karakl's recent acceptance of villages in Arab Iraq from Ism- eil.45 In this essay al-Karaki attempted to legitimize his receipt of this land by declaring it to be kharaj which, as such, belonged to the Imam. Al-Karaki ruled the faqih who possessed sifdt al-niydba (the qualities of deputyship), by virtue of the principle of niydba cdmma (general deputyship)-the general authority possessed on the Im- am's behalf during the occultation-, was permitted to accept al- kharaj and al-muqdsama from sultan al-jawr.

These references were clearly meant as a defense of al-Karaki's own acceptance of this land from Ismacil. The legal formulation itself, however, was clearly different from that used against al-Qatifi in Mashhad not long before; there al-Karaki had identified Ismacil as al-sul.tin al-cadil/al-imdm al-cadil. On one level, al-Karaki' s new formulation suggested he now viewed Ismcil an unjust secular ruler and was now justifying his acceptance of remuneration from the court as a prerogative of thefaqith as the nd'ib al-imdm (the deputy of the Imam) allowed to interact with al-jd'ir,-a ruling in agreement with those of earlier Usufll clerics.46 On a deeper level, however, al- Karaki's abandonment of references to Ismacil as al-Cddil suggests he now also realised his earlier support for Safawid allusions to Is- maCil's imamate was untenable. Both recantations are likely at- tributable to the opposition to his conduct which had arisen within the community since his confrontation with al-Qatifi in Mashhad, to which al-Karaki referred in his essay.

45 Earlier references to the kharaj essays include Madelung, "Shi'ite Discus- sions", passim; idem, "al-Karaki"; H.M. Tabataba'!, Kharij in Islamic Law (Lon- don: Ithaca Press, 1983), passim, esp. 51-58, 133-136, 157-166, 169-180, 190-191, 193-197; Lambton, State, 271-273; Arjomand, ibid, 193-194, 230, 134, 136, 137; Calder, "Legitimacy and Accommodation", 96. On the opposition which prompted al-Karaki's composition of this essay, see also note 52. On the terminology, see Tabataba'i, ibid, passim.

46 Elsewhere in the essay al-Karaki stated that in the occultation the qualified faqih was permitted to accept al-khardj and al-muqasama from al-imim al-ji'ir; slightly different terminology employed to make the same point. See al-Karaki, ibid, 173, 180, 188-189. Permission for thefaqth to work for al-jd'ir in the interests of enforc- ing the law had been accepted by Uisull clerics as early as the Buwayhid period. See,

A.J. NEWMAN

Al-Qatifi completed his rebuttal to al-Karaki's essay in Najaf in 924/1518, eight years after al-Karaki had written his treatise.47 By this time, for reasons to be discussed below, al-Qatifi was much less ambiguous in his use of terms to refer to Ismacil and the nature of his rule than he recorded himself as having been in his confrontation with al-Karaki in Mashhad.

In this essay, al-Qatifi formally adopted the definition of al-jd'ir as a false claimant to the imamate as set down by the Buwayhid- period Akhbari al-Shaykh al-Saduq. Al-Qatifi then declared illegal receipt of items such as al-khardj from al-jd'ir because al-ja'ir had, by definition, taken these improperly from their rightful owners. Al- Qatifi ruled al-Karaki ought to have hesitated before participating in such a transaction-a further, clearly Akhbari line of argument. In any case, al-Qatifi argued, the gifts of al-zalim-a term of whose frequent substitution with al-ja'ir in Usuli jurisprudence al-Qatifi was certainly aware-ought to be avoided.48 This line of argument clearly derived from and revealed al-Qatlifi's understanding of al- Karaki's expression of his own relationship to IsmCail as that of nad'ib to al-imam al-jd'ir, but his denial of the Usuli notion that the na'ib could serve him.49

In the same essay, al-Qati.fi adopted yet another plainly Akhbari criticism. Al-Qatifi refused to identify na'ib al-imim as thefaqih, suggesting niyaba had ceased in 329/941 with the death of the fourth safir of the Hidden Imam. Al-Qatifi then declared such items as al-zakdt, which recent Usulis had ruled was to be delivered to thefuqahd' for distribution during the occultation, were instead to be given directly to the intended recipients.50 This repudiation of the authority of the fuqahd' over al-zakdt during the occultation clearly and openly signi- fied al-Qatifi's blanket rejection of the more general Usiuli concept

for example, Madelung, "A Treatise of the Sharif al-Murtada", 28-29. See also note 51.

47 For the dates of both essays, see al-Tehrani, ibid, 12:164, 17:10. 48 Al-Qatifi, ibid, 309-311, 249, 295, 291; notes 42, 43. On "hesitation" as a

specifically Akhbari legal concept, see our two-part BSOAS essay. 49 Ibid, 295, 300f. See also the discussion on al-Karaki above. 50 Ibid, 308-309. On the historical development of what in fact was the Usull

position concerning the disposition of al-zakit during the occultation, see Calder, "Zakat in Imami Shii Jurisprudence from the Tenth to the Sixteenth Century", BSOAS, 46, part 3 (1981), 468-480.

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of thefaqih's status as na 'ib al-imam during the occultation, a rejection at the core of the Akhbari critique of the Usuli tradition.51

Al-Qatifi's kharij essay also reveals al-Qatifi and his critique clearly enjoyed the support of Twelver clerics. In his preface, al-

Qatifi noted he had refused an earlier request to rebut al-Karaki's

khardj essay because he had seen al-Karaki's essay only briefly while in Simnan; now, he wrote, he had decided to compose such a reply. Though al-Qatifi did not identify the source of the earlier request, it most likely came from someone who, like al-Qatifi himself, was a cleric based in Arab Iraq.52

The condemnation of al-Karaki and his association with Safawid Shiism was also at least partly rooted in popular resentment in Arab Iraq with Safawid Shiism. In his khardj essay al-Qat.ifi noted that following the Safawid conquest of Arab Iraq, in 914/1508, the poor and property holders such as "weavers and other artisans" in Iraq had been forced to pay taxes which al-Qatifi claimed financed the later tour of the area by IsmaCil-and, it will be remembered, by the local

naqib and al-Karaki himself.53 The Akhbari/Usuli dimension of the kharaj confrontation between

al-Qatifi and al-Karaki was also evident in other exchanges between the two in this period. The two disagreed on the nature and impact of textual prohibitions against intermarriage between individuals

51 The Akhbari critique of the Usiull understanding of the authority of thefaqih during the occultation was linked to the Akhbari critique of Usuiill rationalist jurisprudence: development of the rationalist legal sciences both permitted and encouraged extrapolation of the concept of thefaqih as nd'ib al-imdm. See our BSOAS essay. Compare Sachedina, ibid, 203.

52 Al-Qatifi, "al-Siraj al-Wahhaj", 240-241. Madelung ("Shi'ite Discus- sions", 199) suggested the earlier request had come from "a high dignitary in the Safavid state" opposed to al-Karaki. Al-Qatifi, however, described the individual who had made the request as "one to whom obedience is necessary". By this time, al-Qatifl's hostility to the Safawids was well-known, and given the lack of any biographical information linking him to anyone in the Safawid political hierarchy and this description of the individual in question, it seems unlikely this was a reference to some figure in the Safawid political hierarchy. It seems more probable this was a reference to a senior religious figure, perhaps one of al-Qatifi 's teachers in Arab Iraq, who objected to al-Karaki's receipt of land from the Safawids. Such a reference also suggests such a cleric-but not al-Qatifi himself-was among those to whom al-Karaki referred in his kharaj essay as having objected to his association with the court in 908-909/1503-1504-on which see note 40.

53 Al-Qatifi, ibid, 291f. See also note 56 and Madelung, ibid, 198.

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related by blood and also those individuals related by al-ri.d' (wet- nursing). In 916/1510, the same year he completed his kharaj essay, al-Karaki also produced an essay on al-ridac. Al-Qatifi completed a reply to the latter in 926/1520, two years after completing his rebuttal to al-Karaki's kharaj essay. Al-Qatifi's essay was as much a criticism of the course of Usuli jurisprudence-in particular the use of logical reasoning and presumptions of permission al-Karaki applied when the legal sources appeared unclear or not immediately relevant-and a demand for more litteral readings of the texts as it was a discussion of issues relating to al-ri.dC.54

The two also clashed over the question of the legality of the performance of Friday congregational prayer during the occultation. In 917/1511, a year after his completion of his essays on al-khardj and al-ri.dac, and while with IsmaCil on his Khurasan campaign, al- Karaki completed a general prayer essay entitled "al-JaCfariyya f'l-Salat". In this essay al-Karaki ruled that during the occultation the prayer was lawful bi shart al-faqih al-jdmic li'l-shard 'it (on condition [of the presence] of the qualified faqih) and based on istishab (con- tinuance). This was a formulation in agreement with both the rulings on this issue of earlier Usuili clerics and the general Usuili tendency to argue for an expansion in the authority of thefaqih as na'ib al-imam during the occultation. Al-Karaki's completion four years later, in 921/1515, of a separate essay specifically addressing the legality of the prayer in the occultation, however, suggests his earlier ruling had been controversial.

In his rebuttal to al-Karaki's position on congregational prayer in the occultation, al-Qatifi specifically addressed al-Karaki's ruling the prayer was legal in the presence of a qualifiedfaqih. The essay, although not extant, appears to have been as distinctly Akhbari as al-QatifiT 's essays on al-kharij and al-ri.dac. Given al-Karakl's open support for the Safawid identification with the faith and al-Qatifis rejection of that support and identification, the naming of the ruler in

54 Al-Bahrani, ibid, 161, 154n5; al-Tehrami, ibid, 11: 188, 192; al-Am[n, ibid, 181f. These essays were discussed by the present writer in "The Foster-Parent Relationship: Religion and Politics in Sixteenth Century Shii Thought", delivered at the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, Chicago, November 3-6, 1983. The essays are presently the subject of additional, detailed study by the present writer.

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the khutba of the prayer and the tendency in these prayers to address matters on the ruler's agenda-both lending the shah's authority additional legitimacy-may have been the subtext in the clash over the prayer.55

The timing of these written-and thus relatively public-exchanges between al-Karaki and al-Qatifi coincided with the chang- ing fortunes of Safawid politico-military authority in the region. Al- Karaki completed his kharaj and ri.dc essays in 916/1510 and "al- JaCfariyya" in 917/1511, when Safawid politico-military power in the region was on the ascendancy. In 914/1508 the Safawids had captured Baghdad and the Shii shrine cities and in 916/1510 Herat fell to Safawid armies.

By contrast, al-Qatifi completed his reply to al-Karaki's kharaj essay eight years later, in 924/1518, and his rebuttal on al-ri.ddc two years later, in 926/1520-both well after the stunning Safawid defeat at Chaldiran in 920/1524, following which Safawid regional authority, indeed the very viability of the Safawid polity itself, became increasingly problematic. Clearly, on the issue of kharaj, for

55 CAll al-Karaki, "al-JaCfariyya fi'l-Salat", in Cairo, Dar al-Kutub al- Mi,riyya, MS 217/2 Fiqh Shia, fol. 84a. See also Qummi, ibid, 237; Afandi, ibid, 1:17, 3:448; al-Bahrani, ibid, 161; al-Tehrani, ibid, 5:110-111, 15:62, 75-76; Ar- jomand, The Shadow, 136. See also al-Karaki's discussion on this question in the section on prayer in his laterJamic al-Maq4sid, as cited by Calder, "Zakat", 479; Sachedina, ibid, 177-204, and esp. 180- 181. The importance of the performance of this prayer to the ruling political power is clear. The reading of IsmaCil's name in the Friday khufba to demonstrate the allegiance of an area seized for the Safawids to the Safawid throne, for example, is noted by court chroniclers. See Allouche, ibid, 96-97, citing Rumlu and CAlam Ard-yi Shah IsmdCil. The incident referred to in the latter, said to have occurred in Aleppo, is considered a false report, however. The importance of this prayer to the court is further attested to by the definition by Rumlu and Qummi of the niydba of thefuqahda in terms of the conduct of Friday prayer, itself another example of court chroniclers' lack of familiarity with Twelver law and practice, cited by Arjomand in his "Two Decrees of ShSh Tahmasp Con- cerning Statecraft and the Authority of Shaykh CAll al-Karaki', in Arjomand, ed., Authority and Political Culture in Shi'ism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 262n6, 261n4. Cf. Arjomand's suggestion (ibid, 251) that al-Karaki himself instituted Friday prayer after the 939/1532firman discussed below. See also notes 23, 36, and 86, and the discussion of the religio-historical roots of the debate on this question in our "Towards a Reconsideration", 194-196. For an instance of the Ottomans' use of Friday prayer to name the sultan and thus legitimise his rule, see Allouche, ibid, 137. See also note 32. On the 'qualifications' of thefaqih and istishab, see further our BSOAS essay.

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example, clerical and popular discontent with both al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism expressed in al-Qatifi's khardj essay had been present earlier.56 Only in the aftermath of Chaldiran, however, did

al-Qatifi return to al-Karaki's khardj essay to compose the rebuttal he had declined to write earlier and subject al-Karaki, IsmaCil and the Safawid association with Twelver Shiism, and, indeed, the course of Usuili jurisprudence to date to criticism from a more open, explicitly Akhbari position than he had apparently expressed in his confrontation with al-Karaki in Mashhad. Al-Qatifi's similarly Akhbari-style reply to al-Karaki on al-ri.ddC was also composed after Chaldiran. Al-Qatifi's essay on Friday congregational prayer, like- wise a challenge to al-Karaki and the Usiull interpretation of thefaqih's authority, may also have been completed sometime in this period.

Although he was resident in Safawid-controlled Najaf during the

period he authored the essays on al-kharaj and al-ri.dd, the court took no action against al-Qatifi. This inaction probably stemmed from a combination of factors, including a weakened post-Chaldiran court structure more concerned with political and military than reli-

gious affairs, perhaps also coupled with the feeling overt action

against al-Qatifi, like-minded clerics, and potentially large portions of the local, large Shiite population would not only fail to crush, but might actually lend further publicity and/or legitimacy to their opposition. The court may also have continued to entertain the hope the manifestly generous financial remuneration enjoyed by al- Karaki would attract to court other scholars who themselves could, more effectively, assist in muting further criticism.

The anti-Safawid riots in the Gulf, the criticisms of the Hijazi clerics, that of al-Qatifi, a native of the Gulf transplanted to Arab Iraq, and fellow clerics and lay believers based in Arab Iraq illu- strate both the widespread clerical and lay discontent with Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki's manner of association with it in particular,

56 On the question of khardj, al-Qatifi (ibid. 249) noted that people of the villages given al-Karaki after the Safawid conquest of the area, having just been con- quered, were too afraid to complain about their being unjustifiably exploited. He added, however, the granting of the villages to al-Karaki would have been illegal even had the villagers been content with the transaction.

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and show this discontent arose immediately following al-Karakl's decision to attach himself to and accept remuneration from the Safawid court within months of Ismiail's profession of faith.

The CAmili Response to Safawid Shiism

Al-Karaki's advancement in Safawid service might at least be ex- pected to have served as an example to the ulama of his native Leba- non. In the event, these scholars, certainly aware of both the generally problematic aspects of Safawid Shiism and the particulars of al-Karaki's association with the court, rejected many, if not all, aspects of both. During Ismiicl's reign the expression of this rejection was more indirect and circumspect than that of the clerics and lay-believers discussed above. Both established and younger CAmili Twelver scholars clerics avoided prolonged contact and long-term association with the Safawid court during IsmaCil's reign. If more guarded, the Lebanese reaction nevertheless amounted to the same clear repudiation of both Safawid Shiism and any legitimacy lent it by al-Karaki's association.

CAll b. Hilal al-Jaza'iri and CAl1 al-Maysi were among the Twel- ver clerics so well-established by this time that their avoidance of the Safawids represented a rejection of the Safawid identification with the faith. Al-Jaza'iri was born in Iraq and eventually settled in the

Jabal CAmil region. It may have been here al-Jaza'iri gave an jiaza to al-Karaki himself in 909/1504. Although al-Jaza'iri lived at least two and perhaps as many as eight years after Tabriz' capture, there is no evidence he ever made any further contact with al-Karaki or the Safawid court itself.57

Shaykh CAll b. cAbd al-CAli al-Maysi (d. 938/1531) was from al- Mays, near al-Karaki's home village of Karak NIuh in the Jabal

57 Al-Hurr al-CAmill, ibid, 2:210; Afandi, ibid, 4:280-283; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4: 357-359; al-Tehrani, ibid, 8:19. H.M. Tabataba'i, in his An Introduction to Shii Law, a bibliographical study (London: Ithaca Press, 1984, 50) gave al-Jaza'iri's death as 909/1504-915/1510. Al-Kantiiur (ibid, 13), probably in error, noted an iyaza from al-Jaza'iri to al-Karaki dated 900/1495. Al-Jaza'iri's reputation was sufficiently established within the community by 916/1510 that in his kharaj essay completed that year al-Karaki attempted to legitimise his arguments by quoting al- Jaza'iri, an effort rejected by al-Qatifl. See al-Karaki, ibid, 190; al-Qatifi, ibid, 308.

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CAmil. He can be placed in Damascus in 903/1497, but there is no record he made contact with the Safawids during IsmiCil's reign.58

Shaykh al-Hasan b. Jacfar al-Karaki al-CAmili (d. 933/1526) was a student of al-Maysi. Al-Hasan had first-hand experience with Safawid Shiism, actually journeying to Safawid territory in this period and seeing IsmaCil. Al-Hasan chose not to remain in Safawid territory, however, but returned to Lebanon and died in Jabal CAmil.59

Younger, less well-established clerics from the region were also reluctant to associate with the Safawids. Shaykh Zayn al-Din b. cAll al-cAmili, for example, was a student of both al-Maysi and al-Hasan al-Karaki and, as such, certainly aware of his teachers' attitudes toward the Safawids. Although Arjomand suggested the Shaykh not only entered but held a post in Safawid territory during Ismtcil's reign, in fact, Zayn al-Din never entered Safawid territory.60

Zayn al-Din's student and close associate al-Husayn b. cAbd al-Samad al-CAmill (d. 984/1576), the father of Shaykh Baha'i (d. 1030/1620-1621), was born in 918/1512 and, as Zayn al-Din himself, studied under the same al-Hasan al-Karaki. Neither he nor

58 Al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:38-39, 35-38. 54-57; Afandi, ibid, 4:119, 122; al- Bahrani, ibid, 170, 170n26; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:374-375; Tunukabuni, ibid, 347; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:230.

59 CAll b. Muhammad al-CAmili, Al-Durr al-Manthur, A. al-Husayni, ed., (Qum, 1398), 2:159; al-Hurr al-CAmili, ibid, 1:56; Afandi, ibid, 1:165, al- Khwansari, ibid, 2:294-295. See also the discussions of al-Maysi and al-Hasan below.

60 According to Arjomand, Shaykh Zayn al-Din served as Shaykh al-Islam of Herat from 928/1521 -930/1523, when the city was under Safawid control. See Ar- jomand, ibid, 302n30, citing the reference to the Arab scholar "Shaykh Zayn al-Din CAll" in the contemporary court chronicle of Ghiyath al-Din Khwandamir, Habib al-Siyar (Tehran, 1333/1954-1955), 4:609-610. According to his student and biographer al-Jazzini, however, the Shaykh, who was seventeen in 928/1521, was in al-Mays from 925/1519 to 933/1526. For al-Jazzini's biography, see al-CAmill, al- Durr, 2:158, 168, and its Persian-language abridgement in Tunukabuni, ibid, 259. Afandi (ibid, 3:444- 445) also suggested the individual named by Khwandamir was not Shaykh Zayn al-Din. Much later, in 965/1557, the Shaykh was executed by the Ottomans and subsequently called al-Shahid al-Thdn[ (the second martyr). See al- Khwansari, ibid, 4:374; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:218; our discussion of Shaykh Zayn al- Din below; notes 36, 87, 94, 97.

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his own father 'Abd al-Samad (d. 935/1528) is recorded as having made contact with the Safawids in this period.61

Even as Safawid Shiism was so problematic for these clerics, for none was Sunni policy toward Arab Twelver clerics resident in their territories sufficiently repressive to provoke emigration to Safawid territory. Prior to the Ottoman conquest of the region in 922 -923/1516- 1517 al-Karaki himself, for example, travelled throughout the area to study. After the Ottoman conquest, Shaykh Zayn al-Din and al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad were not restricted in their travels in Ottoman territory. Between 925/1519 and the end of Ismail's reign in 930/1524, Zayn al-Din travelled fromJabal CAmil to Damascus, Cairo, and the Hijaz and even visited Istanbul several times.62

By such natural clerical movement Twelver scholars throughout the region became aware of the manner of al-Karaki's association with the Safawids and the reaction of fellow Twelver clerics in the Gulf, the Hijaz, and Arab Iraq both to Safawid Shiism and al- Karaki's association with the court. Al-Hasan al-Karaki's visit to Safawid territory, for example, served to familiarize him, and, through him, other CAmill clerics with Ismacil's extremist unorthodox religious discourse and personal behaviour, the limited degree of Safawid interest in and understanding of the faith, and aspects of al-Karaki's association with the court. Zayn al-Din's trip to the Hijaz no doubt acquainted him with the discontent of Hijatzi clerics with such extremist Safawid policies as the cursing of the caliphs, a policy supported by al-Karaki.

61 On al-Husayn, see our "Towards a Reconsideration", 169-171, and our discussion below. On CAbd al-$amad, see al-Hurr al-'Amili, ibid, 1:109; Afandl, ibid, 3:128; al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:346; al-Amin, ibid, 38:41.

62 On al-Karaki's travels, see, for example, Afandi, ibid, 3:441f. On Shaykh Zayn al-Din, see al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:158-176, 182; Tunukabuni, ibid, 258. See also the discussion of Shaykh Zayn al-Din below. The failure of the Ottoman crush- ing of Shah Quli in 917/1511-1512 and subsequent efforts under Selim I to root out Shiism in eastern Anatolia-involving the massacre of thousands of Qizil Bash (see, for example, Momen, ibid, 106)-to have alarmed these clerics is best ex- plained by the extreme socio-religious message and the social composition of Shah Quli's movement and the Qizil Bash themselves. More similar to those of the post- Junayd Safawid movement than not, the radical message and peasant and nomadic roots of both were likely viewed with little sympathy by relatively more conservative, urban-based clerics. See also the reference to Bacque-Grammont in note 10.

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In sum, during IsmCail's reign Safawid Shiism presented few positive images to Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory. Among the factors in these clerics' rejection of Safawid identification with the faith were Ismacil's abrupt conversion to the faith, the Safawids' consistently extreme, unorthodox religious discourse, the Safawid hierarchy's lack of interest in and understanding of the doctrines and practices of the faith and, in contrast with Sunni successes, the uncertainty of the future of the Safawid polity. The treatment Twelver clerics received from Sunni political institutions ruling their homelands was not sufficiently harsh or repressive to drive them to emigration. cAl1 al-Karaki was one of the few clerics in this period who can categorically be shown to have left his homeland specifically to associate himself with Safawid Shiism and the Safawid effort to propagate the faith in the territory under their control. That association itself also contributed to the aversion of many clerics, and laybelievers, for Safawid Shiism during Ismacil's reign.

The Accession of Tahmasp

The general aspects of Safawid Shiism problematic for Arab Twelver clerics living outside Safawid territory during IsmCcil's reign remained so in the years immediately following the accession of ten-year-old Tahmasp in 930/1524.

Safawid religious discourse continued as extreme as before even as the interest in and understanding of the doctrines and practices of Twelver Shiism by members of the ruling political hierarchy remained as limited. As in the case of IsmaCil, public proclamation of Tahmasp's superior, implicitly divine, status never entirely ceased.63 A coin minted in Yazd in 955/1548 referred to Tahmasp

63 Western-language scholars have suggested Tahmasp attempted to moderate or even suppress veneration of himself as divine. As evidence these scholars have cited later copies of Tahmasp's diwdn in which were omitted both earlier references to his having proclaimed himself mahdi and similar claims of his predecessors, and Tahmasp's suppression of a group of Sufis who proclaimed him mahdi in 962-963/1554-1555. See Hans R. Roemer, "Comments", Iranian Studies 7 (1974), 216; Lambton, ibid, 265n7, 276-277; Arjomand, ibid, 110; Momen, ibid, 109. The suppression of the Sufi revolt probably had causes similar to those underlying the Safawid attitude toward the uprising of Shah Quli described above.

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as al-sul.tn al-'adil. An Arabic-language inscription dated 962/1554 at a shrine in Isfahan, for example, described Tahmasp, then in his forties, as sahib al-zamdn (lord of the age),64 a term which, like the other religious terms discussed above, could refer both to the Imam and secular authority.65 Claims for Tahmasp's standing as a sayyid and an 'Alid also continued.66

Such rhetoric emphasized the extremist religious message of Safawid Shiism since Junayd even as the radical socio-economic and political agenda implied by that earlier messianism was being minimized. Focusing on the person of the shah, such discourse might also counter-balance the centrifugal forces within the Safawid confederation producing the internal disorder which marked the early years of Tahmasp's reign, as discussed below. In the event, Safawid tribal levies, for example, venerated their leader as divine.67

The Safawid hierarchy's interest in and understanding of the faith in this period remained as perfunctory as it had during the reign of Ismail. As then, none of the chief officers of the Safawid polity during Tahmasp's reign was a convicted believer, let alone a Twelver cleric.68 Indeed, Sunnism persisted in certain prominent areas of Safawid territory. Qazwin remained a pocket of Sun- nism, for example, and a Qazwlni notable was twice vizier during

64 Rabino, ibid, 370. Hunarfar, ibid, 388. For an undated coin minted in Qaz- win referring to Tahmasp as al-sul.tn al-Cddil, see Rabino, ibid, 369.

65 In his Kitib al-Ghayba (Najaf, 1385, 74, 3, 63) Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Tusi (d. 460/1067), for example, had referred to the absent Imam variously as sultan al-waqt (sultan of the time) and sahib al-zaman. See also notes 11, 13, and 43, and Sachedina, ibid, 100, 102-105.

66 Togan, ibid, 356; Mazzaoui, ibid, 48. See also the reference to the Safawid as "the house of Prophethood and vilayat" in an undated decree of Tahmasp translated in Arjomand's "Two Decrees", 261. The phrase implicitly referred to the religio-political legitimacy of the rule of CAll and his family, i.e. the Imams. Its use in Tahmasp's decree emphasized Safawid claims to cAlid lineage and authority. See also the following note.

67 As late as five years before his death in 984/1576 a Venetian report noted Tahmasp's subjects regarded him as "not a king, but as a god, on account of his descent from the line of All''. See Lambton, ibid, 266;; Arjomand, The Shadow, 179.

68 Savorv, "The Principle Offices ... Tahmasp", passim, esp. 71-79. On those holding the post of sadr see the discussion below. The personal behaviour of Tahmasp appears to have been as problematic as that of his predecessor as well. See Aubin, "Etudes III", 49-50, and notes 8 and 22.

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the early years of Tahmasp's reign, the second time for fifteen years.69

Finally, the political-military viability of the polity could not have seemed any more certain in the early years of Tahmasp's reign than it had following Chaldiran. The first ten years of Tahmasp's rule, from 930/1525 to 940/1533-the last decade of al-Karaki's life-was one of nearly continuous jockeying for pre-eminence by different tribal elements within the Safawid confederation. A period of civil war between the Ustajlu and other coalition members occurred from 932/1526 to 933/1527. There followed a brief Rumlu/Takkalu duumvirate, Takkaluf domination from 933/1527 to 937/1530, and Shamlu domination from 937/1530 to 940/1534. Both the Uzbegs and the Ottomans seized the opportunities offered by these internal struggles to attack Safawid territory. The Uzbegs launched at least five major efforts against Khurasan in this period. The Ottomans undertook several campaigns against western Safawid territories, and, in 941/1534, seized Baghdad and the shrine cities from the Safawids.70

Al-Karaki at the Court of Tahmasp

In 931/1524- 1525, the year after Tahmasp's accession, Safawid regional power was on the wane and al-Karaki was under open attack in Arab Iraq-by al-Qatifi and his clerical associates and elements of the lay community-and faced the implicit disapproval of many of his fellow Lebanese. In these circumstances, al-Karaki left Arab Iraq to make what the Twelver biographers referred to as his "second trip" to Safawid Iran. Given the opposition his open association with the Safawids had generated among clerics and lay believers, the Safawid court was his only remaining source of support.71 If not his "second trip", certainly from this point al-Karaki

69 Arjomand, ibid, 119-120. 70 For a summary of these events, see Savory, "The Principle Offices ... Is-

mail?", 101; idem, "The Principle Offices .. . Tahmasp", 65-71; idem, "Safavid Persia", 403-404; Allouche, ibid, 133-140.

71 In 932/1526 al-Karaki was in Yazd, in 936/1529 in Mashhad, and in 937/1530 he was in Isfahan and Qum. See Rumlufi, ibid, 245f; Afandi, ibid, 3:454; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 7:178. Al-Karaki maintained connections with Arab Iraq in

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totally cast his lot with, and spent the majority of his time at, the court.

Al-Karaki's position at court in this, the next and last ten years of his life, was by no means assured, however. Within three years al-Karaki became the focal point of several court controversies. Os- tensibly religious, these disputes coincided with the internal political disorders threatening of the bases of the polity itself, however, and, accentuated by and reflective of these political struggles, became vehicles for the factional infighting. Al-Karaki's victories in these disputes more corresponded with and were the product of the triumph of certain factions within the confederation than they represented the vindication of al-Karaki's religious authority at court or within the Twelver community.

Al-Karaki's confrontations at court in this period seemingly involved disputes between himself and those in the post of sadr. In 931/1524, the year after Ismacil's death, that shah's last sadr, al- Astarabadi, died. Shah Qawwam al-Din al-Isfahani was appointed sadr. The latter was from an important family in Isfahan, a poet, and, like his predecessors in the office, not known for any Twelver proclivities. Al-Isfahani held the post about five years, during the Ustajlfi civil war administration, the Rumlu/Takkalu coalition, and into the Takkalu period.72

In the middle of the Takkalu period, however, in 935/1528- 1529, Nicmatallah al-Hilli (d. 940/1533) was appointed co-sadr to al- Isfahani. Al-Hilli was the first genuine Twelver scholar to hold the office under the Safawids. He had received an iydza from al-Karaki himself in Najaf in 929/1522, was a sayyid, and claimed the rank of mujtahid.73 At al-Isfahani's death in 936/1529, Mansur al-Dashtaki was appointed co-sadr in his place. Al-Dashtaki was a sayyid, a native

this period, however, allowing him to supervise his affairs in the area. In 933/1527 and 935/1528, for example, he was in Najaf, in 934/1527 he gave an iyjza to 'AIi al-Maysi in Baghdad, and in 940/1533, the year of his death, he was again in Iraq. See al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:28-34, 69-81, 81-83; Afandi, ibid, 3:441-442; al- Tehrani, ibid, 1:215-216; al-Amin, ibid, 41:180. Cf. Arjomand, ibid, 133.

72 Savory, "The Principles Offices .. . Tahmasp", 80; Beeson, ibid, 90, 95. See also al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:69f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:213, 215.

73 Al-Hilli was also a student of al-Qatifl. See Afandi, ibid, 1:15, 5:250-253; al-Bahrani, ibid, 165n20; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 1:26, 7:176-178; al-Amin, ibid, 5:187-188, 50:20; al-Bahrani, Anwdr, 288; and notes 75-77.

A.J. NEWMAN

of Shiraz and, although like the sixth sadr, al-Astarabadi, a student of the Sunni philosopher al-Dawwani, al-Dashtaki was at least a nominal Twelver.74

While al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki, by their acceptance of positions at court, obviously approved of some degree of clerical association with the Safawids, both also clearly had doubts about the manner in which al-Karaki-who, if he had received many favours from Is- mail as yet held no official position at the present court75-had defined certain elements of Twelver doctrine and practice. Al-Hilli was apparently specifically concerned with al-Karakli's Usull expan- sionist view of thefaqih as na 'ib al-imam with which, as a student of al-Karaki, he was certainly familiar. His position at court perhaps giving him additional confidence, al-Hilli challenged his teacher's ruling permitting congregational prayer with the attendence of the

faqth during the occultation; given thefaqih's role in Friday prayer, its suspension could only diminish the role and authority of thefaqih as nd'ib al-imdm in the community. Al-Hilli may have drawn additional strength for his challenge from correspondence with his teacher al-Qatifi-still resident in Safawid-controlled Arab Iraq-,

74 Rumlui, ibid, 294 (ad. 930/1524), 332-335 (ad. 940/1533), Khwandamir, ibid, 4:610; Afandl, ibid, 5:250-253; al-Khwansari, ibid, 7:176-178; al-Amin, ibid, 50:20; Savory, ibid, 81; idem, "Safavid Persia", 403; Arjomand, ibid, 134; note 25.

75 Although completed in 929/1523, Habib al-Siyar's portrayal of al-KarakF's general standing in this period, according him no titles or honorifics, was accurate. The author praised al-Hilli-yet to be appointed co-sadr-, however, as "the best of the sayyids and Culama of al-Hilla". See Khwandamir, ibid, 4:610. There is, un- fortunately, little additional information on al-Hilli's origins, when, and or under what circumstances he first came to court. Given al-Karaki's eventual triumph at court, it is not surprising later court chroniclers embellished his importance and scorned his rivals. Rumlu (ibid, 248) styled al-Karaki mujtahid al-zamdn in entries as early as that for 931/1524. See also Rumlu's reference to al-Karaki cited in note 25. Qummi (ibid, 237-238, 296, 297-298) awarded him such honorifics as nd'ib al-imam and jdmi' al-sharaPic wa'l-sharad'it. See also note 77. Niurallah al-Shfushtari also referred to al-Karaki as mujtahid al-zaman in his Majilis al-Mu'minin (2:230-231), written at the same time as the chronicles of Rumlfl and Qummi. See note 25 on the dates of completion of these two court chronicles. See also Arjomand, ibid, 136. The eleventh/sixteenth-century court chronicle Td'rikh-i 'Alam Ard-yi 'Abbdsi described al-Karaki as "mujtahid al-zamdn". See Iskander Beg Munshi, His- tory of Shah CAbbas the Great, Roger Savory, transl., (Boulder, Colo., 1978), 1: 234, 244-45. Al-Karaki's reference to himself as na'ib al-imam in his earlier khardj essay less represented claim to court recognition as such at that time than the Usull view of the faqih as nd'ib during the Imam's occultation.

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who opposed such prayer and whose open criticism of al-Karaki and the authority of thefaqih during the occultation, continuing unabat- ed throughout the early years of Tahmasp's reign,76 points to the continuing vitality of the critique of the Arab Iraqi community, and indeed also the Akhbari polemic, throughout this period.

Al-Hilli's challenge to al-Karaki was also no doubt encouraged by the factional infighting within the Safawid confederation. Indeed, several royal princes and court officials, including the muhrd&r Mahmfid Beg, supported al-Hilli's challenge. Two Iranian clerics,

Qadi Musafer al-Tabrizi and Maulana Husayn al-Ardabill, neither with any apparent links to al-Qatifi and each presumably with ties to elements in the Safawid hierarchy, also joined al-Hilli in opposing al-Karaki's ruling on Friday prayer and called for a public airing of disagreements on the question.

In the event, there was no such public meeting. Al-Hilli was im-

plicated as the author of a letter defaming al-Karaki and, in afirman issued in 936/1529, was formally banished to Baghdad and forbid- den to contact al-Qatiffi. The latter was himself admonished for his continued criticism of al-Karaki.77

Shortly afterwards al-Dashtaki confronted al-Karaki on the more technical question of al-Karakl's formulations on the qibla. The dis-

76 Al-Qatifi's continued criticism of al-Karaki can be inferred from al-Karaki's completion in 933/1527, two years after his "second trip" to court and now perhaps more optimistic about his situation, of a direct attack on al-Qatifi. See al-Tehrani, ibid, 12:147-148. The 936/1529 firman, banishing al-Hilli from court and ad- monishing al-Qatifi for his persistent criticism of al-Karaki, suggests al-Qatifi had continued his attacks on al-Karaki in the intervening three years. See the following note and the translation of the 936/1529firrman by Arjomand in his "The Mujtahid of the Age and the Mulld-bdshi: An Intermediate Stage in the Institutionalization of Religious Authority in Shi'ite Iran", in his Authority and Political Culture, 81. See also note 81.

77 Rumlu, ibid, 333-334; Qummi, ibid, 237-238; Afandi, ibid, 3:452-453; al- Khwansari, ibid, 4:370-372; al-Amin, ibid, 50:20, Mroueh, ibid, 47, all citing Rumlfu. Compare Arjomand, The Shadow, 136. Thefirman can be dated by a reference to it in thefirman of 939/1533, on which see below, and Afandi, ibid, 3:459; Arjomand, "Two Decrees", 255; note 80. Compare Arjomand, ibid, 250; idem, "The Mujtahid of the Age", 81. Qummi's version of the firman banishing al-Hilli described al-Karaki as nd'ib al-imam, obviously a later insertion reflecting the title granted him by the court several years later. The later death of Mahmfd Beg from a fall while al-Karaki was praying nearby is reported in Qummi, ibid, 237-239; al-Khwansarl, ibid; al-Niur, ibid, 3:432; Mroueh, ibid, 45.

A.J. NEWMAN

agreement of the two men became pronounced and a majlis was con- vened, attended by Tahmasp. As with al-Hilli, however, al-Karaki triumphed: in 938/1531-1532 al-Dashtaki was dismissed and re- placed by a student of al-Karaki, MuCizz al-din al-Isfahani (d. 952/1545-46).78 Again, as with al-Hilli's challenge, factional infighting at court was certainly a factor in al-Dashtaki's critique. The court majlis was likely also attended by members of the Safawid political hierarchy, probably interested less in the process and details of the debate than its outcome.

Al-Karaki's victories demonstrate he also was not without his supporters within the political hierarchy. Indeed, as the tenor of the exchanges between al-Karaki and al-Qatifi had coincided with politico-military events and trends during IsmSeil's reign, al-Ka- raki's confrontations with and victories over al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki in 936/1529 and 938/1531 - 1532 coincided with political develop- ments within the confederation, specifically the decline of Takkalu domination of both the Safawid confederation and the young Tahmasp and the ascendance of the Shamlu in 937-938/1531 respectively. The Shamlu remained pre-eminent until 940/1533.79

In 939/1532, in the midst of the Shamlu period, was issued the well-knownfirmin which described al-Karaki as nd'ib al-imdm, "seal of the mujtahids, "guardian of the Prophet's religion", "heir to the knowledge of the Prince of the prophets", and "guide of all the people of the age". The firman placed control of all religious affairs in al-Karaki's hands and admonished sayyids, lords, and nobles of the state, together with governors and other administrators to give "obedience and submission to [al-Karaki] in all affairs." Thefirman stated no further documentation was to be deemed necessary for these officials to obey al-Karaki. The decree also conferred a number of additional administrative posts on al-Karaki in eastern Iraq and granted him further suyurghdls in western Safawid territories.

78 Rumlu, ibid, 393-394, 510-511; Qummi, ibid, 296; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 7:178; Madelung, "al-Karaki", ibid; Arjomand, "Two Decrees", 251. On the qibla dispute, see al-Shushtari, ibid, 2:231; Afandi, ibid, 3:453-454; al-Khwansari, ibid, 4:372; al-Amin, ibid, 41:179. Compare Savory, ibid, 81-82; Arjomand, The Shadow, 135. On the qibla, see also our "Towards A Reconsideration", 181f. See also notes 80, 83, 87, 96.

79 Savory, "The Principle Offices ... Tahmasp", 80; idem, "Safavid Persia", 403; Beeson, ibid, 35, 90, 95.

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Armed with this firm&n, al-Karaki issued a series of commands to Safawid government officials laying down bases for items of religious administration, such as the levying of khardj and the appointment in every village of a prayer leader to instruct the people in the tenets of Twelver Shiism. He also ordered the expulsion of Sunni ulamai from Safawid territory. His earlier qibla formulations now lent further legitimacy by his official status, al-Karaki now also com- manded changes in the direction of the qibla of mosques throughout Safawid territory on the grounds the direction of Mecca had been improperly calculated *80

Both the issuance of thefirmdin and the substance of thefirmdn itself represented less resounding evidence of the strength of al-Karak-i' s authority at the court or within the Twelver community than might seem to be the case, however. At court the involvement of tribal and court officials in religious matters from the time of al-Hilli's challenge to al-Karaki to the issuance of the 939/1532firmdn did not reflect any sudden, new interest in religious affairs per se; as has already been shown, during both Ismiicil's reign and Tahmdsp's reign to date, none of the court officials were Twelver clerics or committed lay believers. Indeed, the politicians' ignorance of the detailed affairs of the faith and lack of interest in and commitment to its propagation within their realm was clearly in evidence in thefirmnin's implicit acknowledgement that the doctrines and practices of the faith were still little-known in Safawid territory three decades after Tabriz. The distinctive religious terminology of the 939/1532 firmndn-granting al-Karaki authority based on and commensurate with Usi:ili notions of the authority of na-'ib al-inmdm-further suggests al-Karaki himself was delegated to complete the text of the decree after agreement on the details of al-Karaki' s authority and remuneration; absent was any extreme religious rhetoric.

The alliance of princes and court officials with al-IHilli against al-

80 Afandi, ibid, 3:450; al-Bahririni, Lu 'lu 'at, 152-153; al-KhwainsarCi, ibid, 4:361 -365; Tunukaibuni, ibid, 347; al-Amin, ibid; al-Niiri, ibid, 3:43 1, 434; Mroueh, ibid, 44. The text of the 939/1533 firnndn can be found in Afandi, ibid, 3:45 5 - 460 and al- Nfi:i, ibid, 3:43 2 - 43 4, and has been translated by Arjomand in his "Two Decrees", 252 - 256. On a variation between these two versions see Arjo- mand, ibid, 262n1 1. See also idem, The Shadow, 133 - 134, 134n40. At least some of the qibla changes were implemented; see note 87. See also note 55.

A.J. NEWMAN

Karaki and the interest of various court officials in al-Dashtaki's

challenge instead demonstrates the extent to which religious dis-

putes could become vehicles for manoeuvre in the prevailing, extremely fluid politico-military dynamic. Both the 936/1529 and the 939/1532 firman represented recognition by the forces behind the throne of an individual whose loyalty-however problematic the Safawids' religious discourse and prospects for survival-had been

longstanding and unquestioning. The 939/1532firman in particular was an effort by these same forces to cede responsibility for details of religious doctrine and practice to that individual, thereby freeing themselves to address the confederation's internal political problems. That the Shamlfi-dominated court only reprimanded and threatened al-Qatifi, banished al-Hilli, and dismissed al-Dashtaki further suggests the court was hesitant to become any more deeply involved in doctrinal disagreements, perhaps also reluctant to lend their opposition any further recognition and, thereby, any legitimacy, a combination of factors probably also at the heart of the court's inaction against al-Qatlfi's censure of al-Karaki in the years after Chaldiran.

Thefirman also cannot be seen as evidence of al-Karaki's authori-

ty within the Twelver community. The attacks of al-Hilli and al- Dashtaki on al-Karaki, at least the first of which was launched by a Twelver cleric whose reputation in the community was established, demonstrated that both al-Karakl's standing within the Twelver community and Safawid identification with the faith itself remained as problematic now as it had throughout IsmC-l's reign. To the extent al-Karaki was involved in the firmdn's composition, the leniency of the punishments meted out to his opponents suggests al-Karaki, aware of the continuing weakness of his own position within the larger Twelver community, the broader, problematic Safawid political situation, and-as witnessed by the authority he was being given to propagate the faith in Safawid territory-the su- perficiality of the Safawid hierarchy's interest in the faith to date, was himself reluctant to press the court for such penalties against his opponents as could not be undone and as might lend the opposition additional legitimacy.

In sum the 939/1532firman highlighted the continued lack of court interest in Twelver Shiism and the continued weakness of the posi-

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tion of al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism itself within the larger Twelver community, and thus underlined the ultimate dependence of both al-Karaki and the faith itself on the favour of the court. The ultimate verdict as to the strength and authority of thisfirman, al-Karaki, and Safawid Shiism itself was perhaps best delivered by al-Qat.ifi himself. Still based in Safawid-controlled Arab Iraq he continued his sniping against al-Karaki,81 demonstrating the persistence of the community's antagonism, if not also the vitality of the Akhbari critique, in this period.

The criticisms of al-Hilli and al-Dashtaki and the continuing criticisms of al-Qatifi in this period demonstrate open and vocal criticism of Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki continued during the early years of Tahmasp's reign as it had throughout IsmiCil's reign. The more circumspect rejection of Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki's court associations by Lebanese clerics evident during Ismicil's reign also continued into this period. Those clerics who had avoided Safawid Shiism during IsmaCil's rule continued to avoid association with it during the early years of Tahmasp's reign. Al-Hasan b. Jacfar al- Karaki (d. 933/1526) had taught Shaykh Zayn al-Din al-CAmili. Having met Ismacil, he made no effort to meet Tahmasp in the early years of his reign. cAli al-Maysi (d. 938/1531), a teacher of both Shaykh Zayn al-Din and al-Hasan, although he received an ijdza from al-Karaki in Safawid-controlled Baghdad in 934/1531, during Tahmasp's reign, did not subsequently capitalize on his association with al-Karaki to secure a post or favours, let alone render any service to the court. Indeed, al-Maysi returned to Lebanon, died, and was buried there.82 Among the relatively younger generation of Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory, both Shaykh

81 For criticism by al-Qatifi of al-Karaki in 939/1532, the year thefirman itself was issued, see al-Tehrani, ibid, 13:107-108, 2:296, 6:22; CAbdol Husayn Hairi, et al., eds., Fihrist Kitdbkhana-yi Majlis-i Shurd-yi Milli, 7 (Tehran, 1346), 146 - 148.

82 On these individuals see the sources cited in notes 58, 59, 71. Al-Maysi's son was born in 926/1519 died and studied under Shaykh Zayn al-Din. Together with his father he received the .iaza from al-Karaki in 934/1531. Although he was buried in Isfahan in 993/1585, it is not clear when or under what circumstances he came to Safawid territory. See al-Hurr al-cAmili, ibid, 1: 110; al-Bahrani, ibid, 134- 135; al-Khwansarl, ibid, 4:199-202; al-Tehrani, ibid, 13:78-79; Mroueh, ibid, 150-151. Al-Maysi's great grandson Lutfallah was a close associate of the court under CAbbas I who built him a mosque in Isfahan, completed in 1028/1619. See Hunarfar, ibid, 401f; Hourani, ibid, 138.

A.J. NEWMAN

Zayn al-Din and al-Husayn continued to avoid the Safawids during Tahmasp's reign as they had during the latter years of Ismi'il's

reign.

Clerical Opposition During the Later Years of Tahmdsp's Reign

Al-Karaki himself died about a year after the issuance of the 939/1532 firman. His influence at court initially survived him. Al- Karaki's student al-Isfahani served five years as sadr, including three following his teacher's death. After al-Isfahani, another student of al-Karaki was appointed sadr.83

Aspects of Safawid Shiism problematic for Twelver clerics resident outside Safawid territory earlier in Tahmasp's reign continued so after al-Karaki's death, however. As has already been suggested, for example, the Safawid Shii religious discourse remained extreme in this period.

The deterioration of Safawid fortunes also continued apace. In 941/1534, two years after the issuance of the firman designating al- Karaki na'ib al-imam, and a year after al-Karaki's death, the Otto- mans captured Tabriz, Gilan, and Shirvan. Baghdad and the shrine cities also fell to the Ottomans, and they retained this territory for nearly a century. Shamlu domination of the court, during which al- Karaki's position at court was seemingly secured, collapsed following the fall of eastern Iraq and the Ustajlu rose to prominence. Sub- sequent Ottoman expeditions strengthened their position in Kur- distan and Armenia by 960-961/1553- 1554, and culminated in a 962/1555 treaty with the Safawids recognising Ottoman authority over Arab Iraq, Kurdistan, and the area north of Azerbaijan.84

As the Ottomans continued to assume greater regional prominence, they continued to evince little formal hostility to the resident Twelver clergy. At the capture of Baghdad and the shrine cities in 941/1534, for example, Sultan Sulayman visited the Shii centres of Kufa and al-Hilla and the shrines themselves. He ordered that the salaries of the shrines' attendants be paid from the Baghdad treasury and that repairs be made to the shrines themselves.85

83 On al-Karaki's students, see note 96. See also Arjomand, ibid, 135. 84 Allouche, ibid, 141-145. 85 Al Yasin, ibid, 85-86. See also notes 33, 88.

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The 939/1532 firman's failure to enhance both al-Karaki's position within the Twelver community and the authority of Safawid Shiism itself is demonstrated by the continued controversy surrounding al-Karaki's association with Safawid Shiism after his death and the continued rejection of Safawid Shiism by Arab Twelver clerics resident abroad. The continued open rejection by al- Qatifi, as representative of like-minded clerics and lay-believers in Arab Iraq, has been discussed. Sometime after al-Karaki's death Friday prayers were discontinued in Safawid territory, suggesting the forces within the community opposed to its performance-as represented by al-Qatifi and al-Hilli-finally had their way at and with the court.86

In the context of the continuing decline of Safawid power and al- Karaki's death, Lebanese opposition to al-Karaki's legacy became less circumspect. Al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad, for example, authored an essay critical of al-Karaki's qibla calculations. His associate and friend Shaykh Zayn al-Din visited the great mosque in Kufa after al-Karaki's death and the Ottoman seizure of the area in 941/1534 and pointedly refused to pray in the qibla direction speci- fied by al-Karaki after the 939/1532firman.87 Given their continued avoidance of Safawid territory, such overt criticism of al-Karaki's qibla formulations constituted both condemnation of the association with the Safawid court from which al-Karaki had derived the authority and power to implement his rulings and of the authority claimed by Safawid Shiism itself. As such their polemic was a clear, public repudiation of Safawid Shiism itself, less circumspect than

86 On the discontinuation of the prayer services, see our "Towards a Recon- sideration", 170nl7, and note 97.

87 See the discussion in our "Towards a Reconsideration", 181- 185 and note 80. Al-Husayn's hostility to al-Karaki may also have sparked his spreading or, at least later being associated with, the report al-Karaki died from poisoning, as noted by Afandi (ibid, 3:442). Shaykh Zayn al-Din first visited Iraq only in 946/1539, five years after the area's capture by the Ottomans. His second visit to the area was in 955-956/1548-1549, perhaps a visit to al-Husayn. See al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2: 169, 179-180; Tunukabuni, ibid, 250. The timing of his visits indicates the Shaykh avoided eastern Iraq and the shrines while they were under Safawid control, from 914/1508 to 941/1534. See also note 94. On later Twelver criticism of al-Karaki's qibla formulations, likely by an Iranian cleric, see our "Towards a Reconsidera- tion", 182f.

A.J. NEWMAN

their own earlier responses to Safawid Shiism and al-Karaki and that of earlier generations of Lebanese clerics during al-Karaki's life- time.

At the same time Zayn al-Din al-cAmili and al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad suffered no such harassment from Ottoman officials in this period as to drive them to emigration. Zayn al-Din travelled un- hindered in Ottoman territory, journeying into eastern Iraq sometime after the Ottoman capture of Baghdad in 941/1534. During a visit to Istanbul in 952/1545 the Shaykh actually received an appointment to teach all five schools of Islamic law-i.e. including the Twelver Shii-in Bacalbak, where he was teaching in 953/1546. Al-Husayn, who had participated in an open discussion of the Ima- mate with non-Twelver clerics in Aleppo, accompanied Zayn al-Din to Istanbul and received a teaching appointment in Baghdad.88 Only the Shaykh's sudden execution by the Ottomans in 965/1557 obliged al-Husayn-then nearly fifty years old-to abandon Otto- man for Safawid territory, taking with him his thirteen-year-old son, Shaykh Baha'i. They arrived in Safawid Iran nearly sixty years after Ism&Cil's profession of faith in 907/1501.89

88 Al-CAmili, al-Durr, 2:158-176, 182. Cf. Tunukabuni, ibid, 258. On al- Husayn, see al-Amin, ibid, 26:94, 89-92. Al-Husayn's apparent dedication of a 945/1538 essay to Sultan Sulayman may have given him some additional credibility with the Ottomans in this period. See R.P.A. Dozy, Catalogus Codicum Orientalium Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno Batavae, 1, Leiden, 1851, pp. 343-44. See also al- Tehrani, ibid, 24: 367-8, where no such dedication is noted.

89 See our "Towards a Reconsideration", 169-170. For al-Husayn's later career with the Safawids, see ibid, 170-173, 179,181-182; Mroueh, ibid, 52-53, 63; notes 90-92. Relying especially on references by al-Husayn in his "Wuufil al- Akhyar"-composed in Mashhad-to an apparently living Zayn al-Din as conclu- sive evidence that al-Husayn was in Iran prior to his teacher's execution, Stewart recently suggested that al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad entered Iran sometime prior to the death of Shaykh Zayn al-Din. Danish-pazhufh also suggested al-Husayn came to Iran in 960/1553.

Concrete evidence on al-Husayn's exact movements in this period, as noted in our "Towards a Reconsideration", is at best inconsistent. As to the dating of "Wusul al-Akhyar", Danish-pazhfih himself, having considered the same and other references in the treatise, concluded it was completed ca. 969/1561, that is after Zayn al-Din's death; elsewhere, however, he noted the existence of a copy of the essay made in Tius apparently in 960/1553!

Danish-pazhfih most likely based his own assertion as to al-Husayn's movements on such sources as the twelfth/eighteenth-century Lu 'lu'at al-Bahrayn, which states Baha'i, born in 953/1547, was 7 years old when his father came to Iran. Other

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The murder of Shaykh Zayn al-Din and al-Husayn's flight did not spark a mass emigration to Safawid territory of Arab Twelver clerics living under Ottoman domination. (The brief effort to re- establish Sunnism under Ismail II (984/1576- 1577) only added to clerical uncertainty about the commitment to the Twelver faith among both the Safawid elite and the population.) Among CAmili scholars neither Zayn al-Din's own son al-Hasan (d. 1011/1602- 1603), aged seven at his father's death, or his relative and associate Sayyid Muhammad b. cAl1 al-CAmili (d. 1009/1600) were removed from Ottoman to Safawid territory. Indeed, although the two studied in the Lebanon with Zayn al-Din's associate al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad, who himself later left for Safawid territory, instead of following their teacher's lead both later travelled to Arab Iraq and studied with the Iranian clerics CAbdallah al-Yazdi

sources, including earlier biographical works, are less categorical or simply con- tradictory about Baha'i's age at his arrival in Iran. By contrast with Danish- pazhuh, for example, the biographer Muhsin al-Amin (d. 1373/1952), based both on references by Iskander Beg Munshi-who incorrectly referred to al-Husayn as "'Abd al-Samad"-that al-Husayn had come to Iran after his teacher's death and al-Husayn's denunciation of the Ottomans as "tyrants and hypocrites" in his "Wusul al-Akhyar", categorically rejected al-Bahrani's dating of Baha'i's age as seven when he entered Iran and the corollary that al-Husayn came to Iran before his teacher's death.

Neither Stewart nor Danish-pazhfih suggested why, prior to Zayn al-Din's execution, al-Husayn might have described the Ottomans in such terms and fled their territory when he had only recently been appointed to a teaching post in Baghdad and when the disdain of both al-Husayn and his teacher for al-Karaki's association with the Safawids was clear. The execution of his teacher would have been sufficient incentive for al-Husayn to have abandoned Ottoman territory with his very preg- nant wife. See D.J. Stewart, "A Biographical Notice on Baha' al-Din al-'Amili", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, number 3 (July-September, 1991), pp. 564-567; M.T. Danish-pazhuh, ed., Fihrist-i Kitdbkhdnih-yi Ihdd-yiAghd-yi Say- yid Muhammad Mishkat bi Kitdbkhdnih-yi Dinishgd-yi Tehran, Tehran, 1330-1335, 5:1750-1752; M.T. Danish-pazhfuh and CA.N. Munzavi, eds., Fihristi-i Nush- khahdy-i Khatti Kitdbkhdna-yi Markazi Danishgdh-i Tehran, Tehran, 1330-1357, 15:4241; al-Amin, ibid (1979 edition), 26: 86; Iskander Beg Munshi, ibid, 1: 247-248. See also the sources cited in our "Towards a Reconsideration", pp. 170-171, nn. 14, 19, and al-Bah. rni, Lu'lu'at al-Bahrayn, p. 26.

Al-Husayn's composition of a reply for Tahmasp to a letter sent him by the Otto- man Sultan Sulayman (dated as 962/1555 in our "Towards a Reconsideration", 170), inasmuch as it concerned the "release of his (i.e. the Sultan's) son", in fact may well have been composed after 966/1559, when the Sultan's son Bayezid defected to the Safawids. On Bayezid, see Allouche, ibid, 145; Iskander Beg Munshi, ibid, 1: 166-173.

A.J. NEWMAN

(d. 981/1573) and Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Ardabil (d. 993/1585), resident there after themselves abandoning Safawid territory. Al-Hasan b. Zayn al-Din and S. Muhammad exhibited further dis- taste for the Safawids by later abandoning a pilgrimage to Mashhad for fear CAbbas I would press them into government service.90

Among Twelver clerics in the Hijaz and the Gulf later in the tenth/sixteenth century unease with Safawid Shiism was also clearly still present. In the Hijaz the naqib Sayyid cAli b. al-Hasan b. cAli b. Shudqum al-Madani (d. 960/1552), although he resigned his position and travelled to India, made no effort to associate with the Safawids. His son al-Hasan (d. 999/1591) himself later also resigned as naqib and travelled to India. Although he journeyed through Iran and met Tahmasp in 964/1556, he returned to and died in India.91 In the Gulf there is no record such prominent scholars as Shaykh Dawud b. cAbdallah b. Abui Shafiz, who had his own school in Bahrayn, or his contemporary al-Husayn b. al-Hasan al-Gharifi (d. 1001/1593) had any contact with the Safawids.92

90 Both al-Yazdi and al-Ardabili had studied together under students of al- Dawwani (on whom see note 25)-who himself had denounced Ismail-at the school in Shiraz founded by al-Dashtaki after his dismissal from Tahmasp's court. Al-Yazdi left Safawid territory sometime between 962/1553 and 967/1558. Al- Ardabili authored an essay critical of al-Karaki's kharij formulations. On these scholars, see al-tAmill, al-Durr, 2:199-209; Afandi, ibid, 1:225-234, 5:132-134, 3:191-194, 1:56-57; al-Khwansari, ibid, 2:296-302, 7:45-56; al-Amin, ibid, 21:158-173, 46:103-107, 9:192-198; Madelung, "Shi'ite Discussions", 201. On al-Ardabili see Arjomand, ibid, 137, and our "Towards a Reconsideration", 176n35. On the later debates on kharij, see Madelung, ibid, 201 -202; Tabataba'i, Kharij, 56-59. It should be noted that al-Husayn b. 'Abd al-$amad, refused permission by Tahmasp in the 980s/1570s to take his son Shaykh Baha'i-then in his thirties-with him to perform the hajj, himself never returned to Safawid territory. Indeed, from Bahrayn just prior to his death, al-Husayn wrote his son questioning his own earlier association with and service to the Safawids. See al-Amin, ibid, 26:342.

91 See al-Amin, ibid, 41:61, 22:109f; Afandi, ibid, 1:236-243. In 983/1575 al-Hasan received an ij'za from al-Husayn b. 'Abd al-Samad, who had by then left Safawid territory and had repudiated his earlier association with the court. See al- Tehrani, ibid, 2:87. See also notes 61, 89.

92 Al-Amin, ibid, 25:106-108; al-Ba.hramn, Anwdr, 80-81, 81-84. Shaykh Dawfud debated al-Husayn b. CAbd al-Samad when the latter arrived in Bahrayn in 983-984/1575-1576.

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Summary and Conclusions

Western-language scholars have long suggested that following IsmC'il's profession of faith at the capture of Tabriz many Arab Twelver scholars emigrated to Safawid territory to participate in the effort to spread the faith throughout Safawid territory. CAli al- Karaki is cited in many secondary sources as one of the many Arab scholars supposed to have journeyed to Safawid territory in the fifty years after Tabriz and the few criticisms of al-Karaki by his contem- poraries noted in these sources are often described as purely personal in origin.93

Doubtless al-Karaki was not without support among contemporary Twelver clerics and he may not have been the only Arab Twelver cleric to have emigrated to Safawid territory to assist the Safawids in their propagation of the faith during the first fifty years after Tabriz.94 Indeed, among al-Karaki's students were a number

93 Arjomand, for example, argued the basis of the disagreement between al- Karaki and al-Qatifi was "the jealousy of al-Qatifi and the scholars from his region" with "IsmiCil's (sic) choice of [al-Karaki] as spokesman for Shiism" and "Ismiail's considerable donations to al-Karaki for the maintenance of his students and madrasas". He branded al-Qatifi's challenge to al-Karaki's as "insincere". Arjomand, The Shadow, 136. See also Savory, "The Principle Offices ... Tahmisp", 82.

94 Of the clerics named by Arjomand (ibid, 302n30) as having come to Iran in this period-al-Karaki, Shaykh Zayn al-Din, al-Husayn b. CAbd al-$amad, cAli al- Minshir, and Mir Sayyid Husayn-, however, only al-Karaki can be shown to have left his homeland for Safawid territory specifically to associate with the court during the first fifty years after Tabriz. CAli al-Minshar al-CAmili, a student of al- Karaki and later Shaykh al-Islim in Isfahan, met al-Husayn b. cAbd al-$amad at his arrival in Iran. Other than his nisba, however, there is no evidence of his origin or when or under what circumstances he came to Iran. Indeed, he was long a resident of India before coming to Iran. "Mir Sayyid Husayn" was Sayyid al-Husayn al-Karaki al-CAmili (d. 1001/1593), the grandson of cAll al-Karaki and son of al-Hasan b. Jacfar. He can be placed in Iran only possibly as early as 966/1569, when he dedicated an essay on Friday prayer to the shih, or perhaps 962/1565 or 959/1552, when he apparently rededicated to the shaih a treatise originally written for Sultin Ahmad Khin Husayni Gilani (d. 1009/1600). References to his having been Shaikh al-Isldm at Ardabil and later been at court most likely relate to his subsequent career in Safawid Iran. See Afandi, ibid, 4:266f, 3:443, 2:62f; al-Khwinsari, ibid, 2:343, 4:266, 365, 2:320f; al-Nuri, ibid, 3:420; al-Tehrini, ibid, 8:232; 18:353; Danesh-pazhfuh, ed., Fihrist-i Kitdbkhdnih-yi Ihdi-yiAgd-yi SayyidMuhammadMishkat, 6:2222-2226; notes 60, 82; Lambton, "Quis" p. 140; idem, State, pp. 267-268; Iskander Beg Munshi, ibid, 1:245, 205, 33, 320; 2:631. Mroueh (ibid, 154) misread

A.J. NEWMAN

of individuals whose nisba suggests a Lebanese or Gulf connection, although identification of place of origin based on nisba alone is cer-

tainly problematic95, and it certainly cannot be inferred all who received an ijaza from him subsequently entered court service, let alone remained in Safawid territory.96

However, it is also clear that throughout the half-century after Tabriz Arab Twelver clerics resident in the Hijaz, the Gulf, Arab

Iraq, and the Lebanon were adamant in their refusal to associate with the Safawid court. To be sure, there is no direct evidence the HIijazi clerics who authored the letter to their brethren in Isfahan, those who rioted against the Safawids in Basra and al-Ahsa, or the CAmili clerics who consistently avoided Safawid entanglements ac-

cepted all the elements of Ibrahim al-Qatifif's polemic, especially his

distinctly Akhbari repudiation of the status of the faqih as na'ib al- imam in the occultation.97 Al-Qatifi's references in his khardj essay, however, suggest a number of clerics, at least some of whom were

the reference to Shaykh Zayn al-Din separating himself from his student and biographer al-Jazzini (on whom see note 60) to suggest the latter emigrated to Khur- asan. In fact, as is clear from the original reference in al-Jazzini's biography-and was accepted by later clerical biographers-,the reference was to the apparent and unexplained intention of the Shaykh himself to travel to Khurasan, which trip never occurred. On Shaykh Zayn al-Din, see notes 60, 87, 97. Al-Jazzini himself died and was buried inJabal tAmil. See al-CAmill, al-Durr, 2:151; al-Tehrani, ibid, 3:136-137; al-Amin, ibid, 46:26-29.

95 By nisba alone Shaykh Baha'l was Lebanese but, given his removal by his father to Iran at an early age, he can hardly be counted as having himself come to Iran specifically to assist the court in propagation of the faith. Al-Karaki's son CAbd al-?Ali (926/1520-993/1585), although probably born in Najaf-where his father was then based-and known to have been buried in Iran, was still given the nisba al-CAmili in late Safawid-period biographies. See al-Hurr al-CAmill, ibid, 1:110, and Afandi, ibid, 3:131. See also Iskander Beg Munshi, ibid, 1:244-45; al- Khwansari, ibid, 4:199, 202; al-Amin, ibid, 38:41; Arjomand, ibid, 137.

96 Lists of al-Karaki's students can be found in Afandi, ibid, 3:442f; al-Majlisi, ibid, 108:40f; al-Tehrani, ibid, 1:213f; Mroueh, ibid, 47, 135. One of his students may have been the brother of al-Husayn b. CAbd al-$amad.

97 Shaykh Zayn al-Din al-CAmili, for example, envisioned an expanded role for the faqih as na'ib in the collection and distribution of al-zakit and al-khums. Al-Husayn b. CAbd al-$amad and the Bahrayni scholar al-Husayn b. al-Ghariff favoured the performance of congregational prayer during the occultation. On Shaykh Zayn al-Din, see Calder, "Zakat", 477-480; idem, "Khums", 44-45, 47. On al-Husayn b. CAbd al-$amad, see our "Towards a Reconsideration", 170, 170n17. On al-Gharifi, see al-Tehrani, ibid, 15:70.

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based in Arab Iraq, considered him a skilful spokesman for their

objections to the growing authority of thefaqih within the Twelver

community postulated by the Usulis and al-Karaki's exercise of the faqih's prerogatives in particular, as well as Usull jurisprudence in

general. Elements of the Twelver Iraqi artisanal and peasant classes certainly supported aspects of al-Qat.ifi's criticisms-even if they may not have understood or supported all the doctrinal specifics of his arguments. The criticisms of these different groups of Twelver scholars and laybelievers resident outside Safawid territory inter- sected in the rejection of the Safawid identification with Twelver Shiism, al-Karakl's association with the court, and aspects of the manner in which al-Karaki interpreted and exercised his authority as an openly-acknowledged representative of the court. The open- ness of that criticism was frequently related to larger political events and trends.

Throughout the first Safawid century, the continued strength of the Twelver centres in Arab Iraq, the Gulf, andJabal CAmil, provid- ed the independent material basis for a focus of Twelver faith and scholarship. Indeed, on balance, the majority of the prominent Twelver clerics of the tenth/sixteenth century resided and studied outside Safawid Iran. The existence of these centres permitted the articulation of the critique of Safawid Shiism in general and the manner of al-Karaki's association with the faith in particular discussed in this essay.

In the eleventh/seventeenth century, however, in an improved politico-military atmosphere, the patronage of the Safawid court and the Safawid political and socio-economic elite established and supported Twelver centres in Iran, in Isfahan, for example. These Iranian centres became a focus for the region's Twelver community, attracting both Iranians and Arabs, producing many of Twelver scholars prominent in the second Safawid century,98 and promot- ing Persian as a language of expression of works on Twelver doctrine and especially practice-the latter as part of yet another effort to spread Twelver Shiism among the Persian-speaking population. Scholars from these centres became close associates of the court,

98 Newman, "Towards a Reconsideration", 174-176.

112 A.J. NEWMAN

continuing al-Karakil's legacy of service to and support of the Safawid agenda for Twelver Shiism.

As the faith became more firmly established in Iran, however, conflicts over points of Twelver doctrine and practice, including disagreements over the relation between clergy and state and the nature of clerical authority in the occultation inevitably found expression in Iran as well.

`ali al-karaki (d. 1534); by andrew newman (47 pp., 1993)

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