converting persia, religion and power in the safavid empire, rula

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ReviewAuthor(s): Devin J. StewartReview by: Devin J. StewartSource: Iranian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 271-275Published by: on behalf ofTaylor & Francis, Ltd. International Society of Iranian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311818Accessed: 07-10-2015 06:32 UTC

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its organization, staff and functioning also on European ideas. This explains whyhe felt the need to write that hospitals had existed in "medieval" Iran, about theglory of famous Islamic physicians, and that what he proposed was but a naturalcontinuation of that earlier tradition. The author does not discuss either the factthat Islamic-Galenic medicine in Qajar Iran was not of great importance forpublic health as folk medicine nor that its practitioners (from whom many ofthe self-styled Islamic-Galenic practitioners often were hard to distinguish)were the providers of medical care to ninety-nine percent of the population.The small number of Islamic-Galenic practitioners derived their relative import-ance from the fact that they served the power elite, with whom they shared acommon view of state and society. Ebrahimnejad is hasty (p. 72) to dismiss thedar al-shafa in Tehran as not having been a kind of hospital as well. In conclusion,all those interested in modernization and public health issues and social historyshould read this book.

Willem FloorBethesda, MD

Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire, RulaJurdi Abisaab, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004, ISBN 1-86064-970-X, xii + 219 pp.,bibliography, index.

This is the first monograph in a European language to treat the influx of religiousscholars from the traditionally Shiite region Jabal 'Amil-now in southernLebanon to the officially Shiite Safavid Empire (1501-1722) and their influenceon Iranian intellectual and political history. It is a very ambitious work, attempt-ing to weave the data concerning this particular topic into a general political andintellectual history of Safavid Iran, something quite difficult to accomplish giventhe state of the field. It follows a rough chronological arrangement that is nottransparent from the chapter titles, with one exception. After a short introduction(pp. 1-6), chapter one, "Sufi Regalia and Legal Banners: The Safavids and theEmigre Arab Jurists" (pp. 7-30), treats the reign of Shah Isma'il I (1501-24).Chapter two, "The Mujtahids Navigate the Sovereign's World" (pp. 31-52),treats the reigns of Shah Tahmasb (1524-76), Isma'il 11 (1576-78), and Muham-mad Khudabandah (1 578-87). Chapter three, "Shah 'Abbas and Imperial Reign asClerical Discipline, 1587-1629 (pp. 53-86), focuses on the reign of Shah Abbas I(1587-1629). Chapter four, "Safavid Mistrust, Popular Protest and the Ration-alists' Retreat" (pp. 89-120), treats the reigns of Shah Safi (1629-42) and ShahAbbas 11 (1642-66). Chapter five, "The Rediscovery of Traditions and the Shift-ing Normative" (pp. 121-138), treating the reigns of Sulayman (1666-94) andSultan-Husayn (1694-1722). Conclusions (pp. 139-46). In addition, the workincludes maps of Safavid Iran (p. xi) and Jabal Amil (p. xii) and three usefulappendices that give an overview of the relevant scholars, their activities and

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writings: Appendix I, "The'Amili Ulama of Safavid Iran, 1501-1736 C.E.(pp. 147-52, arranged chronologically), Appendix II: Posts and Activities ofthe Emigre Amili Ulama (pp. 153-55), Appendix III. The Intellectual Productionof the Emigre Amili Ulama (pp. 156-73, arranged by topic).

This work draws on, revises, and extends the work of a number of other mono-graphs written on the topic over the last two decades, including most notably theworks of Muruwwah and Muhajir. The main results do not differ much overall,but greater detail and nuance has been brought to the topic. Abisaab's examin-ation of the sources reveals 158 Amili scholars who were first, second, or thirdgeneration emigrants (p. 9 and Appendix I). The' Amili immigrants filled particu-lar niches in the Safavid system, particularly serving in posts as officials in thejudiciary, teachers/professors in Arabic and the religious sciences, prayer-leaders, and so on. They worked to become integrated into the social order inwhich they lived, forging alliances with Persian notables and the Safavid militaryelite. They were particularly useful to the Shah's government because of theirability to counter Ottoman and Uzbek propaganda and bolster the legitimacyof the Safavid state in religious terms, notably through the justification of theland-tax, holding Friday prayer, and war against Christian territories as well asneighboring Sunni powers. Their translation and abridgment of major Shiite

texts and their dissemination of Shiite religious heritage in general exercised aprofound effect on the intellectual history of Iran.

The study emphasizes the lives and careers of nine jurists:'Ali b.-Abd aliAli al-Karaki (d. 940/1533), Husayn b. Abd al-Samad alkAmili (d. 984/1576), Husaynal-Mujtahid (d. 1001/1592), Baha' al-Din allAmili (d. 1030/1621), Mir Damad(d. 1041/1631-32) [can set exactly], Ahmad b. Zayn al Abidin (d. 1054/1644),Lutf Allah al-Maysi (d. 1032/1622-23),'Ali b. Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Zaynal-Din albAmili "al-Shahidi" (d. 1103-4/1691), and Muhammad al-HurralkAmili (d. 1099/1688). The main contributions of the work are the following.First it makes available a chronological list of the scholars involved in theAmili migration together with an accounting of the positions they held and themain works they wrote, invaluable for an assessment of their overall impact onthe political, religious, and intellectual history of the period. Second, it providesa narrative of this movement that ties it in with political and social historicaldevelopments of the empire, providing more nuance and greater detail thanhas been available in a European language to date. Third, it presents new analysesof several important works, many unpublished, by the nine scholars mentionedabove, including polemical treatises against Sufism by' Ali al-Karaki and Ali al-Shahidi (al-Matdin al-mujrimiyya i al-radd ala al-Sufiyya, p. 24 and al-Siham al-mariqab min aghrad a1-.anadiqah, p. 110), 'Ali al-Karaki's treatise on the cursingthe Companions of the Prophet (Nafahat al-labut fldn al-jibt wa'l-taghut, p. 27),Husayn al-Karaki's treatises on the death of Umar b. al-Khattab (pp. 46-47),Baha' al-Din alkAmili's treatise on the illegality of eating meat slaughtered byJews and Christians (Tabrim dhaba'ih ahl al-kitab, pp. 64-67), and Lutf Allah al-Maysi's treatise on the practice of pious retreat (a/-Itikafiyya, pp. 83- 85).



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the death date of Ibn Khatun as ca. 1111/1699 (p. 61), which is much too late; itpresumably occurred in the mid-seventeenth century. At one point, Abisaabgives examples of Amili sons of the clerical aristocracy who assumed politicaland administrative posts in both the provinces and the capital city. This is avalid point and indicates, as she rightly points out, a degree of integration intothe Iranian elite that the prominent figures of earlier generations did notenjoy. However, she cites two examples that have to do with the Qutbshahidynasty and not the Safavids at all: Muhammad b. Ali b. Khatun, mentionedabove, became vizier in Hyderabad and Jamal al-Din b. Nur al-Din' Ali al-'Amili al-Jubai (d. 1098/1686) became a sadr, also in Hyderabad. (p. 96). Atanother point, she notes that Nur al-Din' Ali dedicated his work Al-Shavabidal-Makiyya [> Makkiyya] to the sultan "Qutbshah" (p. 106). The name of theruler in question is not Qutbshah, but'Abd Allah.

The work contains some minor errors and infelicities. It is stated that the Por-tuguese commander Albuquerque recaptured Hormuz in 921/1515 and con-cluded a treaty with Shah Ismail II (p. 79), when this must be Ismail I. Theverb "overlook" is used regularly when "oversee" is intended: "The Portugueseowned and overlooked the islands for 80 years" (p. 80). The terms theology andtheologians are used when jurists and Islamic law would be more appropriate:

"theologians" (pp. 16, 21, 139); "professors of theology" (p. 9); "theological ques-tions ;" "lectureship post in theology" (p. 81); theological college (p. 83). Themadrasab, a college of Islamic law, is called simply "school" (pp. 83, 84, 87).What was apparently owlad in original Persian texts is translated "children"when the meaning is clearly "sons" exclusively, as in references to one of thesons of the shaykh al-islam being appointed to a post, or an official's sons beingblinded or executed (p. 97, 101, 105). The title of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi's(d. 1036/1626-27) major work, the Akhbari manefsto al-Fawa'id al-madaniyyah, sinadvertently referred to as Safinat al-Najat (pp. 106, 144), the title of a laterAkhbari work by Muhsin Fayd al-Kashani (p. 27). The practice of publiccursing of the Prophet's Companions is referred to as tabarraiyan (p. 27), whenthat term refers to the professional cursers; the practice itself is tabarraortabarri. It is stated that "Al-Hurr was the first to compile the Prophetic traditions(ahadith qudsiyya) n his work Al-Jawahir al-Saniyya"(p. 131). A Hadith qudsi is nota prophetic hadith, but a hadith which purports to convey divine speech. Al-Hurrwas not the first in Islamic history to write such a work, but the first in theTwelver tradition. Abisaab reports that between the thirteenth and sixteenth cen-turies, the main center of Twelver learning shifted from Hilla, to Karbala, toNajaf, to Mosul, to Jabal Amil (p. 11), but it is unclear why Mosul belongs inthis list. In some cases, two distinct scholars have been confused. Abisaabreports that one of al-Karaki's sons, named Taj al-Din' Abd alkAli, acquired thetitle Mir Sayyid Ali (pp. 55, 192 n. 21). This does not make sense, because al-Karaki was not a sayyid, and his son could not aquire the title without fakinghis genealogy. The scholar whom Abisaab intended, Mir Seyyed Ali al-Khatibal-Astarabadi, a leading proponent against Shah Ismail II's "Sunni" reforms,



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was not a son of al-Karaki. (See Savory's History of Shah Abbas the Great, vol. 1,pp. 240, 320).

Devin J. StewartEmory University

Persisebe Urkunden der Mongolenzeit, Gottfried Herrmann, Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag (Documenta Iranica et Islamica, Band 2), 2004, ISBN 3-447-

04901-4, 205 pp. (text) + 199 pp. (b&w photos), bibliography, indices (nominal,geographical, technical).

Rapacity, indifference, and capriciousness are attitudes most commonly associ-ated with the Mongol Ilkhans and their successor dynastic brethren (Jalayarids,Chubanids) during the 13th and 14th centuries. There is little contesting thatthe medieval Persian-speaking world faced startling depopulation, iron-fistedtaxation, and agricultural ruination as the Mongols consolidated their rule afterHulegu's invasions in the 1250's. Less-discussed perhaps is their sponsorship ofand propinquity to popular Sufi tariqabs and how such organizations provided

an invaluable intermediary function between the ecumenical Mongols and theirpredominantly Muslim subject population. Court-hermitage (dargah-khanqah)relationships grew in number and intensity during this period, and the Mongoldecision to establish successive imperial capitals in northwest Iran Maragha,Tabriz and Sultaniyya-so as to better access the ideal steppe conditions ofAzarbaijan brought them into close proximity with a seedling, yet influential,group of mystics based in the town of Ardabil: the Safavids. It is the administra-tive and bureaucratic dynamics of this relationship which comprise GottfriedHerrmann's meticulous and formidable study, Persiscbe Urkunden er Mongolen eit.

A well-noted documentary historian and paleographer of the medieval period,Herrmann explains in his introduction that the roots of this project lay originallyin the 1971 -discovery of hundreds of Persian documents in the Porcelain Room(chin-khana) of the Safavid shrine at Ardabil. Portions of this archival largessehave since been studied by Morton, Gronke, Doerfer, and the author himself,but this is the first attempt to systematically edit, publish, and evaluate twenty-eight original "public" decrees (as opposed to private correspondence) whichhad been preserved from the Ilkhanid and Jalayarid periods. Herrmann bringsa strong sense of typology to this study, dividing the book between a lengthysection on understanding such documents ("Zum Urkundenwesen derMongolenzeit"), the presentation of the texts themselves (with transcriptions,translations, commentaries), and an Appendix of glossy black and white facsi-miles. The documents are broadly divided into three categories: royal(Herrscher-Urkunden), financial (Diwan-Urkunden), and administrative(Beamten-Urkunden), although these can be further subdivided based on respect-ive ontologies (GroBdiwan-Urkunden, Behorden-Urkunden). To provide a


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