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Polemics and patronage in Safavid Iran: The debate on Friday prayer during the reign of Shah Tahmasb

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2009

Devin J. Stewart*
Affiliation:
Emory University

Abstract

This study argues that five treatises on the legal status of Friday prayer in Twelver Shiite law that were composed between 1555 and 1563, in the middle of the reign of Safavid Shah Tahmasb, were all penned as part of a heated competition over the post of shaykh al-islām of the Safavid capital Qazvin. Detailed analysis of the first four treatises and the context in which they were produced, building on a 1996 article that discussed the fifth, demonstrates the influence of politics and academic rivalry on texts of Islamic law and other sciences, the types of rhetorical strategies used by scholars in the competition for patronage, and the importance of support of scholars for the establishment of legitimate rule and an official religion.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2009

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References

1 Versions of this anecdote are cited in a number of texts, including the nineteenth-century biographical dictionaries of al-Khwānsārī and Tunkābunī, but its ultimate source remains unclear. Abisaab, who cites Tunkābunī, notes that it is a late and probably apocryphal anecdote. It must predate by many years the works of al-Khwānsārī and Tunkābunī, neither of whom cites a specific source, because it also appears in Malcolm's The History of Persia, published in 1815. Malcolm derived it from a Persian text or texts that he mysteriously cites as “Persian MSS. Moolah Sâduck”. Malcolm, Sir John, The History of Persia, from the Most Early Period to the Present Time: Containing an Account of the Religion, Government, Usages, and Character of the Inhabitants of That Kingdom, 2 vols (London: Longman and Co., 1815), 1/558–9Google Scholar; al-Khwānsārī, Muḥammad Bāqir, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamā’ wa’l-sādāt, 8 vols (Beirut: al-Dār al-Islāmīya, 1991), 2/62Google Scholar; Tunkābunī, Mīrzā Muḥammad, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamā’ (Tehran: Intishārāt-i ʿIlmīya-yi Islāmīya, 1985), 242–3Google Scholar; Browne, E. G., A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924), 3/426–7Google Scholar; Abisaab, Rula Jurdi, Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 70Google Scholar.

2 Abisaab comments insightfully on this anecdote, noting its message about the prevalence of rivalry among the scholarly class and adding that Shah Abbas intended to promote a level of controlled competition among them. Abisaab, Converting Persia, 70.

3 Newman, Andrew, “The myth of clerical migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite opposition to ʿAlī al-Karakī and Safawid Shiism”, Die Welt des Islams 33, 1993, 66112Google Scholar, here pp. 105–6.

4 Stewart, Devin J., “Notes on the migration of ʿĀmilī scholars to Safavid Iran”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55, 81103, here pp. 97–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Abisaab, Converting Persia, 22–30, 36–9, 45–8, 50–51.

6 Mazzaoui, Michel M., “From Tabriz to Qazvin to Isfahan: three phases of Safavid history”, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft suppl. 3.1, 1977, 514–22Google Scholar; Echraqi, Ehsan, “Le Dār al-Salṭana de Qazvin, deuxième capitale des Safavides”, 105–16 in Melville, Charles (ed.), Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996)Google Scholar.

7 Echraqi, “Le Dār al-Salṭana de Qazvin”, 112.

8 Chamberlain, Michael, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 91107, esp. 92–100Google Scholar.

9 Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice, 96–7.

10 Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā-yi tāza dar bāb-i rūzigār-i ṣafavī (Qum: Nashr-i Adyān, 2005), 417.

11 Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl, Dīn va-siyāsat dar dawra-yi ṣafavī (Qum: Intishārāt-i Anṣāriyān, 1991), 121–80Google Scholar; idem, Ṣafavīya dar ʿarṣa-yi dīn, farhang, va-siyāsat (Qum: Pazhūhishkada-yi Ḥawza va-Dānishgāh, 2000), 251–363; idem, Davāzdah Risāla-yi fiqhī dar bāra-yi namāz-i jumʿa (Qum: Intishārāt-i Anṣāriyān, 2003), 1–102; Mahdī Farhānī Munfarid, , Muhājarat-i ʿulamā-yi shīʿa az Jabal ʿĀmil bih Īrān dar ʿaṣr-i ṣafavī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Amīr Kabīr, 1998), 118–21Google Scholar; Hamid Algar, “Emām-e Jomʿa”, Encyclopedia Iranica 8/386–91; Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein, The Just Ruler in Shiʿite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 177204Google Scholar; Newman, Andrew J., “Fayd al-Kashani and the rejection of the clergy/state alliance: Friday Prayer as politics in the Safavid period”, 34–52 in Walbridge, Linda S. (ed.), The Most Learned of the Shiʿa: The Institution of the Marjaʿ Taqlid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), esp. 35–8Google Scholar.

12 The best available summary to date of the debate over Friday prayer in Safavid Iran is Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla-yi fiqhī, 1–102.

13 Published in Rasā’il al-Muḥaqqiq al-Karakī, ed. Muḥammad Ḥassūn (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1988–89), 77–136; also in Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla-yi fiqhī, 103–30. Al-Karakī completed a second treatise on the topic, Risālat ṣalāt al-jumʿa (Treatise on Friday Prayer), on 6 Muḥarram 921/20 February 1515. He also discussed the status of Friday prayer during the occultation in his major legal commentary, Jāmiʿ al-maqāṣid fī sharḥ al-qawāʿid, as well, but refers readers there to his independent treatise on the topic, presumably the Jaʿfarīya. al-Karakī, ʿAlī, Jāmiʿ al-maqāṣid fī sharḥ al-qawāʿid, 13 vols (Beirut: Mu’assasat Āl al-Bayt li-Iḥyā’ al-Turāth, 1991), 2/374–80Google Scholar.

14 al-ʿĀmilī, Zayn al-Dīn, Risāla fī ṣalāt al-jumʿa, in Rasā’il al-Shahīd al-Thānī, vol. 1 (Qum: Markaz al-Abḥāth wa’l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmīya, 2000), 173248Google Scholar.

15 Stewart, Devin J., “The First Shaykh al-Islām of the Safavid capital Qazvin”, JAOS 116, 1996, 387405Google Scholar.

16 On Zayn al-Dīn in general, see Stewart, Devin J., “The Ottoman execution of Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī”, Die Welt des Islams 48, 2008, 287347CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See Stewart, Devin J., “An episode in the ʿAmili migration to Safavid Iran: the travel account of Husayn b. ʿAbd al-Samad al-ʿAmili”, Journal of Iranian Studies 39, 2006, 481509CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Stewart, “Episode”, 491. Muḥammad Kāẓim Raḥmatī has brought to my attention another text, the beginning or heading of another letter from Ḥusayn to Zayn al-Dīn, that has recently been discovered and will soon be published in Iran.

19 Stewart, “Episode”, 493–6.

20 A late Safavid chronicle reports that Ḥusayn came to Qazvin in 963/1555–56, but the most reliable account of Ḥusayn's career in Iran, the Persian biography of Ḥusayn's son Bahā’ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī by Muẓaffar ʿAlī, reports that Ḥusayn was appointed shaykh al-islām of Qazvin after spending three years in Isfahan. Since Ḥusayn arrived in Isfahan around April 1554, he was probably appointed shaykh al-islām in mid-964/1557. In addition, Badr al-Dīn Ḥasan al-Madanī, a Hijazi Shiite scholar known as Ibn Shadqam, came to the Safavid court at Qazvin, where he met Ḥusayn and received an ijāza from him in Dhū al-Qaʿda 964/26 August–24 September 1557. This suggests that Ḥusayn had already been appointed to the position of shaykh al-islām by that date. Stewart, “Qazvin”, 390–94; idem, “Episode”, 494; al-Amīn, Muḥsin, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 10 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Taʿāruf li’l-Maṭbūʿāt, 1984), 7/157Google Scholar.

21 See Stewart, “Qazvin”, 398; ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 2, 151.

22 al-ʿĀmilī, ʿAlī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 2/191Google Scholar.

23 Ṭabāja, Yūsuf, “Risālat al-Shaykh Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿĀmilī, wālid al-Bahā’ī, ilā ustādhihi al-Shahīd al-Thānī (makhṭūṭa): taḥqīq wa-dirāsa”, al-Minhāj: majalla islāmīya fikrīya faṣlīya 29, 2003, 152–95Google Scholar, here pp. 154, 185–7, 194; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 32; cf. Stewart, “Episode”, 497–99.

24 Munshī, Iskandar Beg, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 2 vols, ed. Afshār, Īraj (Tehran: Mu’assasa-yi Intishārāt-i Amīr Kabīr, 2003), 1/146Google Scholar; Savory, Roger M. (trans.), The History of Shah Abbas, 2 vols (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978), 1/233–4Google Scholar; al-Iṣfahānī, Mīrzā ʿAbd Allāh, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’ wa-ḥiyāḍ al-fuḍalā’, 5 vols, ed. al-Ḥusaynī, Aḥmad (Qum: Maṭbaʿat al-Khayyām, 1980), 2/310Google Scholar; Mīrzā Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maḥāfil al-mu’minīn, 242.

25 ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 2/168–9, 179–81.

26 The dispensation of taqīya, literally “caution”, allows Shiites – and Muslims in general – the possibility to perform acts of devotion in an imperfect manner on account of a potentially hostile audience while nevertheless fulfilling their religious duties by doing so. In his treatise on taqīya, Khomeini gives the example of Shiites avoiding prayer in public places such as the mosque or the market so that they might perform it in the correct manner in private, or trying to pray at ʿArafa as part of the pilgrimage on the day after the other pilgrims pray, because Shiite authorities sighted the new moon at the beginning of the month a day after Sunni authorities did. He decries such behaviour, insisting that one should follow the majority practice for the sake of one's own safety and the safety of one's co-sectarians. Rūḥ Khomeini, Allāh, Risāla fī al-taqīya, in al-Rasā’il, 2 vols (Qum: Mu’assasat Ismāʿīliyān, 1965), 2/173–210Google Scholar, here 2/196, 202–6.

27 Mīrzā Makhdūm al-Shīrāzī, al-Nawāqiḍ fī radd al-rawāfiḍ, MS Leiden Or. 2076, fol. 103v. I have not been able to locate this allusion in the published text of Zayn al-Dīn's work.

28 Mīrzā Makhdūm al-Shīrāzī, al-Nawāqiḍ, fol. 103v.

29 Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, Risāla fī ṣalāt al-jumʿa, 188–9.

30 Newman, “Myth”, 105–6; Stewart, “Migration”, 97–102; idem, “Episode”, 504–5.

31 For this reason, later scholars questioned the attribution of the treatise to Zayn al-Dīn or claimed that it belonged to his juvenilia, before his capacity for legal interpretation had fully developed, presenting an opinion that he later abandoned. Mīrzā ʿAbd Allāh al-Iṣfahānī (d. c. 1130–39/1717–27), writing in 1106/1694–95, rejects these views, stating that references in the text prove that the attribution is correct. In addition, Zayn al-Dīn completed it in Rabīʿ I 962/January 1555, so that it was actually one of his last works. al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/376–7. Al-Iṣfahānī does not specify the earlier scholars who made these claims, but the idea that the treatise must belong to Zayn al-Dīn's juvenalia is taken up by the later jurist Muḥammad Ḥasan b. Bāqir al-Najafī (d. 1266/1850), who criticizes Zayn al-Dīn's opinion in harsh terms and describes the work as “a tremendous disaster”. Al-Najafī, , Jawāhir al-kalām fī fiqh ahl al-bayt, 14 vols (Chicago: The Open School, 2000), 11/177–8Google Scholar.

32 Zayn al-Dīn did not complete the work, however, until many years later, completing the second volume in 956/1549 and the remaining volumes between 963/1556 and 964/1557. Āghā al-Ṭihrānī, Buzurg, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa, 25 vols (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1936–78), 20/378Google Scholar; Riḍā al-Mukhtārī, “Introduction” to Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, Munyat al-murīd fī adab al-mufīd wa’l-mustafīd, (Qum: Maktab al-Iʿlām al-Islāmī, 1989), 29–32.

33 al-ʿĀmilī, Zayn al-Dīn, Masālik al-afhām ilā tanqīḥ Sharā’iʿ al-Islām, 16 vols (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Maʿārif al-Islāmīya, 1983), 1/233–49, esp. 1/235Google Scholar.

34 Riḍā al-Mukhtārī, “Introduction” to Munyat al-murīd, 36.

35 Riḍā al-Mukhtārī, “Introduction” to Munyat al-murīd, 33.

36 al-ʿĀmilī, Zayn al-Dīn, al-Rawḍa al-bahīya Sharḥ al-Lumʿa al-dimashqīya, 2 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1958), 1/89Google Scholar; idem, Rawḍ al-jinān fī sharḥ Irshād al-adhhān (Tehran: Muḥammad Riḍā al-Ṭihrānī, 1889), 290.

37 Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, al-Rawḍa al-bahīya, 1/89; idem, Rawḍ al-jinān, 290–92.

38 Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, Rawḍ al-jinān, 291.

39 For a summary of Zayn al-Dīn's argument, see Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla, 63–6.

40 Both treatises are published in Rasā’il al-Shahīd al-Thānī, 251–8, 259–9. The treatise on Khaṣā’iṣ yawm al-jumʿa is mentioned in Risāla fī ṣalāt al-jumʿa, Rasā’il al-Shahīd al-Thānī, 241.

41 Iskandar Beg Munshī, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿabbāsī, 1/155–6; al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/120; Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 247–8; Stewart, “Qazvin”, 389, 390; Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla-yi fiqhī, 28–9; idem, Kāvish-hā, 419; Munfarid, Muhājarat, 120–21.

42 Tabataba’i, Hossein Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law: A Bibliographical Study (London: Ithaca Press, 1984), 146Google Scholar.

43 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 423–44.

44 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 416, 421. Jaʿfariyān's analysis includes some confusion of dates. He gives the date of Zayn al-Dīn's treatise as 963 ah, rather than the correct date of 962 ah (pp. 416, 421). He notes in one section that Ḥusayn came to Iran after the martyrdom of Zayn al-Dīn in 965 ah, that he spent eighteen years in Iran, and that he died seven years after leaving the Empire (pp. 417–18). In another passage, in contrast, he reports that Ḥusayn came to Iran in 960 ah, (p. 418). It is now known that Ḥusayn came to Iran in 961/1554. He spent about twenty-one years in Iran, leaving to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca in 983/1575 and dying in Bahrain the next year, in 984/1576. See Stewart, “Qazvin”; idem, “Episode”.

45 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 416–19.

46 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 420–21.

47 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 436.

48 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 427.

49 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 426.

50 The text reads al-Ṭabarsī.

51 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 442.

52 Jaʿfariyān, Kāvish-hā, 444.

53 In general, see al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 1: 260–61; Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 5/186; al-Ṭihrānī, Āghā Buzurg, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-shīʿa. Iḥyā’ al-dāthir min al-qarn al-ʿāshir (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1987), 57Google Scholar; Modarressi, Bibliography, 146, 170; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 23–4, 26, 29, 147, 160–62, 168–9.

54 Abisaab, Converting Persia, 24.

55 Sections of this work devoted to Sufism are quoted extensively in a critique of Sufism by al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī entitled al-Risāla al-ithnāʿasharīya and a similar work by ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1103/1692), al-Sihām al-māriqa. Muḥammad b. al-ʿĀmilī, al-Ḥasan al-Ḥurr, al-Risāla al-ithnāʿasharīya fī al-radd ʿalā al-ṣūfīya (Tehran: Durūdī, 1987–88)Google Scholar.

56 Ḥasan b. al-Karakī, ʿAlī, Aṭāyib al-kalim fī bayān ṣilat al-raḥim, ed. al-Ḥusaynī, Aḥmad (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-Marʿashī, 1973–74)Google Scholar.

57 Ḥasan al-Karakī, Aṭāyib al-kalim, 11, 27.

58 Modarressi, Bibliography, 170.

59 Āghā Buzurg, Modarressi and Abisaab all report this as one of his extant works. Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa 3/146; Modarressi, Bibliography, 146; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 161; Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah Risāla, 183–212.

60 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 188, 199, 201, 207.

61 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 199, 201, 202, 206.

62 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 202–12.

63 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 184–5.

64 Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 3/146.

65 See Stewart, “The Ottoman execution of Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī”.

66 Stewart, “Qazvin”, 397–8.

67 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 187.

68 Ḥasan al-Karakī, al-Bulgha, 187.

69 On this scholar and his role in Safavid politics, see Stewart, “Qazvin”, 395–6 and the sources cited there; also idem, “The lost biography of Baha’ al-Din al-ʿAmili and the reign of Shah Ismaʿil II in Safavid historiography”, Iranian Studies 31, 1998, 1–29; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 3, 9, 19, 23, 28, 29, 33, 27, 39, 45–49, 51–52, 55, 58, 60, 64, 147, 153, 159–62, 164–5, 167–8.

70 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 1/167.

71 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/67.

72 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/66; Āghā Buzurg, al-Dharīʿa, 18/353. Al-Iṣfahānī mentions as a separate text a Risāla fī ṣalāt al-jumʿa, in which he rejected al-wujūb al-ʿaynī, “as al-Tajallī quotes it in his treatise”. Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/67. This later work on Friday prayer is Risāla dar namāz-i jumʿa by ʿAlī Riḍā b. Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn al-Ardakānī al-Shīrāzī, known as Tajallī (d. 1085/1674–75). Modarressi, Introduction, 146. Al-Tajallī's treatise is published in Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla, 357–404. The work al-Tajallī quotes is probably al-Lumʿa itself, as Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, the editor of Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, suggests. Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/67, n. 1. Modarressi apparently overlooks al-Lumʿa in his bibliography of Shiite legal scholarship. He mentions a treatise on Friday prayer, extant in two MSS, with the title al-Bulgha fī ʿadam ʿaynīyat ṣalāt al-jumʿa and attributed to “al-Mujtahid”. This may be the Lumʿa with the title given incorrectly, or it may be Ḥasan al-Karakī's treatise, al-Bulgha, misattributed to Mīr Sayyid Ḥusayn, who was often referred to as Mujtahid in the Safavid sources. Modarressi, Introduction, 146. Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī provides a biographical notice for another scholar with a similar name; it appears that they are one and the same figure. This second name is given as al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī b. al-Ḥasan, and Āghā Buzurg describes him as a member of al-Muḥaqqiq al-Karakī's generation. Āghā Buzurg has seen a copy in his hand of the Ḥāshiya of al-Muḥaqqiq al-Thānī on the legal text Sharā’iʿ al-islām in the library of al-Sayyid al-Shīrāzī in Samarra, dated 949/1542–43. He has also seen a copy in his hand of Uṣūl al-Kāfī dated 961/1553–54. Āghā Buzurg, Iḥyā’ al-dāthir, 64. These dates would match the dates of activity of Sayyid Ḥusayn al-Karakī.

73 Stewart, “The First Shaykh al-Islām”.

74 Abisaab, “Migration and social change: the ʿUlama of Ottoman Jabal ʿAmil in Safavid Iran, 1501–1736”, PhD dissertation, New Haven, Yale University, 1998, 135–9; eadem, Converting Persia, 39–40.

75 Abisaab, “Migration and social change”, 127–8.

76 Abisaab, Converting Persia, 45. The evidence for this statement is unclear, but may derive from one of Sayyid Ḥusayn's unpublished manuscripts that she consulted.

77 Qāḍī Aḥmad b. Sharaf al-Dīn Qummī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh (Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1980), 550–55.

78 Ḥusaynī ʿĀmilī, Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maḥāfil al-mu’minīn fī dhayl Majālis al-mu’minīn, ed. ʿArabpūr, Ibrāhīm and Jaghatā’ī, Manṣūr (Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhūhish-hā-yi Islāmī, 2004), 239Google Scholar.

79 Muḥammad Shafīʿ Ḥusaynī ʿĀmilī, Maḥāfil al-mu’minīn, 226–41, esp. 239. I have not been able to determine the dates of any of these descendants of Mīr Ḥusayn.

80 Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 1/123; Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 205.

81 Stewart, “Lost biography”.

82 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/73.

83 Maḥmūd b. Naṭanzī, Hidāyat Allāh Afūshta-yi, Nuqāwat al-āthār fī dhikr al-akhyār, ed. Ishrāqī, Iḥsān (Tehran: Bungāh-i Tarjuma va-Nashr-i Kitāb, 1971), 183Google Scholar. The fact that he gives Mīr Ḥusayn the toponymic nisba Ardabīlī here suggests that he has spent many years there as shaykh al-islām.

84 Qummī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, 815. For the rebellion in general, see Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 1/455–79.

85 Qummī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, 861, 1069; Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 1/369; Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 509.

86 Qummī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, 867.

87 Qummī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, 1086–87.

88 Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 1/458; Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 631–2.

89 Jaʿfariyān, Davāzdah risāla-yi fiqhī, 357–404. Jaʿfariyān lists six MSS of the work in Davāzdah risāla, 86. The MS consulted here is MS Mashhad Faculty of Theology, Tārīkh 217.54, which was copied on 8 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1009/10 June 1601.

90 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/66. The date does not appear in the MS at my disposal, which does not include the original colophon.

91 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2/66.

92 Makdisi characterizes the mutafaqqih as an undergraduate student of law and the faqīh as a graduate student of law, citing a passage in Ibn ʿAqīl's (d. 513/1119) al-Wāḍiḥ as an illustration of the contrast between the two terms: “… and this is the sort of criticism regarding which many fuqahā’ [pl. of faqīh] are unmindful who have not concerned themselves with this science, let alone the mutafaqqiha [coll. pl. of mutafaqqih]”. Makdisi, George, The Rise of Colleges (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), 172–4Google Scholar.

93 Reading taḥallaqa for takhallaqa in the text.

94 Reading haḍabāt for habaḍāt in the text.

95 Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice, 64–5, 90, 100.

96 Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, 154; Savory, History of Shah Abbas, 244–5.

97 Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa, 18, 352–3.

98 See al-Muḥaqqiq al-Karakī's passage on the qibla from al-Muhadhdhab al-bāriʿfī sharḥ al-Mukhtaṣar al-nāfiʿ, apud Rawḍ al-jinān, between pages 199 and 200, and Zayn al-Dīn's criticism of this position in Rawḍ al-jinān, 198–9.

99 ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī, al-Durr al-manthūr, 2, 180–81.

100 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2, 111; Modarressi, Bibliography, 139; Stewart, “Migration”, 98; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 161.

101 Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, Risāla fī taḥqīq qiblat ʿIrāq al-ʿAjam wa-Khurāsān, MS Marʿashī 744/4, 181–8; Abisaab, Converting Persia, 37.

102 al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī reports that he had a copy in his possession. al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Amal al-āmil, 1, 110; al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2, 131. Cf. Abisaab, Converting Persia, 161.

103 al-Iṣfahānī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2, 68. Cf. Abisaab, Converting Persia, 161.

104 Stewart, Devin J., “The Genesis of the Akhbari revival”, 169–93 in Mazzaoui, Michel (ed.), Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

105 Faḍl Allāh b. al-Khunjī, Rūzbihān (d. 927/1521), Sulūk al-mulūk, ed. Muwaḥḥid, Muḥammad ʿAlī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Khwārazmī, 1983), 93100Google Scholar.

106 Stewart, “Qazvin”, 404–5.