Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (Miroir De L'orient Musulman, 10) (English, French and German Edition) [Multilingual ed.] 9782503592893, 2503592899

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Religious Lineages and Knowledge Networks
Family and Transmission of Knowledge in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Damascus
Torsten Wollina
Narrating a Lineage’s Transition Crisis between Biography and Hagiography
Adam Sabra
Converts and Polemicists as Bridges in Knowledge Networks
Alberto Tiburcio
Kinship, Status, and Legitimacy
Warriors, Kings, and Caliphs
Sacha Alsancakli
Wann fällt der Apfel nicht weit vom Stamm?
Syrinx von Hees
Families of Cairene Civil Servants, from Mamluk to Ottoman Times (Fifteenth – Sixteenth Centuries)
Nicolas Michel
Marriage Alliances and Political Strategies
Ṣihr and Muṣāhara in Mamluk Royal Relations
Albrecht Fuess
L’histoire du pacha exemplaire marié à une sultane extravagante
Juliette Dumas
Professional Lineages and Transmission
Family Legacy Versus Regional Style: Tracing Three Generations of Woodworkers in Māzandarān (Iran, 1460s-1500s)
Sandra Aube
La formation d’un calligraphe dans le monde iranien
Francis Richard
Managing Households and Family Estates
The Rażavī Sayyids of Mashhad
Christoph U. Werner
Documenting the Barnābādī Estate
Maria Szuppe
Creating a Family Property in Early Modern Iran
Naofumi Abe

Citation preview

Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East

MIROIR DE L’ORIENT MUSULMAN Volume 10 Directrice de la collection Denise Aigle, Directrice d’études émérite à l’EPHE Comité de direction Stéphane Dudoignon, Directeur de recherche au CNRS Anne-Marie Eddé, Professeur émérite à l’Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne Nicolas Michel, Professeur à Aix-Marseille Université

Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East

Edited by Christoph U. Werner Maria Szuppe Nicolas Michel Albrecht Fuess

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With the support of CeRMI

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/43 ISBN 978-2-503-59289-3 eISBN 978-2-503-59290-9 DOI 10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122078 ISSN 2295-8169 eISSN 2565-9812 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Contents

Introduction

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Religious Lineages and Knowledge Networks Family and Transmission of Knowledge in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Damascus Torsten Wollina

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Narrating a Lineage’s Transition Crisis between Biography and Hagiography A Case from Ottoman Egypt Adam Sabra

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Converts and Polemicists as Bridges in Knowledge Networks The Case of Safavid Iran Alberto Tiburcio

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Kinship, Status, and Legitimacy Warriors, Kings, and Caliphs Questions of Origins and Dynastic Culture in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Kurdistan Sacha Alsancakli

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Wann fällt der Apfel nicht weit vom Stamm? Zeitpunkte familiärer Amtsübertragung in mamlukischer Zeit Syrinx von Hees

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Families of Cairene Civil Servants, from Mamluk to Ottoman Times (Fifteenth – Sixteenth Centuries) Nicolas Michel

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Marriage Alliances and Political Strategies Ṣihr and Muṣāhara in Mamluk Royal Relations Transmitting Power and Enlarging Networks Through In-Law Ties in Pre-Modern Egypt Albrecht Fuess

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L’histoire du pacha exemplaire marié à une sultane extravagante Genre, politique et récit intime à la cour ottomane au xviie siècle Juliette Dumas

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Professional Lineages and Transmission Family Legacy Versus Regional Style: Tracing Three Generations of Woodworkers in Māzandarān (Iran, 1460s-1500s) 197 Sandra Aube La formation d’un calligraphe dans le monde iranien Francis Richard

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Managing Households and Family Estates The Rażavī Sayyids of Mashhad Families within a Family Christoph U. Werner

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Documenting the Barnābādī Estate Establishment and Growth of a ‘Saintly’ Family in Fifteenth to Eighteenth-Century Herat Maria Szuppe

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Creating a Family Property in Early Modern Iran Socioeconomic Activities of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī of Tabriz in the Eighteenth Century Naofumi Abe

307

Introduction

The present volume brings together reflections on the nature of families in the early modern Middle East and processes of transmission. Building on earlier studies, it specifically argues the importance of connecting the key concept of family in its widest possible meaning with the notion of transmission of knowledge, professional know-how, authority, status and power, and develops this idea through an innovative, pluridisciplinary and cross-regional approach.1 A group of scholars from Iranian, Ottoman and Arabic Islamic studies came together in the joint French-German research project under the title Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (15th-17th centuries), or dyntran, in order to develop common ground on issues of families and transmission processes.2 This collection on aspects of family history in Middle Eastern societies represents the final outcome of this project. Our overall aim was not only to produce new ideas and questions, but equally to overcome a certain essentialism that has tended to overrate the role of religion when it comes to family issues and processes of knowledge transmission and to broaden the geographical and linguistic scope, traditionally limited to particular historico-cultural areas. Different fields of Islamic area studies brought together can bridge the gap between research on Central Asia and Iran based mostly on Persian sources and studies on the Mamluk and Ottoman World based on Arabic and Turkish material. Placed side-by-side, the contributions move beyond the traditional divide between regions and academic fields that have established their own sub-disciplines. They also traverse the almost invisible borders in periodization, here the period before 1500 and the epoch of early modern empires. Indeed, while earlier scholarship on families in the Middle East has frequently focused on their representation in the Islamic court systems and dealt with matters of family law,3 the significance and function of families in professional education, dynastic structures, administration and estate development have not been addressed adequately. The role of families in the early modern Middle East, whether defined as





1 To name only a small selection of pertinent works, see Hathaway 1997; Doumani 2003; Morimoto 2012; Mayeur-Jaouen & Papas 2013; Benkheira, Sublet et al. 2013; Doumani 2017. 2 Generously funded by both the Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) over the years 2015 to 2018: ANR-14-FRAL-0009-01, and DFG WE 2587/ 5-1 und FU 443/5-1. The archived project website featuring dyntran working papers, conference programs, list of published preliminary results, and outreach activities remains available under https://dyntran. hypotheses.org/ 3 Agmon 2006, as an excellent example.

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core families, lineages, households, genealogical descent groups or family networks, still remains understudied both in their terminological and structural aspects. The present collection sets out to contribute to fill this lacuna, as micro-historical studies can now build on more solid frameworks of political history and use a wider range of critical editions and published sources. Also, more documents and primary sources from archives and libraries of the region have been made available through different national and international projects of digitization. The contributions focus particularly on the early modern period between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century, although some of the discussions move further into the modern era and cover the nineteenth century as well. The common methodological approach is based on a widely shared interest in primary sources available for this period: a clear focus is made on narrative material, mostly in Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish, including biographies, chronicles, and dictionaries, but equally incorporating archival sources, material culture, art and crafts. Initial questions under scrutiny pertain to the nature of ‘family’ and how to define it in our framework and for our chosen period; in particular, how the understanding of family in a historical perspective differs from a ‘biological family’ or immediate kinship group, from a faction, a lineage, a network or a dynasty. To what degree and level were families aware and conscious of their own identity? One of the major issues addressed parallely is the notion of transmission — that obviously cannot be dissociated from the definition of family — and the directly connected question of what exactly was handed down inside and through families: transmission could mean both the transfer of goods or ideas and can thus be seen as regional exchange as well as part of larger exchange processes within a family, in the form of marriage or inheritance. Families passed on their own heritage: status, authority and wealth, professional training in commercial skills or scribal traditions. For example, artistic expertise in various domains, as well as knowledge, could be handed down through traditional teaching in lineages across several generations. The analysis of the processes of transmission, in other words, the how of its dynamics, appears as another pivotal issue. In order to propose answers to the central question of whether family transmission was the dominant conduit in the fifteenth to seventeenth century Middle East, the authors had to consider political, cultural, and juristic contexts. Three principal problems had thus to be addressed: whether transmission was direct and personal or indirect and impersonal; whether it adopted pre-existing channels, modified these conduits, or even invented new modes;4 and finally, whether it was outside the scope of existing institutions or within them.5 With regard to multiplicity of themes and the variety of geographical and historical settings, the contents of the present volume could have been structured and organized in different ways. Now, the thirteen contributions are grouped thematically in five



4 For some preliminary results devoted particularly to these interrogations, see the special issue of Eurasian Studies 15/2, 2017 (guest editors: S. Aube, and M. Szuppe ). 5 Following Berkey 1992.

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sections, inviting a dialogue between articles belonging to different disciplines and geographical areas, and drawing on separate language sources. Religious Lineages and Knowledge Networks opens with the contribution by Torsten Wollina as a key introductory essay that develops the above ideas further and situates them in the context of late Mamluk and early Ottoman Damascus. He delves deep into questions of terminology and definitions, discussing the idea of scholarly dynasty and surrogate family based on concrete examples: the Banī Qāḍī ʿAjlūn as a ‘scholarly dynasty’ and the case of Ibn Ṭūlūn as surrogate family. Adam Sabra follows a complicated succession problem within a Sufi lineage of Ottoman Egypt in the seventeenth century. Biographers and hagiographers had to follow their respective narratives in order to make sense of and explain all the circumstances, implications and effects. Alberto Tiburcio, on the other hand, deals with interreligious debates and polemics in Safavid Iran. Catholic missionaries and ‘ulamā interacted and created hierarchical knowledge networks — that one might understand as families in their own right. This section emphasizes the close interaction between historiography, biographical writing and hagiographies in making families ‘visible’ in the first place. The fluidity of imagined families and their literary construction is a topos that we encounter also in the other sections, the combination of religious lineages and scholarly knowledge networks connects the three articles presented here. The understanding that the idea of family is constructed carries on in the next section entitled Kinship, Status, and Legitimacy. Sacha Alsancakli widens our scope and studies the ancestry claims made by the rulers of several Kurdish dynasties in order to legitimate their power. Concepts of nasab (descent) and the construction of genealogies played an important role in the legitimacy of these dynastic families, some of them digging deep into their historical or semi-legendary past to establish their claims to dynastic rule. Not ruling dynasties, but families of office holders, bureaucrats and officials in Mamluk and Ottoman times stand in the centre of the contributions by Syrinx von Hees and Nicolas Michel. How offices, of judges or teachers, were transmitted from father to son inside families in Mamluk Syria and Egypt — although not officially inherited — is discussed in detail by von Hees who introduces the crucial perception of perceived family continuity. These transfers could occur after the death of an office holder, but also in the case of early retirements caused by illness or disabilities. In the concluding chapter of this section, Nicolas Michel follows the fate of Mamluk civil servants in Ottoman times in looking for common family names as a specific marker of elite families. He concludes that civil servants and descendants of the Mamluk elite adopted quasi similar strategies in their attempt to preserve their status as families. Moving on from an understanding of larger families as households or even dynastic units, the two articles in the section Marriage Alliances and Political Strategies focus on direct kinship relations, and marriages as a dynamic relay of power and the role of women in the process of transmission. Albrecht Fuess addresses the transmission of political legitimation through the tradition of marriage alliances between Mamluk households. In particular, he investigates the practice of creating marriage bonds between the new and the old sultan by marrying a sultan’s widow or slave concubine. In the following chapter, Juliette Dumas analyses in detail the report by the Ottoman

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writer Evliya Çelebi on the intimate details of the marriage between Fatma Sultane and Melek Ahmed Pasha in the context of Ottoman palace politics. Both contributions shed light on the formation and functioning of intricate networks of kin relationship within high circles of power and their active influence over state politics. Further elaborating on the theme of how to pass on professional expertise and tradition, the section on Professional Lineages and Transmission concentrates on aspects of artistic professional specialization and education within families. Based on a rare corpus of signed woodwork, Sandra Aube traces three generations of woodworkers (najjār) and their distinct style in northern Iran around 1500, bringing to light hitherto unknown ‘dynasties’ of craftsmen, as well as practices and routes of regional artistic diffusion. Returning to the world of artists and craftsmen, Francis Richard follows the education in calligraphy and of calligraphers through the analysis of miniatures and textual sources. To a high degree the formation of calligraphers took place inside families of calligraphers and lineages of professionals, quite distinct as renowned artists from the mass of ordinary scribes and copyists. The economic background of family lineages stands in the focus of the section Managing Families and Family Estates with three contributions relating to the wider Persianate world. Christoph U. Werner discusses strands from the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad as families within a family, namely that of the descendants of the Prophet. Ostensibly also a religious lineage, the focus here is rather on the question of larger households and their economic strategies. He examines how the Rażavī sayyids were able to develop a distinct professional and economic standing and maintain their authority and status in relation to dynastic families such as the Timurids and Safavids. Another family that was able to build and preserve a large estate and a well-functioning complex network of kin relationship with other high-profile families of the region over several centuries are the Barnābādīs around Herat, documented through the fifteenth to the eighteenth century by Maria Szuppe. The final contribution of this section devoted to economic microhistory, demonstrates how a local family in Azerbaijan managed to consolidate their family property. Naofumi Abe follows the property management and inheritance starategies of the Dunbulī family in the eighteenth century through detailed archival research. With such a wide range of topics, themes and different approaches along an interdisciplinary perspective, it obviously remains difficult, if not unattainable, to arrive at a single comparative conclusion. It might not be accidental however, that the three contributions dealing with estate management, inheritance and endowments, strongly based on archival materials, are all located in the Iranian world. On the other hand, the contributions dealing with late Mamluk and early Ottoman topics from the Arab lands can draw on detailed works of biography and biographical dictionaries that in their wealth of individual information does not have a counterpart in the Persianate sphere. Different sources thus influence our understanding of families and households perhaps stronger than other contexts. Still, common topics and themes can easily be identified as connective tissue: marriage is crucial, even if it does not stand in the focus of all contributions. The idea of descent, nasab, permeates the understanding of families beyond ruling dynasties. And the importance of transmitting professional

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knowledge, military, scholarly or artistic reappears frequently. The imagined family or surrogate family that is constructed stands often next to concepts of biological family and proven kinship. Remarkably, despite their diverse geographical provenance, their different languages and the widely varying periods, it is thus possible to arrive at comparative conclusions and to agree on key definitions of the family, both as household and as lineage network. This proved particularly pertinent to our understanding of the dynamics of transmission in the Early Modern Middle East where, within larger family networks, cultural contacts across borders played an important role. The editors would like to express their gratitude towards the funding organisations for their material and moral support. We would also like to thank all participants to the workshops and conferences held over the duration of the project, not all of them represented in this volume, but present through their impact on the articles collected here. Finally, we express our thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable hints and recommendations and to the editorial board, in particular to Denise Aigle, for having accepted this volume in the series Miroir de l’Orient Musulman. Maria Szuppe and Christoph U. Werner

Bibliographical References Agmon, Iris, Family and Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine, Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2006. Aube, Sandra, and Maria Szuppe, (eds.), with the contribution of Anthony T. Quickel, Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East, special volume of Eurasian Studies 15/2, 2017. Benkheira, Moh. Hocine, Avner Giladi, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, and Jacqueline Sublet, La Famille en islam d’après les sources arabes, Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2013. Berkey, Jonathan, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Doumani, Beshara, (ed.), Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender, Albany: SUNY Press, 2003. Doumani, Beshara B., Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Hathaway, Jane, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdağlıs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine, and Alexandre Papas, (eds.), Family Portraits with Saints: Hagiography, Sanctity, and Family in the Muslim World, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2013. Morimoto, Kazuo, (ed.), Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies, London – New York: Routledge, 2012.

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Religious Lineages and Knowledge Networks

Tors t en Wollina

Family and Transmission of Knowledge in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Damascus

Introduction The issues raised by the present volume concerning processes and dynamics of transmission in relation to families, authority and knowledge ambitiously merges a host of diverse concepts which require definition or, at the very least, refinement.1 What do we mean by dynamics, transmission, authority, or knowledge? And how would contemporaries of that period have understood these notions? And finally, we have to consider which contemporary notions can be disentangled and which remain beyond our reach, either because the people or groups who held them did not themselves put them in writing or because the relevant writings did not survive to the present day (or have not yet been found in the vastness of the manuscript traditions in Arabic script)? Similar questions need to be answered as well for the least conspicuous term in the project title, family. Due to its ubiquity in everyday language today, the term is easily applied to very different constellations of people in diverse historical contexts. As Beshara Doumani has pointed out, the “very centrality of the family also makes it a slippery concept”.2 I would add that we do not encounter one stable expression for ‘family’ in the sources, and it is, in fact, due to the social centrality of family that we instead encounter a complex terminology which encompasses everything from the relations between two individuals to a core family or extended household, to a wide kinship network including spouses from other ‘families’, to lineages which extend across time and space and could include several tens, hundreds or even thousands of people. Therefore, family should be the first term to address before we see how family





1 The questions the DYNTRAN project (Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority, and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, fifteenth-seventeenth Centuries) has raised, have had a lasting impact on the development of my own research on Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus. For more on the transmission of knowledge, see Wollina 2018a and 2018b; for family networks, see Wollina 2019, and Wollina 2017. 2 Doumani 2003: 2. Torsten Wollina  •  Trinity College Dublin Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 15-36 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122929

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influenced dynamics of transmission and how it was linked to notions of authority and the constitution of knowledge. This contribution discusses how we can conceptualize ‘family’ in regard to transmission (primarily of knowledge) and how we can approach it on the basis of limited sources. These sources are mostly restricted to a limited set of Syrian and Egyptian narrative sources (most importantly, biographical works, chronicles, diaries). Drawing on these, I propose a terminology to better distinguish family as a social phenomenon from family as a literary construction in those sources. In particular, I further develop two concepts: (scholarly) dynasty and surrogate family.3 Juxtaposing family with transmission is thereby impactful, as the type of transmission and its specific social, cultural, and legal contexts affect the resulting family network traceable in the sources. Not only did family provide a framework for transmission, family itself was also subject of transmission, as will be shown in more detail below. The discussion will be illustrated by two contrasting examples from late Mamluk and early Ottoman Damascus. The Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn were a fairly representative case of the emergence and ascent of a ‘scholarly dynasty’ (for my definition see below) to elite status during the Late Mamluk Era.4 They can be traced in the contemporary sources over five generations between the early fifteenth and mid-sixteenth century, with at least 27 individuals appearing in the narrative sources.5 Their rise to prominence extended over several generations and decades. The Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn, arguably, reached their zenith during the late fifteenth century: a total of five people within one generation received biographies, and together they held a considerable share of important positions in and beyond Damascus. In contrast, only two members of the following generation appear in the biographical sources and with much shorter and overall rather mediocre or even negative entries. After them, no other “Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn” was included in the biographical literature at all.6 The second case study focuses on Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Ḥanafī al-Dimashqī (d. 953/1546), who nowadays is mostly cited as a historian of the Mamluk-Ottoman transition period. Whereas at the end of his life, he was considered an authority in several disciplines (e.g. ḥadīth and grammar), at the time of his birth, his family was all but invisible in the sources. His uncle Yūsuf, who was central to Muḥammad’s education and early 3 Presented as “Surrogate Family? Ibn Ṭūlūn and the Meccan Ibn Fahd Family”, 2nd Workshop “Dynamics of Transmission”, Cairo, November 21, 2016; “A beginning or an End? The Ottoman Conquest and the Legacy of Damascene Scholarly Dynasties”, 1st Workshop “Dynamics of Transmission”, Marburg, November 28, 2015. 4 Perho describes how social mobility could be achieved: gradually over several generations, through networks, and through patronage; Perho 2011: 23-30. For the specific case, see Wollina 2016b; also Wollina 2017: 62-68. 5 al-Buṣrawī 1988; al-Ghazzī 1945; al-Ḥaskafī 1999; Ibn Ayyūb, Sharaf al-Dīn Mūsā, “Kitāb al-rawḍ”, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, MS Wetzstein II 289; Ibn al-Ḥimṣī 2000; Ibn al-ʿImād 1982; Ibn Ṭawq 2000-2007; Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, “al-Ghuraf al-ʿaliyya”, Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, MS Şehid Ali Paşa 192; Ibn Ṭūlūn 1964; al-Sakhāwī 1936. 6 In contrast, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn, the longest-living member of the most important generation, continued to be included in biographical dictionaries until the mid-seventeenth century.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

career, received a short biography in a work by the teacher of both of them, Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī (d. 909/1503), and the diarist Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq (d. 915/1509) occasionally mentions members of the Banū Tūlūn, sometimes writing the name as “Tīlūn” instead.7 Only Muḥammad and Yūsuf received biographies at all, and further figures from their closest family are only known through Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn’s own writings.8 Yet, Ibn Ṭūlūn enjoys much more recognition today than any member of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn. Therefore, we have to assume that the impact of familial transmission could be great but was by far not the only mode. More precisely, we could ask which transmissions were elevated by taking place within a family and which by other kinds of transmission. Furthermore, we should take into account which forms and instances of transmission were emphasized by the sources and which were neglected. In this context, it is of significance that Ibn Ṭūlūn is today considered the most important contemporary eye witness to the transition from Mamluk to Ottoman rule over Damascus. He was a prolific writer and his accounts have shaped current (as well as earlier) assessments of that period to a considerable degree.9 Muhsin al-Musawi has postulated that writing and reading could serve as ‘social equalizers’.10 The two cases discussed here support this interpretation. I would add that Ibn Ṭūlūn’s prolific activity as an author should be viewed in direct correlation with his lack of a tightly knit supporting familial network. Instead of embellishing the Banū Ṭūlūn, his writing partly served to demonstrate his proximity and familiarity with other established families. For this reason, he mentions as his relatives (min qarābatī) also the above-mentioned Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī and Abū Bakr Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn (d. 928/1522).11 Thus, the manifestation and reach of ‘family’ becomes in itself a question of transmission.

I.

What is a Family?

Islamicate societies knew several means of establishing family relations, for instance through blood, milk, or marriage.12 The term family, however, becomes blurry in its usage in modern academic parlance, where it is equally used to describe, on the smallest level, a social unit of two parents and any number of children, or, on the largest level, a widespread lineage that transcends any historical period or place. The most prevalent examples of the latter in the Islamicate World are the ashrāf, descendants of the prophet, who guarded their own genealogies and thereby their privileges with utmost care. In this, the ashrāf can be seen as representative of wider historical phenomena which placed divergent notions of ‘family’ at the core of 7 Ibn Ṭawq 2002: 843, 942, 951; Ibn Ṭawq 2004: 1057, 1099, 1186. 8 Most of all from his autobiography/bibliography: Ibn Ṭūlūn 1929. 9 See Wollina 2018b. 10 Al-Musawi 2008, 272. 11 Ibn Ṭūlūn 1929: 8; al-Ḥaskafī 1999: 86. 12 See Rapoport 2007; Yosef 2017.

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important social, legal, and economic activities and competition.13 And during the early modern period if not before, the written word was an important tool as well as an arena within that competition. Therefore, historical analysis of these phenomena requires a terminology of ‘family’ that holds up to the multi-layered terminology applied in the sources. Only then can we hope to accurately describe the complex social constellations (and their literary emanations) which fall under the term. Astrid Meier has proposed to envision families, first of all, as “imagined communities”, membership of which was defined by invocation of descent from a common ancestor but which were nevertheless actively shaped by different members to different ends. The quality of specific kinship ties would be emphasized, obscured, or rejected depending on circumstances. Meier describes these patterns as the result of strategies of concentration and dispersion. Through competition and negotiation over access to resources, the definition of a ‘family’ would be expanded or restricted.14 Arguably, this manipulation and censorship were essential in making ‘family’ as much a symbolical resource as, for instance, teacher-student relations. In the following, I will concentrate more on textual realizations of ‘family’ and less on aspects that have ramifications on the social level. One relevant way in which family was realized was through a shared ‘family name’. The written word, be it in documents or in narrative texts, was therefore one important arena where the competition over and negotiation of this resource took place.

II. Transmission of Family In the sources, the constitution of a family is first and foremost realized through practices of naming. Arabic names consist of several elements. The usage of ism is similar to that of modern first names, although one critical voice states that by the early sixteenth century Damascenes generally preferred to go by their laqab,15 or honorific title.16 Ism and laqab are relevant for investigations into family history when only the genealogy is given. The person’s ism and laqab are followed by those of their father and grandfather and so on and thus establish a person’s lineage, the nasab. If the lineages between two or more seemingly disparate people match from any given point in genealogical line, it is probable that they were related to each other. Whereas patrilineal connections are usually emphasized in biographical

13 Doumani 2003. 14 Meier 2001: 4-5. 15 Most of those alqāb consisted of a construction that ended on dīn, “religious authority”. Men would be known as the “sun of religious authority” (Shams al-Dīn), the “light of religious authority” (Nūr al-Dīn), or the “proof of religious authority” (Burhān al-Dīn), among many others. The kunya constituted a second type of honorific which alludes to parenthood and takes the form of father or mother of so and so (Abū/Umm Fulān). 16 This practice is criticized by ʿAlī Ibn Maymūn, a Sufi who came from West Africa to Damascus. On him see Wollina 2017: particularly 60-62.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

literature, a notable exception is the fifteenth-century Cairene scholar and biographer Muḥammad al-Sakhāwī; not only does he frequently indicate to whom someone was related on their mother’s side but he also includes lateral blood (or milk) relations between siblings and even cousins, even if they were known by different nisbas or shuhras. The nisba is connected to the concept of (inherited) pedigree (nasab) and is usually derived from a person’s geographical or ethnic origin, their religious or madhhab identity, or their occupation. It thereby refers to a group of origin larger than the person’s lineage. We frequently find several nisbas for one and the same person, and they can, in turn, be used to reconstruct family relations beyond the father-son lineages. The term shuhra seems to have been used in the late Mamluk period as a more precise way to indicate relevant family relations. It was a common denominator for smaller family clusters within a larger kinship network. The shuhra takes the form of a “son of someone” construction (ibn in singular, banū in plural). Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn is much better known — and easier to identify — by his shuhra than his nisbas al-Dimashqī, al-Ṣāliḥī or al-Ḥanafī as they were much more common even in combination.17 Shifts between nisba and shuhra were not unusual. The Banū ʿAbd al-Hādī are a case in point, being a cluster of the important Ḥanbalī al-Maqdisī family in Ṣāliḥiyya. The Banū Jamāʿa were another important Damascene family of the Mamluk era who, in the sixteenth century, switched to use the nisba al-Nābulusī instead.18 Note that Elizabeth Sirriyeh states that Ibrāhīm Ibn Jamāʿa “acquired the nisba al-Nabulusī, which he passed on after him.”19 This adaptability applied to all parts of a name. People even went by a different ism than their given one, such as one Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Salāma who was known as ʿAbd al-Salām al-Rabaʿī al-Mālikī (d. 901/1500).20 Reasons for such changes could be strategic or coincidental. After all, naming is a complex social practice which could, at times, be connected to social advancement or, at other times, contingent on social conventions or collective memory. The Banū ʿAbd al-Hādī might have gained that name so as to distinguish themselves within the al-Maqdisī family which was so wide-cast in the Damascene suburb al-Ṣāliḥiyya that its nisba did not function as a distinctive social marker anymore. The Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn derived their shuhra from their namesake’s service as deputy judge for Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), and it in turn distinguished them from other families who migrated from Northern Jordan to Damascus in the early fifteenth century.21 Nisbas would also change when people moved to different places, and sometimes one nisba would simply replace another.

17 See my discussion on Paris, BnF, MS Or. 3973, ascribed to one “Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanafī”; Wollina 2018 f. 18 On the Banū Jamāʿa, see Salibi 1958; on their switch in nisba, see Sirriyeh 2001: 58, 61. 19 Sirriyeh 2001: 58. 20 Ibn Ṭūlūn, “al-Ghuraf al-ʿaliyya”, ff. 52a-55b. 21 See Wollina 2016b; Wollina 2017: 63.

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Finally, not even the nasab itself was free from manipulation. Fathers-in-law could replace genetic fathers or the matrilineal line could be preferred to the patrilineal one if it offered connections to more prestigious figures.22 Ibn Ṭūlūn may have made one of the greatest gambles in that he filled gaps in his lineage by tracing it eventually to the once ruler of Egypt, Aḥmad Ibn Ṭūlūn in his autobiography/bibliography al-Fulk al-mashḥūn. Yet, this gamble was successful because it is phrased much more assertively in later biographies than in his own work.23 This supports Meier’s framing of the ‘family’ as an imagined community, the respective core of which is defined in the sources by shared names. The ‘House of the judge of ʿAjlūn’ is thus differentiated from other relatives who bore different ‘family names’. One of those was the clerk and diarist Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq, whose detailed account of several decades of his life has recently gained attention beyond Mamluk studies.24 Through marriage he was related to the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn without belonging to their dynasty. He also repeatedly mentions another branch of his family whom he calls the Banū Nabhān. Likewise, Ibn Ṭūlūn mentions a wider circle of relatives who bore other shuhras. Among those, again we find Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn and Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī — both also listed among Ibn Ṭūlūn’s teachers.25 Whereas these two are only listed as ‘relatives’ (min qarābatī), Ibn Ṭūlūn’s relationship to other, less renowned people is better documented. Two members of the Banū Qindīl are mentioned, respectively, as his cousin and as both his mother’s and father’s uncle. Like the Banū Ṭūlūn, the Banū Qindīl were merchants and seem to have collaborated closely with the former.26 Through intermarriage, Ibn Ṭūlūn also had some access to the familial networks of the naqīb al-jaysh (supervisor of the army) ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Ṭālū (through his uncle’s daughter), to Burhān al-Dīn Ibn ʿAwn — his own father-in-law — and, arguably, even to the dīwān al-qalʿa Tāj al-Dīn, whose wife used to be his uncle’s wife.27 Not all of family relations would be activated in terms of transmission, nor would they themselves necessarily be transmitted. The transmission of a shuhra and the privilege it might have carried is indicative of the formation of a dynasty within a wider family network. In the biographical literature and, to diverging degrees in other narrative source genres, the two are intricately connected to each other. The biographical literature plays, however, an even greater role in establishing dynasties and, in particular, scholarly dynasties through selection of biographies and emphasizing (or omitting) certain connections between them. 22 Roded coined the concept semimatrilinearity for those connections to other famous men through female lineages, see Roded 1994: 140. 23 Ibn Ṭūlūn 1929: 6; Ibn Ayyūb, “Kitāb al-rawḍ”, f. 235b. 24 Wollina 2014: 44, 46-47, 56, 68-73. 25 Ibn Ṭūlūn 1929: 7-10, 16-19. [NO Ibn Tulun 1929 in the final bibliography? Pls check] 26 This indicates once more the relatively recent establishment of the Banū Ṭūlūn. Although we do not know enough to draw final conclusions, the Banū Ṭūlūn and the Banū Qindīl carried their own shuhras instead of adopting one shared shuhra. This indicates that their respective familial networks were more recent than that of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn. 27 On Ibn Ṭālū and Tāj al-Dīn, see Ibn Ṭūlūn 1964: II, 11, and I, 308; Richardson identifies Ibn Ṭūlūn’s wife as Karīmat al-ʿAllāma bint Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAwn al-Shāghūrī al-Ḥanafī; her father Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm died after 923/1517: Richardson 2012: 123.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

Fig. 1. Family tree Ibn Ṭūlūn.

III. Family and Dynasty Developing Meier’s notions further, I have proposed the term ‘dynasty’ to distinguish between familial networks as a social reality, on the one hand, and their realization in, specifically, biographical literature, on the other hand.28 In contrast to ‘family’, which would include all possible blood, milk, or marriage relations a person possessed and could activate, the dynasty is restricted to those — mostly male — family members who are visible in the sources. These we can identify as members of the dynasty through their shared nasab and, in particular, shuhra. In reminiscence of royal dynasties, the notion delimits a specific section of a wider familial network which is qualified by specific status and access to resources. The dynasty is restricted to the individuals who were successful in this arena of social competition. It is the result of an active shaping of the family into a coherent and consistent form which, in turn, is dependent on the respective arena. The most prevalent argument for this differentiation is certainly the underrepresentation of female family members in the biographical literature.29 As a family rose in prominence, the visibility of the dynasty in the biographical sources increased: more members of a family received their own entry. Family members appear more frequently in other entries as well; earlier generations of the family are drawn into the light of history; the dynasty could even serve as a node by which members of the wider family and other individuals could be contextualized. Yet, we have to consider another level as well: The authors of biographical dictionaries had their own stakes in including or excluding certain people from their Who’s Who of a given time and place. Therefore, the more members of a family a biographer includes, the more important this family would have been at the time when he was

28 Wollina 2016b. 29 Other causes for an exclusion of family members from the dynasty could involve lack of talents or perseverance, change of occupation, change of geographical area, madhhab changes, or premature death.

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Fig. 2. Members of the Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn dynasty, i.e. those who received a biography where their relation to the lineage is mentioned.

writing (or for himself in particular). Earlier generations of a scholarly dynasty might receive their biographies only when their successors reached this threshold. It is thus noteworthy that the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn received their first and most extensive treatment in al-Sakhāwī’s biographical dictionary from the late fifteenth century. The Egyptian scholar traces their pedigree back to one generation after the dynasty’s founder around the turn of the fifteenth century and even includes people who would live well into the following century.30 Processes of concentration and dispersion are observable as well in regard to this scholarly dynasty as it appears in the biographical literature (see Fig. 2). For the first two generations, only one person each is mentioned before the dynasty expands in the third and fourth generations (three and five people respectively). A concentration in the fourth generation is centered on Abū Bakr Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn, partly because he outlived both his two older brothers and his two cousins. In the fifth generation, only Abū Bakr’s two sons ʿAbd al-Raḥīm and Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad and his nephew Abū al-Yumn Muḥammad received a biography. Damascene biographers began to write about the dynasty only after the Ottoman conquest in 1516-1517 and only included — much fewer — members of the two final generations. We have to take into account that biographical works were perceived and conceived as new iterations within a continuous account, with a new work taking up the task where its predecessor left off. Nonetheless, these later Damascene biographers did include biographies of people already mentioned by al-Sakhāwī. But they added very few new ones. I would thus say that the lower numbers of biographies are telling of the dynasty’s decline in the first half of the 30 Wollina 2016b.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

sixteenth century. This is supported by the lack of biographies for generations after this period. By the middle of the century, the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn ceased to exist as a scholarly dynasty, which, in turn, makes it difficult to say anything about the fate of the family after this point. The latter might well have prospered much longer, perhaps adopting a different nisba or even shuhra. The situation appears very different in the second case. The Banū Ṭūlūn appear in the biographical literature only one generation prior to Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn, both in terms of people included in the sources and in the time of writing. Muḥammad’s uncle Yūsuf Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 937/1530), who is the only other member of this short-lived “dynasty”, received a short biographical entry in the Riyāḍ al-yāniʾa of both their teacher Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī. This, however, we only know because Ibn Ṭūlūn quoted this entry at length in one of his own biographical works.31 Interestingly, neither his father nor his grandfather received entries of their own, even though Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote several biographical dictionaries. In turn, Ibn Ṭūlūn received biographies in several biographical dictionaries from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century.32 None of these biographies illuminates the origins of the family in a meaningful way.33 Rather, uncle and nephew appear as individuals without any dynastic framework. I am not even sure whether this even allows to speak of a dynasty. The absence of a supporting familial network is more strongly apparent in the later biographical works, which even omit Yūsuf. In my opinion, the neglect of his familial network is part and parcel of a purposeful strategy, whereby Ibn Ṭūlūn’s erudition and written production are framed as an individual endeavor. After all, the later biographers rely heavily on Ibn Ṭūlūn’s works as source texts. In stark contrast to the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn, who progressively built a position of power and authority over the course of several decades and who therein built upon the prestige accumulated by prior generations, we could perhaps compare Ibn Ṭūlūn’s ascent to prominence to that of a social upstart making his own luck with shrewdness and diligence. He does not emphasize familial ties to other, earlier Banū Ṭūlūn or to relatives carrying other ‘family names’.34 Rather, he recasts his own biography almost exclusively in scholarly terms, giving himself a lineage by ʿilm (see below). By that, I mean that all accounts of his life adhere to a common ideal of a scholar who gained his reputation only by his own intellectual and ethical merits and his contacts to teachers instead of relatives. In contrast to the realities of a class-based society, this ideal served to

31 Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Ghuraf al-ʿaliyya, ff. 344a-345a; for a translation and discussion of this see Wollina 2019b. 32 See above, n. 4. 33 Although we do not know what else was to be found in Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī’s work. Konrad Hirschler, who is currently working on Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī’s manuscripts, told me that only a rough draft of the work has survived. 34 The shuhra was very uncommon. Whereas al-Sakhāwī mentions about 25 people carrying the nisba al-Ṭūlūnī, he only mentions one further Ibn Ṭūlūn. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Qurashī al-ʿUthmānī al-Marāghī al-Qāhirī originally, al-Madanī al-Shāfiʿī lived a century prior to “our” Ibn Ṭūlūn. He did not even go by the shuhra but rather was known by the nisba al-Maghārī; al-Sakhāwī 1936: VII, 61-162.

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prove the egalitarian and merits-based mechanisms of scholarship.35 It is also a sort of ‘humble bragging’ and bespeaks of a certain arrogance reminiscent of Ibn Ṭūlūn’s much more renowned Cairene contemporary al-Suyūṭī (d. 1505).36 Admittedly, this interpretation is rather harsh to Ibn Ṭūlūn. Whereas the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn had the benefit of rising through a comparably stable period, the Banū Ṭūlūn appeared in a much more turbulent time. Muḥammad’s success is intricately connected to the Ottoman conquest. Their preferential treatment of the Ḥanafī madhhab in general and the good impression Yūsuf Ibn Ṭūlūn had made on Ottoman officials during his own stay in Mecca, in particular, proved to be a great boost to Muḥammad’s own career.37 Thus he was quickly appointed as a teacher at the first Ottoman-built mosque in the city. Moreover, the Ottoman conquest opened a window during which a greater amount of social mobility became possible, with office holders under the suspicion of Mamluk loyalties being replaced with new ones.38 Unfortunately, our knowledge of the minutiae of these changes is rather restricted, which is partly due to the loss of the later part of Ibn Ṭūlūn’s own chronicle.39 One further cause for Ibn Ṭūlūns omission of family should be addressed. As we know from an abridgment of one of his biographical dictionaries, he lost his wife and three children roughly a decade before his death.40 Thus, in contrast to the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn, we can assume that the disappearance of the Banū Ṭūlūn as a dynasty actually coincided with that of the family. Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn appears to have been the last living family member. In order to safeguard his memory, writing thus became ever more important to him. As he had no heirs, he endowed his entire corpus to the ʿUmariyya Madrasa. I would argue that many of his autograph manuscripts were only created during this late period and with the endowment in mind, as they usually lack any signs of textual transmission (ijāzāt, samāʿāt).41 Whether the motivation for Ibn Ṭūlūn’s book endowment was an anxiety about his legacy or whether the related creation of clean copies could be understood as a trace of a therapeutic practice inspired by his loss of family, remains for future research to decide. Yet, from the book endowment we can deduct that even the loss or lack of family had an impact on what was transmitted and how it was transmitted.

IV. Transmission and Family In his seminal work on the transmission of knowledge and, thereby, status in medieval Damascene society, Michael Chamberlain makes the point that knowledge transmission would create bonds between people that could be as strong if not stronger than familial 35 Perho 2011. 36 See e.g. Ghersetti 2017; Saleh 2001: 73-76. 37 Wollina 2016a: 224. 38 See D’hulster 2013: 203. 39 Hartmann 1926; Jansky 1929. 40 al-Ḥaskafī 1999: 96. 41 Wollina 2018a: 314-316.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

ties: “When the aʿyān inserted themselves into lines of transmission of ʿilm, they gained a pedigree that was in some respects more useful to them than that provided by their blood-line.”42 More importantly, these relations were modelled — both in language and in practice — on family bonds. Social relations were conceived in a similar language as those within the family; love and friendship featured as prominent notions to describe them: The shaykh was likened to a student’s father and thus required the utmost respect and obedience (as did, in extension, the shaykh’s birth family); students greeted each other as brothers.43 Chamberlain cites several authors who urged students to cut off ties to their birth family for full embedment in the new one.44 But should we thus assume pedigree did not matter? As Chamberlain himself indicates several times, ties to one’s birth family were frequently continued within and between the aʿyān families of Damascus. Among these elite, the cut of familial ties was rarely complete; on the contrary, knowledge transmission often rested on lineages. Fathers, uncles, and more distant relatives would serve as teachers for the following generations. Despite the absence of hereditary rights so prevalent in European contexts, these family networks were central in the transmission of certain characteristics (baraka, ḥurma) and the acquirement of certain abilities.45 Moreover, the aʿyān families reinforced their quasi-aristocratic status through mutual marital connections,46 thereby keeping the control over vast resources and privileges within very restricted circles. As we will see shortly, this transmission could diverge from father-son-type relations and also outweigh those. It therefore seems as if the injunction to join a new family was rather directed at newcomers and upstarts and thus could be interpreted as a safeguard of the integrity and agreed-upon habitus of the civilian elites.47 It would also have emphasized the central role of the aʿyān families, as more shaykhs would be found in their ranks. Irmeli Perho has shown how rarely this system allowed for the establishment of new “dynasties”.48 Frequently, these newcomers established their credentials through association with the prestige of an established shaykh — and, in extension, with his family and lineage. The shaykh’s family would thereby serve as the newcomer’s “surrogate family”, either in place of or in addition to their birth families. We might even ask in how far those lineages through ʿilm could result in the creation of shuhra-groups. But in order to achieve this closeness, people had to adapt their shaykh’s habitus (adopting a shaykh’s morals, manners, dogmatic positions, or distinct clothing). They would furthermore sever ties to their birth family beyond death by adopting their shaykh’s burial place.

42 Chamberlain 1994: 110. 43 This corresponds with Mamluk sociability, which was likewise modeled on notions of — entirely male — families. See Sievert 2014; Yosef 2017. 44 Chamberlain 1994: 109-10, 114-16. 45 Chamberlain 1994: 65. 46 Wollina 2016b; Shoshan 2014. 47 See for instance the complaints of the Maghribī Sufi Ibn Maymūn; Wollina 2017: 83-84; Goldziher 1874. 48 Perho 2011: 19-20, 34-35.

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Table 1. Members of the Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn family found in all sources, organised by generation.

Name

Father

Generation Birth

Death Spouses

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

Muḥammad

2

759

837

Ibrāhīm

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

3

791

—

 

ʿAbdallāh

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

3

805

865

Baraka

Aḥmad

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

3

bef. 823

861

—

al-Najm Muḥammad

ʿAbdallāh

4

831

876

Suʿādāt bt. al-Mālījī

ʿAlī

Aḥmad

4

bef. 0832

882

—

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II ʿAbdallāh

4

839

878

Suʿādāt bt. al-Mālījī

Abū Bakr

ʿAbdallāh

4

841

928

Suʿādāt bt. al-Mālījī; Umm Muḥammad Fāṭima; Jawhara

al-Muḥibb Muḥammad

Ibrāhīm

4

—

891

Bint Dāwud al-Ṭībī

Ḥalīma

ʿAbdallāh

4

—

—

Aḥmad al-Ikhnāʾī

[Bint ʿAbdallāh]

ʿAbdallāh

4

—

—

Ḥamza al-Ḥusaynī

—

[Bint Aḥmad]

Aḥmad

4

—

—

Yaḥyā al-Ghāzī

Ḥataba

Aḥmad

4

—

891

Ibn Ẓāhir

Umm Āmina

al-Najm Muḥammad

5

—

—

Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq

al-Najmī Mụhammad

Abū Bakr

5

874

935

Fāṭima (bt. ʿAbd alRaḥmān II)

Sūriyāʾī

Abū Bakr

5

—

894

Abū Bakr

Abū al-Yumn Muḥammad

al-Muḥibb Muḥammad

5

bef. 880

955

—

ʿUmar

Abū Bakr

5

881

 

—

ʿAbd al-Raḥīm

Abū Bakr

5

885

—

—

ʿUthmān

Abū Bakr

5

888

891

—

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb

al-Muḥibb Muḥammad

5

891

903

—

Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad

al-Najm Muḥammad

5

—

905

—

[Bint al-Muḥibb Muḥammad]

al-Muḥibb Muḥammad

5

—

—

Muḥammad alḤusaynī

Āsya

Abū Bakr

5

—

—

—

Āmina

Abū Bakr

5

—

—

—

Fāṭima

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II

5

—

—

al-Najmī Muḥammad

Fig. 3. Kinship and marriage network of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn; yellow lines: marriage outside the family; green lines: marriage inside the family; dark grey arrow: milk motherhood.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus 27

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V. Birth and Death: Transmission Beyond Dynasty As the biographical literature was concerned primarily with realising a certain ideal of society and its paragons, they created a specific imaginaire of family in the process. Purposefully, the dynasty omits in its representation of family the blurriness of social realities. Assembling an eclectic array of sources beyond the biographical literature can remedy these limitations to a degree. For instance, the inclusion of chronicles, diaries, miscellaneous works (by which I mean works whose genres have not been well-defined), and documentary sources including manuscript and transmission notes has helped to uncover further members of the Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn family as well as their intermarriages and familial ties to other Damascene scholarly dynasties and less-known families.49 In particular, this approach can shed new light on the centrality of women to the establishment and maintenance of such ties (see Table 2). However, we should note that even this extended window will rarely allow us to grasp the entirety of a person’s familial ties. Even when combining several accounts of a family, they remain “imagined communities” and the inclusion or exclusion of specific family members are guided by personal interests and objectives that, due to their extra-textual nature, retain their opaqueness. And yet, the transmission of knowledge or ethics or baraka repeatedly affected the constitution of family in more ways than the selection of biographies for any given work. Chamberlain’s notion of a pedigree by ʿilm is intriguing in this respect: student-teacher relationships could occasionally eclipse familial ties, both in terms of habitus and in terms of burial place.50 Whereas the habitus was a clear statement within life, the burial place was equally meaningful in death. Indeed, I would say that the shared burial place, be it a family tomb or a certain graveyard, does as much to discern dynasties as the shared ‘family name’ (shuhra) or the identification of a shared ancestor (to whom the shuhra alludes).51 Further, it is much more indicative than those as to how transmission worked between generations. More broadly, a shared burial place points to the constitution of meaningful ties between people who are not necessarily marked in the sources as belonging to the same dynasty or lineage.52 The burial place is a common feature in biographical entries, and thus a large-scale analysis of the distribution of biographies among the different cemeteries, mausoleums, and shrines in and around Damascus would be informative as to connections between different familial networks. Whereas this analysis is beyond the limits of this contribution, I will provide some preliminary observations. On the one hand, a shared burial place can be indicative of the constitution of dynasties within a family. Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn was not buried with his father but “in [his uncle’s] tomb (turba), next to Qāḍī Jamāl al-Dīn [Yūsuf], on the slopes [of the Qāsyūn] south of

49 50 51 52

See above, n. 4. Chamberlain 1994: 109, in particular n. 9. See Martel-Thoumian 1995. Again, it is telling that women were in the majority buried with their husband’s instead of their own birth family.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

the cave of the Khwārazmiyya.”53 The centrality Yūsuf had in Muḥammad’s upbringing and education is thus emphasized in death, and the resulting dynasty is cemented through the burial place. The dynasty is thus connected from uncle to nephew at the expense of the paternal lineage. On the other hand, the burial place can also undermine the social relevance of a dynasty as constructed in the biographical literature. Beginning with ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 837/1434), most subsequent members of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn were buried in a family tomb in the al-Bāb al-Ṣaghīr cemetery.54 Yet, the burial place was more inclusive than the shuhra. Specifically, the sharīf Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥamza al-Ḥusaynī (d. 933/1527) was buried “next to his uncle (on his mother’s side) shaykh al-islām Taqī al-Dīn [Abū Bakr] Ibn Qāḍī ʿAjlūn in the cemetery at al-Bāb al-Ṣaghīr.”55 This is relevant as al-Ḥusaynī’s connections to the dynasty were manifold, and in some way he would become the real heir to the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn. In fact, both the rise and fall of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn seem to have been tied to the longer-living al-Ḥusaynī dynasty. During the fifteenth century, intermarriage was common between both families (see Fig. 3). Not only was al-Ḥusaynī’s mother a sister to Abū Bakr, but he himself married a niece of Abū Bakr and inherited a large share of both her parents’ property. Should we thus view him as much or even more a member of this dynasty? To capture this dissonance between dynasty and family or between lineage and kinship networks, I propose using the term ‘surrogate family’. This notion alludes to the importance of familial capital to be transferrable beyond the family itself in order to be valuable in social competition and the establishment of status. One could thus also speak of a surrogate dynasty or surrogate lineage.

VI. Surrogate Family and Transmission The term ‘surrogate family’ is not yet a well-defined concept. I use it in two primary ways. First, as shown above, it can serve as a shorthand to allude to the discrepancies between the social-historical unit of family and the literary construction of dynasty. It thereby problematizes the historical blurriness beneath the order imposed by the biographical literature through its general focus on patrilineality. In short, in this way the notion solves an issue perhaps only brought about by my own attempt at a more concise terminology. The second application of the term further develops Chamberlain’s notion of lineage by ʿilm. In ḥadīth studies, in particular, the importance of family networks for diachronic transmission is palpable. As Garrett Davidson has recently described, ḥadīth transmission changed severely with the completion of the canonical works by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and others, which are subsumed under “the six books”. Thus, the age of verification was replaced by the age of transmission by the tenth and eleventh centuries. In this second period, ḥadīth transmission acquired new meanings: 53 Al-Ghazzī 1945: II, 52-54, 261 (Yūsuf is named here Yūsuf b. Muḥammad al-Zuraʿī). 54 Al-Sakhawī 1936: IV, 143. 55 Al-Ghazzī 1945: I, 46.

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Hadith collection and transmission remained a means through which scholars competed against each other and established their places in the hierarchy of their field. It was a means scholars used to distinguish themselves from their peers and inferiors. The quality and breadth of their chains of transmission functioned as a species of social capital and was central to the established social economy of their discipline.56 The pursuit of short chains of transmission relied on the early introduction of people to ḥadīth studies, in the hope that they would acquire this social capital once they had reached an advanced age. The structures that brought children and even infants to recitation sessions were necessarily those of families.57 By Ibn Ṭūlūn’s time, many of the shortest ‘Damascene’ chains were cultivated within long-living dynasties, as those would often introduce their offspring to ḥadīth sessions at an exceptionally young age. In addition, these dynasties were conscious of the need for documentation, and had the means and credibility to assure it.58 Yet, the value of this form of social capital could be exchanged and appropriated by people outside the family through teaching sessions and certificates. Transmission within one’s family alone never sufficed but it had to be activated in exchanges. This is visible in biographies as well, where a scholar’s father or older brothers would be mentioned as teachers, but teachers from other families or, better even, other places would be emphasized more thoroughly. If anything, this might have made ḥadīth transmission even more cosmopolitan than in its formative phase.59 Kristina Richardson remarks that whereas “modern interest in Ibn Ṭūlūn has centered on his historical and biographical writings (…) there is much evidence that Ibn Ṭūlūn’s reputation among early modern Ottoman Arabs was chiefly that of a learned ḥadīth scholar.”60 That is epitomized by this field’s position in his autobiographical/ bibliographical work al-Fulk, where it is not only treated before all other disciplines, but the discourse also includes a biography on his most eminent transmitter, Ibn Zurayq (d. 900/1494).61 Therefore, while Ibn Ṭūlūn himself was a newcomer, through his intensive studies with Ibn Zurayq he could tap into his chains of transmission and, by extension, those circulated among his wider family, the Banū ʿAbd al-Hādī and the Maqdisīs more generally.62 Notwithstanding whether Ibn Ṭūlūn’s claims of being related to them were true, they certainly served as a ‘surrogate family’ in that his prestige of a ḥadīth scholar would rest — partially at least — on their “hereditary transmission” as a surrogate in face of lacking his own. He thus inscribed himself into their family while, at the same time, reinforced their centrality through his writings. 56 57 58 59

Davidson 2014: 36. Davidson 2014: 63-65, and 174-182; Berkey 1992: 21-23. See for instance Hirschler 2017. Ḥadīth transmission was also not an exclusively urban phenomenon; Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote al-Aḥādīth al-murawiyya fī al-basātīn al-nayrabiyya about the village Nayrab, Fatḥ al-murtaj fīmā ruwiya fī wajj about the town Wajj, Nashwat al-ṣabwa fīmā ruwiya fī al-rabwa on al-Rabwa, near Damascus, Ablīgh al-bushrā bi-aḥādīth dāryā al-kubrā on the town Dāryā, south of Damascus, and al-Arbaʿīn min murawiyyāt arbaʿīn quriyya, a collection of forty ḥadīths from forty villages. 60 Richardson 2016: 47-48. 61 Richardson 2016: 30, 39. 62 For knowledge transmission from teachers to Ibn Ṭūlūn, see Wollina 2018d, and Wollina 2018e.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

In theory, this cultural capital could be wielded by anyone who attended ḥadīth sessions, obtained short chains of transmission, and lived long enough to transmit those to subsequent generations. In practice, however, the higher tiers of this system were rather exclusive. The mulāzama, the lengthy attendance of a shaykh, during which the student would live in the shaykh’s household, was regarded an essential rite of passage to move from simple transmitter to full-fledged ḥadīth scholar. Thereby, the student temporarily became a quasi-family member and was treated by his shaykh in the same way a biological son would be treated by his father. The terminology for teacher-student relations was thus a reflection of sociability equally based on a family model. Ibn Ṭūlūn’s mulāzama with Ibn Zurayq lasted a full decade. In contrast to the cases mentioned earlier, ḥadīth transmission did not presuppose any familial ties as such. Rather, it constituted an alternative to them and created ties that indeed rivaled father-son relations. And as blood lines were important in terms of inheritance of property or usufruct, these surrogate families were essential for the transmission of the prestige and status that were encapsulated in short chains of transmissions. The constitution and importance of such contacts for Ibn Ṭūlūn becomes clearer in a rather unexpected example. The Banū Fahd were an important dynasty in Mecca since at least the early fifteenth century, although they were not at the center of the local power structure. Their scions would often travel to Egypt and Syria during their education to obtain teaching or transmission certificates. Ibn Ṭūlūn’s first personal contact with the Banū Fahd occurred during his pilgrimage in 920/1515, during which he obtained no less than three certificates for transmission from family members: one from Muḥammad called ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad Ibn Fahd, another from Ḥasan b. ʿAṭiyya Ibn Fahd without attending his teachings and one from Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-ʿAqīlī al-Nuwayrī al-Makkī, who was related to the Banū Fahd through marriage.63 The latter was written in the hand of Jārallāh Ibn Fahd, who, being Ibn Ṭūlūn’s junior by 15 years, would become his lifelong friend.64 He came to Damascus two years later, where Ibn Ṭūlūn would introduce him to his social circles, and, as al-Ghazzī retells it, Jārallāh “accompanied him in his studies with a number of shaykhs. They [henceforth] exchanged letters every year with the pilgrims.”65 We can assume that other interactions followed when Yūsuf Ibn Ṭūlūn spent two long stays in Mecca. As he established relations with Ottoman officials there, it stands to reason that he also enjoyed regular contact with the Banū Fahd.66 As in the above-mentioned connection between the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn and Ḥusaynīs, the exchange between the Banū Ṭūlūn and Banū Fahd was to the mutual benefit of both sides. Ibn Ṭūlūn could distinguish himself in Damascus through the Meccan chains of transmission; Jārallāh would later benefit from those Damascene ones to which he had access through Ibn Ṭūlūn. Ibn Ṭūlūn emphasizes the importance of the family in his writings. While there were other Damascene scholars who influenced Ibn Ṭūlūn 63 Ibn Ṭūlūn 1998: 21-41. 64 I retain Ibn Fahd’s laqab Jār Allāh instead of his ism Muḥammad to avoid confusion with Ibn Ṭūlūn. 65 al-Ghazzī 1945: II, 131. 66 See Wollina 2019.

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in writing local history, the transregional connection between Mecca and Damascus is palpable in many of Ibn Ṭūlūn’s works and local history itself might be regarded a transregional phenomenon. The Banū Fahd had written local histories and biographical collections throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.67 Jārallāh and Ibn Ṭūlūn seem to have had frequent exchanges on these literary genres.68 In fact, Jārallāh is the only contemporary historian and biographer whom Ibn Ṭūlūn cites by name. In the introduction to his work on the citadel of Damascus, Ibn Ṭūlūn states that Jārallāh asked him to compose it in 922.69 He even refers to their letter exchange in the introduction to a biographical dictionary.70 From this we can deduct that both also asked each other for information and promoted each other’s publications. Finally, Ibn Ṭūlūn’s corpus became a Damascene monument to the Banū Fahd’s legacy, as he included and cited a large number of male and female members, some long dead, in his works.71 Thus, surrogate family indeed rivaled birth family in terms of trust and cooperation.

Conclusions The institution of family was a central building block of Islamicate societies. This, however, did not safeguard it from manipulations. On the contrary, the fact that they were reshaped and changed proves the centrality of familial ties for diverse fields of social life. As families and family membership were contested, so were those elements by which a family is constituted in writing: names, lineages, relatedness. This phenomenon was not restricted to the social worlds on which our sources shed a light. The texts themselves were impactful arenas where family was defined and constructed. It is difficult to disentangle how far the authors used their texts to this end and how far the texts themselves were shaped by the familial contexts of their authors. This contribution aims to provide a sound method for approaching family history by taking into account the intersections between social and literary conventions. To be wary of the subjectivity of sources is paramount in this respect. Specifically, I have proposed the burial place as one common element in which the biographical literature provides a counter-perspective to patrilineal constructions. Furthermore, I should stress that, as familial belonging was negotiable to a certain degree, perhaps we should go even beyond Chamberlain’s metaphor of lineage by ʿilm and explore these connections at face value. Koby Yossef has shown that Mamluk terminology for family was grounded in actual kinship ties.72 In turn, I would argue, the terminology

67 Alam and Sanjay 2017: 274-279. 68 See Richardson 2012: 123; Ghaly 2006: 16, 21; al-Ghazzī 1945: II, 131. 69 Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Shamʿa al-muḍiyya, Süleymaniye, MS Reis ul-Kuttab 1213, ff. 145a-167a, f. 145b / Dār al-Kutub, MS Tārīkh Taymūr 2058: p. 2. 70 Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Ghuraf al-ʿaliyya: f. 9a. 71 Among those, he cites Jār Allāh Ibn Fahd the most. He refers to him frequently as an author and transmitter in his latest biographical work: Ibn Ṭūlūn, Dhakhāʾir al-qaṣr, Gotha, MS Orient A 1779: ff. 33b, 44b, 55b, 60b, 64b, 67b, 74b, 75b-76a, 89b, 90a. 72 Yosef 2017.

family and transmission of knowledge in mamluk and early ottoman damascus

used among learned men and women resembles that of family to such an extent because it could frequently result in actual kinship ties. Students became sons-in-law and could surpass their brothers-in-law as their shaykhs’ successors, as al-Ḥusaynī’s example attests. Can we really rule out that horizontal relationships between ‘brothers’ in ʿilm did not carry similar weight? From there, two deductions may help make family a less slippery concept. On the one hand, the lexical field for family as a whole should be taken into consideration. The application of the same terminology to other social fields, in particular, helps to uncover how ‘family’ was understood and constructed, where it was a helpful resource and where it was not. This is even more necessary as these relations could, on the ground, develop into actual family relations and the emergence of new dynasties. On the other hand, family history needs to take into consideration the means and motives behind specific representations or imaginations. Depending on the type or field of transmission, different family ties would be emphasized, and, as a result, the same family would not be recognizable from these representations. For instance, whereas women feature prominently in the transmission of property or endowment usufruct described by Meier, they are mostly absent in the transmission of knowledge. Indeed, the two cases presented here differ to a similar degree in their emphasis on family ties. On a more specific level, this contribution has described two contrasting cases of scholarly dynasties. The differences between the rise and fall of the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn and the Banū Ṭūlūn intersect with the respective period-specific social-political landscape, from which divergent patterns of upward social mobility result. Whereas we could call that of the former a tempered accumulative pattern, the latter was rather sudden and might have been impossible to achieve without the Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt, resulting in a very different representation of these dynasties. The biographical literature, in particular, stresses the impact of family connections among the Banū Qāḍī ʿAjlūn and their connections to other family networks in Damascus. In contrast, Ibn Ṭūlūn is portrayed as an individual, partly because he cast himself this way in his own writings. Whereas biographical dictionaries until the early seventeenth century included him, they progressively obscured his connections to a wider family network. According to those later accounts, Ibn Ṭūlūn only possessed a family by ʿilm. And, indeed, it was a community held together by ʿilm which accounted for the preservation and transmission of his legacy.

Bibliographical References 1. Manuscripts Ibn Ayyūb, Sharaf al-Dīn Mūsā, Kitāb al-rawḍ al-ʿāṭir fīmā tayassiru min akhbār ahl al-qarn al-sābiʿ ilā khitām al-qarn al-ʿāshir, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, MS Wetzstein II 289. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, Dhakhāʾir al-qaṣr fī tarājim nubalāʾ al-ʿaṣr, Forschungs- und Landesbibliothek Gotha, MS Orient A 1779. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, al-Ghuraf al-ʿaliyya fī tarājim mutaʾakhkhirī alḤanafiyya, Istanbul, Süleymaniye Library, MS Şehid Ali Paşa 192.

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Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Shamʿa al-muḍiyya fī akhbār al-qalʿa al-Dimashqiyya, Istanbul, Sülaymaniye Library, MS Reis ul-Kuttab 1213, ff. 145a-167a. Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Shamʿa al-muḍiyya fī akhbār al-qalʿa al-Dimashqiyya, Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, MS Tārīkh Taymūr 2058. 2.

Primary Sources

al-Ḥaskafī, Aḥmad, Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn, and Yūsuf Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, Mutʿat al-adhhān min al-tamattuʿ bi-l-iqrān bayna tarājim al-shuyūkh wa-l-aqrān, (ed.) Ṣāliḥ al-Dīn Khalīl al- Shaybānī al-Mawṣilī, Beirut, 1999. Ibn al-Ḥimṣī, Aḥmad, Ḥawādith al-zamān wa-wafayyāt al-shuyūkh wa-l-aqrān, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Azīz Fayyā Ḥarfūsh, Beirut, 2000. Ibn al-ʿImād, ʿAbd al-Ḥaiy, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab, [Nachdr. d. Ausg. Kairo 1931-32], 10 volumes, Beirut 1982. Ibn Ṭawq, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad, al-Taʿlīq. Yawmiyyāt Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Ṭawq. Mudhakkirāt kutibat bi-Dimashq fī awākhir al-ʿahd al-mamlūkī, (ed.) Shaykh Jaʿfār alMuhājir, 4 volumes, Damascus: Institute Francais de Proche Orient, 2000-2007. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī, al-Fulk al-mashḥūn fī aḥwāl Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn, (ed.) Maktabat Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Qudsī, Damascus: Maṭbaʿat at-Taraqqī, 1929. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, Mufākahat al-khillān fī ḥawādith al-zamān: Tārīkh Miṣr wa-l-Shām. (ed.) Muḥammad Muṣṭafā, 2 volumes, Cairo, 1964. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, Nawādir al-ijāzāt wa-l-samāʿāt, (ed.) Muḥammad Muṭīʿ al- Ḥāfiẓ. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1998. al-Sakhāwī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 volumes, Cairo, 1936. 3.

Secondary Literature

Alam, Muzaffar, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, “A View From Mecca: Notes on Gujarat, the Red Sea, and the Ottomans, 1517-39/ 923-946 H.”, Modern Asian Studies 51/2 (2017): 266-318. Al-Musawi, Muhsin, “Abbasid Popular Narrative: The Formation of Readership and Cultural Production”, Journal of Arabic Literature 38/3 (2008): 261-292. Beshara Doumani (ed.), Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003: 1-19. Berkey, Jonathan, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, Princeton, 1992. Chamberlain, Michael, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-1350, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Davidson, Garrett, “Carrying on the Tradition: An Intellectual and Social History of PostCanonical Hadith Transmission”, PhD Thesis, University of Chicago, 2014. D’hulster, Kristof, “Caught Between Aspiration and Anxiety, Praise and Exhortation: An Arabic Literary Offering to the Ottoman Sultan Selīm I”, Journal of Arabic Literature 44/2 (2013): 181-239.

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Ghaly, Mohammad, “Writings on Disability in Islam: The 16th-Century Polemic on Ibn Fahd’s ‘al-Nukat Al-Ziraf ’”, The Arab Studies Journal 13-14/1-2 (2006): 9-38. Ghersetti, Antonella, “Introduction”, in: Antonella Ghersetti (ed.), Al-Suyūṭī, a Polymath of the Mamluk Period: Proceedings of the Themed Day of the First Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies: (Ca’Foscari University, Venice, June 23, 2014), Leiden: Brill 2017: 1-14. Goldziher, Ignaz, “ʿAlī Ibn Mejmūn al-Maġribī und sein Sittenspiegel des östlichen Islām. Ein Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte”, Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 28 (1874): 293-330. Hartmann, Richard, “Das Tübinger Fragment der Chronik des Ibn Ṭūlūn”, Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse 3/2 (1926): 87-170. Hirschler, Konrad, “Binge Reading in Fifteenth-Century Damascus”, DYNTRAN Working Papers 27, online edition, August 2017 (available at: http://dyntran.hypotheses. org/1992). Pls indicate the date of access: dd/mm/yyyy Jansky, Herbert, “Die Chronik des Ibn Ṭūlūn als Geschichtsquelle über den Feldzug Sultan Selīm’s I. gegen die Mamluken. Mit Bemerkungen zum Problem der Quellen für die Geschichte jener Epoche im Allgemeinen”, Der Islam 18 (1929): 24-33. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, “Muḥibb Al-Dīn Salāma B. Yūsuf Al-’Aslamī, un secrétaire à Damas sous les derniers sultans mamlouks”, in Kristoph d’Hulster, Urbain Vermeulen and D. De Smet (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk Eras: Proceedings of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1992, 1993, and 1994, Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters 1995: 219-269. Meier, Astrid, “‘Only Good Works Remain’. Waqf and the Memory of Families, Damascus in the 17th and 18th Centuries”, in Andreas Pflitsch and Angelika Neuwirth (eds.), Crisis and Memory in Islamic Societies: Proceedings of the Third Summer Academy of the Working Group Modernity and Islam Held at the Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society in Beirut, Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut 2001: 263-282. Perho, Irmeli, “Climbing the Ladder: Social Mobility in the Mamluk Period”, Mamluk Studies Review 15 (2011): 19-35. Rapoport, Yossef, “Women and Gender in Mamluk Society: An Overview”, Mamluk Studies Review 11/2 (2007): 1-47. Richardson, Kristina L., Difference and Disability in the Medieval Islamic World: Blighted Bodies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Richardson, Kristina, “The Evolving Biographical Legacy of Two Late Mamluk Hanbalī Judges”, in: Conermann, Stephan (ed.), History and Society during the Mamluk Period (1250-1517). Studies of the Annemarie Schimmel Institute for Advanced Study II, Göttingen: Bonn University Press, 2016, 29-50. Roded, Ruth, Women in Islamic Biographical Collections: From Ibn Saʿd to Who’s Who, London-Boulder: Lynne Riener Publishers, 1994. Saleh, Marlis, “Al-Suyūṭī and His Works: Their Place in Islamic Scholarship from Mamluk Times to the Present”, Mamluk Studies Review 5 (2001): 73-89. Salibi, Kamal, “The Banū Jamāʿa: A Dynasty of Shāfiʿite Jurists in the Mamluk Period”, Studia Islamica 9 (1958): 97-109. Shoshan, Boaz, “On the Marital Regime in Damascus, 1480-1500 CE”, ASK Working Paper 15 (2014). Pls indicate the internet link, and the date of access.

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Sievert, Henning, “Family, Friend or Foe? Factions, Households and Interpersonal Relations in Mamluk Egypt and Syria”, in Conermann, Stephan (ed.), Everything Is on the Move: The Mamluk Empire As a Node in (trans-)regional Networks, Göttingen: Bonn University Press, 2014: 83-125. Sirriyeh, Elizabeth, “Whatever Happened to the Banū Jamāʿa? The Tail of a Scholarly Family in Ottoman Syria”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28/1 (2001): 55-65. Wollina, Torsten, “Sultan Selīm in Damascus: The Ottoman Appropriation of a Mamluk Metropolis (922-924/1516-1518)”, in Conermann, Stephan and Şen, Gül (eds.), The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilād Al-Shām in the Sixteenth Century, Göttingen: V&R Unipress 2016(a): 221-246. Wollina, Torsten, “The Banu Qadi ‘Ajlun: Family or Dynasty?”, DYNTRAN Working Papers 19 (online edition), 2016(b), http://dyntran.hypotheses.org/1623, last accessed 21 June 2020. Wollina, Torsten. “Between Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus: Al-amr bi- al-maʿrūf and the Sufi/Scholar Dichotomy in the Late Mamluk Period (1480s-1510s)”, Mamlūk Studies Review 20 (2017): 57-92. Wollina, Torsten, “Tracing Ibn Ṭūlūn’s Autograph Corpus, with Emphasis on the 19th-20th Centuries”, Journal for Islamic Manuscripts 9 (2018[a]): 308-340. Wollina, Torsten, “The Changing Legacy of a Sufi Shaykh. Narrative constructions in diaries, chronicles, and biographies (15th-17th centuries)”, in Conermann, Stephan (ed.): Mamluk Historiography Revisited: Narratological perspectives, Göttingen: V&R Unipress 2018(b): 211-234. Wollina, Torsten, “Visualizing Education and Knowledge Organization with Palladio 1”, in Damascus Anecdotes, 26/08/2018(d), https://thecamel.hypotheses.org/419, last accessed 20 June 2020. Wollina, Torsten, “Visualizing Education and Knowledge Organization with Palladio 2”, in Damascus Anecdotes 02/09/2018(e), https://thecamel.hypotheses.org/475, last accessed 20 June 2020. Wollina, Torsten, “Did Ibn Ṭūlūn read Ibn Iyās? A manuscript from Paris”, in Damascus Anecdotes, 05/01/2018(f), https://thecamel.hypotheses.org/175, last accessed 20 June 2020. Wollina, Torsten. “Between Home and Sufi Convent. Devotional book use in early modern Damascus”, in: Faini, Marco and Meneghin, Alessia (eds.), Domestic Devotions in the Early Modern World, Leiden: Brill, 2019(a): 147-166. Wollina, Torsten, “How important was Ibn Tulun’s uncle Yusuf?”, in Damascus Anecdotes, 13/01/2019(b), https://thecamel.hypotheses.org/1108.

Adam Sa br a

Narrating a Lineage’s Transition Crisis between Biography and Hagiography A Case from Ottoman Egypt

In the pre-modern Middle East, the death of the head of a family of ʿulamāʾ and Sufis could pose a significant challenge to his surviving family members and followers. This was particularly true when the deceased shaykh was a foundational figure who enjoyed universal acclaim. How were his family and disciples to replace his unique spiritual leadership and charisma? Often, heads of Sufi lineages designated their chosen successor before their death, but this choice did not always go unchallenged, especially when the successor was young and lacked the experience and learning to replace his predecessor. In some cases, the absence of a son or his unsuitability for spiritual leadership led to succession by a brother or even cousin. Even if the successor was a son, if he was a minor, his mother or some other adult relation might exercise control over family assets, such as pious endowments (waqfs), until he attained his majority. But what if the opposite problem occurred, if there was a surfeit of potential successors? A struggle over succession might ensue, and it would fall to later writers to make sense of the result of this fraught transition, and to legitimate it. In 994/1586, Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī Sibṭ Āl al-Ḥasan (b. 930/1524), the leading religious scholar, poet, and Sufi shaykh of his time in Egypt, died in Cairo.1 He left behind five sons: Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn (960-1007/1553-1599), Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (965-1013/1558-1604), Muḥammad Abū al-Surūr (971-1007/1563-1598), Abū al-Mawāhib (974-1037/1567-1628), and ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (d. 1007/1599). In theory, each of these sons was a candidate to succeed their father as head of the Bakrī lineage, with the accompanying rights to teach at al-Azhar, control several endowments, and to serve as spiritual leader to a community of disciples. As will become apparent, later writers differed in their evaluations of these men, their talents, and their weaknesses. Broadly speaking, these evaluations fall into two categories, biographical dictionaries dealing with religious scholars and important political figures and



1 On this figure, and the Bakrī family in general in the sixteenth century, see Sabra 2010. Adam Sabra • University of California at Santa Barbara Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 37-63 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122930

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hagiographies. A third category, biographical dictionaries of literary figures, is not considered in depth here because the material it contains is not as directly relevant to the issue of succession. Biographical dictionaries are often consulted by historians as sources of information about historical individuals. It is much rarer for historians to examine the dictionaries as intellectual and political projects in their own right, and we have virtually no studies focusing on individual biographical dictionaries. One approach, pioneered by Michael Cooperson in a now classic study, examines the biographical entries on single individuals as they evolve in a series of biographical dictionaries.2 This approach allows us to see biography as a dialogue between different authors that develops over a period of decades or centuries. The weakness of this approach is that in the absence of studies of the dictionaries as a whole the insight that one can gain from studying individual entries or a group of related entries is limited. Nonetheless, this approach can be suggestive, so long as one keeps in mind its limitations. Relatively little has been written about the audience for biographical dictionaries. Clearly, it included religious scholars, but may have also included political figures, as was often the case for chronicles and other forms of historical writing. As we will see, in the case of prominent religious scholars in the Ottoman provincial capitals, their activities and interests often overlapped with those of provincial governors, judges, treasurers, and other officials. Much of the material in biographical dictionaries focuses on the scholarly activities and offices held by individuals, but as Cooperson has argued, biography as a genre “served as a venue for commentary on the events of history.”3 Many biographical entries are dominated by a single controversial event that involved the subject of the biography. For the purposes of this study, four biographical dictionaries are relevant: Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Būrīnī’s (963-1024/1556-1615) Tarājim al-aʿyān min abnāʾ al-zamān (composed 1601-1615, unfinished),4 Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī’s (977-1061/1570-1651) Luṭf al-samar wa-qaṭf al-tamar min tarājim aʿyān al-ṭabaqa al-ūlā min al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar (covering figures up to 1033/1623-1624),5 Muḥammad al-Amīn ibn Faḍlallāḥ al-Muḥibbī’s (1061-1111/1651-1699) Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar (completed in 1096/1685),6 and Muṣṭafā ibn Fatḥallāh al-Ḥamawī’s (d. c. 1123/1711) Fawāʾid al-irtiḥāl wa-natāʾij al-safar fī akhbār al-qarn al-ḥādī ‘ashar. None of these authors was native to Cairo, where the Bakrīs had their principal residence, although al-Ghazzī was well-informed about goings on there. Based in Damascus (al-Būrīnī, al-Ghazzī, and al-Muḥibbī) or Medina (al-Ḥamawī), they were at a remove from the Bakrīs and reflected critically, if not without bias, on the Bakrī lineage. Let us now turn to hagiography. For the most part, hagiography is a different genre from that of biographical dictionaries. Hagiographical works deal with



2 3 4 5 6

Cooperson 2000. Cooperson 2000: 192. El-Rouayheb 2008. Winter 2007. Brockelmann 2012.

narrating a lineage’s transition crisis between biography and hagiography

the merits (manāqib) of saintly figures, using the sacred biography (sīra) of the prophet Muḥammad as their model.7 Hagiographical works tend to emphasize the miraculous deeds of their subjects, since miracles (karāmāt) are the measure by which a saint can be distinguished from an ordinary person. Likewise, the audience for such works is often different and perhaps more limited than for a biographical dictionary that lists the well-known scholars and political figures of a given century or in the lifetime of the author. The authors of hagiographical texts usually wrote their works for an audience of disciples. As such, many such works did not circulate more widely, and the authors of biographical dictionaries quote hagiographies sparingly. This does not mean, however, that no miracle stories appear in biographical dictionaries, or that the authors of hagiographies do not occasionally draw on biographical dictionaries.8 Since hagiographies primarily serve Sufi communities, it is not surprising that they address the problem of spiritual succession in great detail. Indeed, the production of a neat, uniform narrative of succession is an important part of their function to narrate and validate succession from a saintly figure or figures to the present spiritual leadership of the community. As with the saintly character of the founder of the spiritual community, the transition from one leader (and sometimes one generation) to another is validated through miracles. In considering the problem of the succession to Muḥammad al-Bakrī, there are three major hagiographies of relevance. The first is Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī’s (998-c. 1078/1589-c. 1667) al-Kawkab al-durrī fī manāqib al-ustādh al-Bakrī. The author of this text, in addition to being a well-known chronicler of Ottoman Egypt, was the son of Abū al-Surūr al-Bakrī and the grandson of Muḥammad al-Bakrī. The second text of note is by his paternal cousin, Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī (996-1049/1588-1639), the son of another of the Bakrī brothers, who eventually became the head of the lineage. It is called Qalāʾid al-minan wa-farāʾid al-zaman, and was completed in Rajab 1036/April 1627. Ibn Abī al-Surur was excluded from the succession due to the early demise of his father, which guaranteed that succession would take place within a different branch of the lineage. Whether Abū al-Surūr might have succeeded his father is a matter taken up below, but by the time the two cousins reached adulthood, the matter was clearly settled. Needless to say, Aḥmad leaves no doubt in his work that his father was the legitimate successor to his grandfather. The final hagiography considered here is Nismat al-nafaḥāt al-miskiyya fī dhikr baʿḍ min manāqib al-Sādāt al-Bakriyya also known as Laṭāʾif al-minan fi dhikr manāqib al-Sāda al-Bakriyya wa-dhikr manāqib abīhim al-Shaykh Abī al-Ḥasan by ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanafī al-Rūmī al-Shādhilī al-Azharī. The author appears to have been a disciple of Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī and he completed the work between 1044/1634 or 1635 and 1049/1639, when Aḥmad died. He is familiar, at least in principle, with several branches of the Bakrī lineage.



7 Grill 2006. 8 Cooperson 2000 argues that biographical dictionaries are a genre distinct from chronicles.

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I.

Biography and Historical Memory

I.1. The Holy Fool

Of the five brothers, the easiest to dismiss as a candidate for leadership was ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. Indeed, of the biographical dictionaries consulted here, only al-Ghazzī and al-Muḥibbī bother to dedicate an entry to him. Al-Ghazzī identifies him as a “pious worshipper” and majdhūb. The latter term was commonly used in Egypt and Syria in this period to describe a person who was directly under the control of God, and therefore not responsible for his actions. Majdhūbs commonly engaged in behavior that would be unacceptable from ordinary people, such as walking around naked in public. One might describe them as holy fools.9 Al-Ghazzī was present when ʿAbd al-Raḥīm died on 21 or 22 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1007 / 15 or 16 July 1599 in Mecca, and prayed over him with the congregation in the Ḥaram.10 Al-Ghazzī’s companion, Sayyidī Muḥammad al-Takrūrī informed him that ʿAbd al-Raḥīm predicted that his death was imminent and that he would not live long enough to leave Mecca. He later complained of heart pain and was taken to his home at Bāb Ibrāhīm, where he died.11 Al-Muḥibbī’s account, while giving his name as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, quotes al-Ghazzī’s account.12 He prefaces the quotation with the following observation: “He was one of those overtaken by spiritual states, and possessed the power of unambiguous knowledge of the unseen (kashf ṣarīḥ) and delegation (ināba). People had great faith in him.”13 It is clear that no one would have regarded ʿAbd al-Raḥīm/ʿAbd al-Raḥmān as a legitimate successor to his father. Although majdhūb Sufis were venerated for their spiritual states, they were not bound by the legal limits that applied to ordinary people and were not fit to bear the responsibility that came with being religious teachers and authorities. The Bakrīs’ own turn towards Sufism began when Jalāl al-Dīn al-Bakrī, the father of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī (898-952/1492-1545), administered the endowments built for the majdhūb ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Dashṭūṭī, since he was incapable of performing this task himself.14 With four other brothers to choose from, there was no need to resort to a holy fool as spiritual leader and lineage head. I.2. The Eldest, Most Prosperous Brother

Al-Ghazzī introduces Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn as Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s eldest son.15 He was also the wealthiest, but inferior to his brothers Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn and Abū al-Surūr,

9 Geoffroy 1995: 309-333. 10 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 507. 11 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 507. 12 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 377. 13 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 377. 14 Sabra 2010. 15 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 347.

narrating a lineage’s transition crisis between biography and hagiography

“a commodity of little value.”16 In spite of this, when al-Ghazzī saw him in Mecca in 1007/1599, he found Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn to be “a king who lived like a king, not a shaykh, whose manner was that of an amīr, not a scholar.”17 When al-Ghazzī visited the Bakrī residence at Bāb Ibrāhīm, he found (…) its walls were covered in curtains with gilded silver-covered bands, ornamented swords, and expensive shields. I saw his Ethiopian and Turkish pages (ghulām, possibly eunuchs), each worth hundreds of dīnārs, wearing silk and other finery. I was told that the retinue with which he traveled included one hundred camels — they and all they carried were his property — not counting horses, mules, and donkeys. Then I tried to find out what he knew. Lo, he was an ordinary person (ʿāmmī), whose mind was not the equal of his worldly wealth. With him at that time was his brother Shaykh Abū al-Mawāhib, whose manner was similar.18 Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn died that year on his way back from the Hajj, two days before the pilgrimage caravan reached Cairo. His corpse was brought to Cairo in early Ṣafar 1008/late August 1599. Al-Ghazzī’s rather negative evaluation of Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn was motivated by personal encounter with him and by his disappointment in his lack of learning. Al-Muḥibbī bases his biographical entry on Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn on al-Ghazzī’s. He then quotes one of Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī’s historical works at length at Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn’s accomplishments in learning, but clearly confuses him with Abū al-Surūr. For example, he claims that Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn was the first of the Bakrīs to assume the post of muftī al-sulṭana (state-appointed muftī) in Cairo, which was Abū al-Surūr’s principle accomplishment.19 The rest of the entry relies on al-Ghazzī, with some minor differences in wording. Al-Ḥamawī’s entry, on the other hand, is more discreet. He reproduces the information from al-Ghazzī about Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn being the oldest and wealthiest brother. He may have recognized al-Muḥibbī’s mistake since he does not reproduce the erroneous material.20 The judgment of the biographers on Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn is clear. He was a man of the world and not a scholar. The critique of the Bakrīs’ penchant for accumulating and displaying considerable wealth is a recurrent theme in biographical and hagiographical literatures. In Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn’s case, the combination of extreme wealth with limited learning served to undermine his reputation with his scholarly contemporaries. One cannot help but notice, however, that later seventeenth-century sources are more comfortable with the worldly influence and prosperity of the Bakrīs. This change in attitude likely reflects the shift during this period towards state-recognized elite scholarly and Sufi lineages who participated in all aspects of elite culture.

16 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 347. 17 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 347. 18 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 347-348. 19 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 474. Compare with Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī 1995: 263-273. 20 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: III, 379.

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I.3. The First Muftī

Abū al-Surūr was a far more formidable figure, a leading legal scholar of his time, who became muftī al-salṭana for the Shāfiʿīs in Egypt, an accomplishment that was not uncontroversial. He attracted considerable interest from the authors of biographical dictionaries, and his son Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī devoted a lengthy biographical notice to his father in his historical works. Al-Ghazzī devotes not one, but two, biographical entries to Abū al-Surūr. The first entry is brief, and is based on the report of al-Ghazzī’s companion or student (ṣāḥib) Abū al-Ṭayyib who met Abū al-Surūr in Egypt in 1002/1593 or 1594. In Abū al-Ṭayyib’s opinion, Abū al-Surūr was superior to his brother Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn in the exoteric sciences (al-ʿulūm al-ẓāhira wa-l-taḥqīqāt).21 He was famous, wealthy, and mixed with powerful political figures. Al-Ghazzī’s second biographical entry on Abū al-Surūr is a bit longer. Here, he states explicitly that he heard that Abū al-Surūr was “more noble” (anbal) than his brother Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.22 He also claims that Abū al-Surūr had great talent in Sufism and was very eloquent in delivering the “Bakrī lessons” (al-durūs al-Bakriyya).23 He repeats the fact that his “brother” Abū al-Ṭayyib studied with Abū al-Surūr, adding that the latter treated Abū al-Ṭayyib with considerable generosity. Abū al-Surūr taught at al-Azhar and at al-Madrasa al-Khashshābiyya, after the death of Muḥammad al-Ramlī.24 Nūr al-Dīn al-Ziyādī was more deserving, but he refused the post out of scruple (ʿiffa), and Abū al-Surūr received it due to his prestige (wajāha), although Abū al-Surūr had been his student, or even his student’s student.25 After Abū al-Surūr’s death, he was succeeded by al-Ziyādī. The Madrasa al-Khashshābiyya and Madrasa al-Sharīfiyya were endowments established by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb at the mosque of  ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ. They were still controlled by the Bakrīs in 1144/1732.26 Leaving aside the clear bias of al-Ghazzī’s source in favor of Abū al-Surūr, the development from one entry to another is valuable and indicative of several emerging themes in the historiography of the Bakrī lineage. In the initial version, the specific reference to Abū Surūr’s talents in exoteric sciences (for which we should probably read Shāfiʿī law) suggests an implicit division of roles between Abū al-Surūr and his brother Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, whose talents can be assumed to have been in the esoteric sciences, i.e. Sufism. In this case, the fact that Abū al-Surūr was wealthy and mixed with powerful people provokes no criticism on al-Ghazzī’s part. No doubt, this is due to his kindness to al-Ghazzī’s friend Abū al-Ṭayyib and al-Ghazzī’s greater respect for Abū al-Surūr’s learning. Finally, al-Ghazzī broaches in an oblique manner the question of preeminence among the Egyptian Shāfiʿī scholars. He makes no reference to the fact that Abū al-Surūr displaced Muḥammad al-Ramlī as Shāfiʿī muftī for Egypt, although 21 22 23 24 25 26

Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 71. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 265. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 265. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 265. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 265-266. See Egyptian National Archives, Taqārīr al-Naẓar, daftar 3, ṣafḥa 7, mādda 78.

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we can detect some disapproval that Abū al-Surūr jumped ahead of his teachers in receiving his teaching position. Al-Burīnī’s notice on Abū al-Surūr is relatively short. He begins by praising Abū al-Surūr as the best of Bakrī family after the death of Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī. He nonetheless mentions that “it is said that al-Shaykh Abū al-Surūr inclined towards intimate gatherings (majālis al-uns) that were exclusive to certain (baʿḍ, perhaps one) of his intimates. As for his preference for beautiful forms, this is established beyond any doubt. The inhabitants of Egypt are all the same when it comes to leading a serene life.”27 Cynthia Robinson has defined the majlis al-uns as “a gathering of a small number of carefully chosen courtiers possessing the physical and intellectual refinements requisite for such an honor in the presence of the caliph.”28 Robinson’s definition applies to the Umayyad court in Spain, but the private nature of the majlis al-uns applies equally well in this context. Combined with the reference to Abū al-Surūr’s preference for beautiful forms (read: handsome young men), the implication of impropriety is clear. Khaled El-Rouayheb has shown that having an aesthetic appreciation for beautiful male forms was seen as distinct from homosexual attraction in this period, although the two inevitably overlapped.29 Al-Būrīnī goes on to explain that Abū al-Surūr was struck down at the height of his powers due to a stomach illness. He went to one of villages of Egypt that was endowed in his favor and they fed him fish. It was in the heat of the day and it was as if a spark had been cast into his body. He had to be carried back to Cairo and some people said he died of poisoning.30 In case the reader has not comprehended al-Būrīnī’s negative evaluation of the Bakrī brothers, he devotes the remainder of his entry on Abū al-Surūr to an attack on his brother, Abū al-Mawāhib. He accuses Abū al-Mawāhib of following his whims and taking no interest in learning, “however, the pure root is present in his essence; perhaps he will return to the [correct] path.”31 Al-Būrīnī then goes on to quote the governor of Damascus and former governor of Egypt, al-Sayyid Mehmed (governor of Egypt, 1004-1006/1596-1598), as saying that Abū al-Mawāhib “is not a righteous person; he does not incline towards to path of salvation and redemption.”32 If al-Ghazzī’s source on the Bakrīs is a fellow scholar, al-Būrīnī’s is a former Ottoman governor of Egypt, who “is well-versed in the affairs of the aforementioned persons, having been the governor of Egypt at this time.”33 Clearly, not all of the Ottoman authorities had a high opinion of the Bakrī brothers, and al-Būrīnī was only too willing to record the stories of their misadventures and rumored peccadillos. In spite of the pious hope 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 256. Robinson 2002: 50. El-Rouayheb 2005: 53 ff. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 256-257. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 257. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 257. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 257.

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that Abū al-Mawāhib will someday return to the path of righteousness, one gets the distinct impression that al-Būrīnī enjoys passing on the latest gossip from Cairo. Al-Muḥibbī’s entry on Abū al-Surūr is at the opposite end of the spectrum: he uses nothing but superlatives to describe him. He begins by giving Abū al-Surūr’s patriline, “the lineage of al-Sāda al-Bakriyya, the lords (sāda) of Egypt,” as well as pointing out that the Bakrīs are descendants of the Prophet through a matriline.34 He also emphasizes that he was born during his father’s “reign” (dawla), and was raised in his household and under his care. He was talented in Sufi learning and was the “most noble, most virtuous (or best, afḍal) of his brothers and most devoted to teaching and giving lessons.”35 Al-Muḥibbī also notes Abū al-Surūr’s wealth and political influence, but seems to accept this development as part and parcel of his prominence as a scholar and representative of a prominent lineage. He goes on to list his publications and teaching position at al-Madrasa al-Khashshābiyya. Al-Muḥibbī then addresses the most controversial aspect of Abū al-Surūr’s career, namely that he wrote to Istanbul to obtain the post of muftī of the Shāfiʿīs in Cairo, a position that was held by Muḥammad al-Ramlī. Al-Muḥibbī makes it clear that al-Ramlī was better qualified for the post and this was an uncharacteristic error in judgment (dhanb wāḥid) on Abū al-Surūr’s part.36 He quotes the following line of verse: If the beloved commits a single error

his good deeds send a thousand intercessors

Al-Muḥibbī then closes his entry on Abū al-Surūr by quoting some verse from a letter that the latter sent to Yaḥyā Ibn Kamāl al-Daftardarī, and a laudatory description of Abū al-Surūr by al-Khafājī.37 For al-Muḥibbī, Abū al-Surūr was the greatest representative of his lineage in his generation and a great scholar and litterateur whose only blemish was that he sought an office that was held by a better scholar. Al-Muḥibbī seems to accept this error in judgment as a common fault inherent in the competitive character of office-seeking, one which is of little import relative to Abū al-Surūr’s many accomplishments and august lineage. Al-Ḥamawī’s entry on Abū al-Surūr is extensive, but it is mostly made up of quotations from earlier sources. Much of it comes from al-Muḥibbī, although al-Ḥamawī adds a line of verse that suggests that Abū al-Surūr ultimately surpassed his teachers, including al-Ramlī: He is the sun of knowledge, all others are stars;

at noon, no star among them is visible38

Closer examination shows that this verse comes from al-Ṭālawī’s Sāniḥāt dumā al-qaṣr, a work discussed in greater detail below. Al-Ḥamawī also reports that al-Ramlī attended one of Abū al-Surūr’s law classes at his invitation and at the end 34 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 117. 35 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 117. 36 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 117. 37 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 117-118. 38 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 60.

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of class they had a learned exchange.39 This anecdote is more modest in its import, but it suggests that al-Ramlī came to see Abū al-Surūr as a peer and approved of his teaching. Most of al-Ḥamawī’s entry, however, is copied from Darwīsh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭālawī al-Artuqī al-Dimashqī’s (950-1014/1540-1606) Sāniḥāt dumā al-qaṣr fī muṭārahāṭ banī al-ʿaṣr.40 The latter visited Egypt and was personally familiar with the Bakrī brothers. In his discussion of the Bakrīs, he lists the brothers in the following order, presumably according to prominence: Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, Abu al-Surūr, and Abū al-Mawāhib, all of whom appear to have been alive when he visited Egypt.41 Al-Ḥamawī also attributes the story about Abū al-Surūr displacing al-Ramlī as muftī to al-Ṭālawī, but this appears to be sloppy scholarship and the incident does not appear in the published version of the Sāniḥāt. He adds that this appointment was obtained through the intercession of Efendi Ibn Kamāl al-Daftarī, and provides a longer version of the original letter.42 He also adds that al-Ṭālawī answered on behalf of al-Daftarī.43 In a second letter, informing Abū al-Surūr that his request to be appointed muftī was successful, al-Ṭālawī quotes the following verse: Oh family of faithfulness and al-Ṣiddīq, you

are the pupil of the eye of glory in each age.44

The letter goes on to inform Abū al-Surūr that al-Daftarī has succeeded in obtaining a royal diploma of appointment (barāʾa sulṭāniyya) from Sultan Murād III (reigned, 1574-1595), which he sent with Abū al-Surūr’s messenger.45 Notably, there is no reference to al-Ramlī, so the subject of Abū al-Surūr’s fitness for the office is avoided. Al-Ḥamawī’s access to al-Ṭālawī’s Sāniḥāt allows him to fill in many of the details concerning Abū al-Surūr’s efforts to be appointed muftī al-salṭana in Egypt. We get a more complete picture of how literary correspondence was connected to office-seeking, and how accomplished poets and authors of ornate prose letters served their political masters. For the authors of biographical dictionaries, the most important event in Abū al-Surūr’s life was his controversial decision to seek appointment as muftī. They differ in their assessment of whether and to what degree this decision impugned Abū al-Surūr’s reputation as religious scholar. I.4. The Strange Case of the Murdered Sufi

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s (965-1013/1558-1604) biography is the most interesting and controversial of the Bakrī brothers. Most sources recognize him as the legitimate successor to his father, but the acclaim is not universal. More controversial, however, 39 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 61. 40 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 61ff, quoting al-Ṭālawī 1983: II, 17ff, 185 ff. 41 Al-Ṭālawī 1983: I, 7-23; 106-113 contains taqrīẓs for Abū al-Surūr and Abū al-Mawāhib. 42 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 62-3. The source is al-Ṭālawī 1983 II: 185-186. 43 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 63. 44 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 67. 45 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 68.

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is the manner of his death. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn died suddenly while visiting the governor Ibrāhīm Pasha in the citadel. A few days later, the Egyptian garrison rose up against Ibrāhīm Pasha and murdered him. For many later biographers these two events were linked. They believed that Ibrāhīm Pasha had murdered Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, and that the death of the governor was a miraculous act of divine retaliation. For this reason, the biographical entries of the two men must be considered together, since their fates were intertwined in the mind of many biographers. Al-Ghazzī provides a detailed entry on Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. He begins by asserting that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn took his father’s place (qāma maqām abīhi baʿdahu), and that his brother, Abū al-Surūr, while a scholar, was not his equal in Sufism and “speaking in the voice of mystical knowledge.”46 He goes so far as to claim that “many inhabitants of Egypt and others say that ‘He began where his father ended,’” which suggests that not only did he succeed his famous father, he surpassed him.47 This interpretation is reinforced by a quotation from the Chief Judge of Egypt Mehmed Efendi ibn Bustān, who in Ramaḍān 994/August or September 1586 left Egypt in the company of al-Ghazzī to become the Shaykh al-Islām (Bostānzāde Meḥmed Efendi, Chief Judge of Egypt 1583-86, Chief Muftī of the Ottoman Empire, 1589-92, 1593-98) in Istanbul. “He has taken his father’s place and more,” Ibn Bustān asserts.48 Assuming al-Ghazzī’s memory can be trusted, this statement would have been made shortly after the death of Muḥammad al-Bakrī, which makes it all the more remarkable. He then goes on to report a story (ḥukiya) that explains how the succession took place. When Muḥammad al-Bakrī was at death’s door, he said to his serving woman, “Summon Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.” She went and summoned Abū al-Surūr. He said to her after [Abū al-Surūr] had left, “Summon Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. If you summon him, and no one else, you are a free woman.” So she went and summoned Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. She said, “When he came into his father’s presence, [his father] said to him ‘Sit,’ and dictated something to him. Then, [Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn] said to [his father], ‘I understand, I understand.’ [Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn] said, ‘Yes,’ and [his father] said, ‘Leave now.’”49 This story belongs more to the genre of hagiography than history, but it is indicative of the potential for rivalry between the two brothers over succession to their father. As in hagiography, the issue of succession is portrayed as a transfer of mystical knowledge from father to son. It is not merely a question of control over teaching positions, institutions and endowments, etc. According al-Ghazzī, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s status as a spiritual leader and influential figure rose considerably after his father’s death, until his prominence provoked the opposition of the chief judge of Egypt, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Efendi, but al-Ghazzī is

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Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 551. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 551. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 551. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 552.

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extremely vague about the cause of his enmity.50 Finally, on 3 Rabīʿ I 1013 / 30 July 1604, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn went to the citadel in the afternoon to visit the governor Ibrāhīm Pasha, as was his custom.51 After consuming a feast and coffee, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn fell unconscious. He was taken to his residence, where he died. The feast was attended by a number of notables, including the muftī of Mecca, Ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār “one of the mawālī (high-ranking jurists) of Rūm,” al-Ghazzī writes, quoting one Najm al-Dīn, the brother of al-Ghazzī’s shaykh Muḥibb al-Din, “who was trustworthy, intelligent, and had faith in the Bakriyya. He lived for a time in Cairo.”52 In addition, al-Ghazzī quotes “a small piece of paper” that Najm al-Dīn sent Muḥibb al-Dīn in secret informing him that it turned out that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn had died of poisoning or strangulation, in accordance with a sultanic decree (khaṭṭ humāyūnī). A few days later, Ibrāhīm Pasha got into an argument with the Egyptian garrison and they killed him, put his head on the end of a spear, and paraded it around Cairo. Many people thought this was punishment for his having executed Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. Jane Hathaway has identified the mutineers as cavalry unhappy with their pay.53 It is not entirely clear whether al-Ghazzī accepts the veracity of this story. Clearly, the rumor of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s murder circulated in the immediate aftermath of his death and of the Egyptian cavalry’s unprecedented act of rebellion to murder the Ottoman governor. In his biographical entry on Ibrāhīm Pasha, al-Ghazzī presents the governor in a positive light, as someone whose personal and public conduct was praiseworthy, “although he was tested by Exalted God in the story of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī.”54 He summarizes the events mentioned above, but adds that the motive for the rebellion was that Ibrāhīm Pasha intended to hold an inquest [of the state lands the soldiers held] and that they pretended to have killed him out of zeal for Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.55 The whole story is quite suspect, of course. No reason is given why the sultan (Aḥmad I, or those governing on his behalf since he was still young) would want Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn executed. Usually, religious scholars and Sufis were immune from such treatment unless they openly rebelled against the ruler. It seems more likely that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn died of natural causes, and the unexpected nature of his death, combined with murder of an Ottoman governor shortly thereafter, gave rise to a rumor of the former’s execution. The soldiers had other, more pressing reasons for their rebellion, but the idea that God punished the governor for violating the sanctity of a saint suits a hagiographical interpretation of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s demise. It should also be noted that Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s nephew, never mentions the idea that his uncle was murdered in his many historical works, nor does he display any hostility to Ibrāhīm Pasha, although he has a poor opinion of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb

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Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 553. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 553. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 553. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 553. Hathaway 2008: 63. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 244. Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 244.

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Efendi.56 It would be difficult to fault Laylā al-Ṣabbāgh’s conclusion that the story is an invention. Nonetheless, al-Ghazzī does quote some verse by the Damascene Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Simāṭī, written “when he heard of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī’s murder,” the first line of which reads, “They did not merely destroy the foundations of Egypt/in murdering you, they demolished the dome of Islam.”57 The published version of al-Būrīnī’s incomplete biographical dictionary does not contain an entry on Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, but al-Muḥibbī has entries on him and on Ibrāhīm Pasha.58 He reproduces al-Ghazzī’s praise for Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, and quotes some examples of his verse.59 He also quotes al-Khafājī as saying that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn claimed to perform miracles and narrated his dreams.60 Al-Muḥibbī accuses al-Khafājī of being jealous of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn because of his success and influence.61 He also notes the controversy about Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s sudden death, and the fact that his supposed murder was widely rumored in Damascus and that Ibrāḥīm Pasha’s murder was interpreted as punishment.62 His entry on Ibrāhīm Pasha reproduces al-Ghazzī’s.63 Al-Ḥamawī also reproduces al-Ghazzī’s entry on Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, merely adding a verse in which he predicts his imminent death: “The blood of my murderer will be spilled among the people.”64 He then produces a second entry on Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, emphasizing his literary abilities, with a short passage adding new details about his death: He was with the vizier of Egypt, Ibrāhīm Pasha. He had lunch with him and then they entered the cell (khalwa) and began to recite the opening chapter of the Scripture. He fell face-forward, and when they moved him they found he was dead.65 He then mentions the revolt against Ibrāhīm Pasha, without indicating a causal connection. Finally, he quotes al-Sīmāqī’s elegy, but in this context, the verse could refer to either man. In his entry on Ibrāhīm Pasha, he quotes al-Ghazzī’s entry, before adding, “Shaykh Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn obtained a great miracle,” in predicting his death and that of his murderer in a poem.66 Perhaps the most intriguing account of the deaths of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn and Ibrāhīm Pasha comes from an unexpected source, Abū al-Wafāʾ b. ʿUmar al-ʿUrḍī’s (993-1071/1585-1660) biographical dictionary of Aleppan notables, Maʿādin al-dhahab 56 Al-Ṣabbāgh, Introduction to: Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī 1995: 79-82. 57 Al-Ghazzī 1981-1982: 493. 58 I was able to consult one manuscript of al-Būrīnī’s work and it does not contain any entries for the letter zayn. It does not appear that al-Būrīnī got around to that part, but one would have to check all of the manuscripts to be certain. 59 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 196. 60 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 197. 61 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 198. 62 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: II, 198-199. 63 Al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 61-62. 64 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: IV, 210. 65 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: IV, 211. 66 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: III, 91-92.

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fī aʿyān al-musharrafa bihim Ḥalab. Al-ʿUrḍī provides an entry for al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm Pasha, who was governor of Aleppo before serving as governor of Egypt.67 Ibrāhīm Pasha’s service as governor of Aleppo, having previously been its daftardār, occurred during the lifetime of al-ʿUrḍī’s father, and al-ʿUrḍī credits him with being an effective and just ruler who restrained soldiers from Damascus who were mistreating the Aleppans. Ultimately, he was obliged to put down a rebellion by them, which he did successfully.68 One can see why he was chosen to impose order in Egypt. According to al-ʿUrḍī, Ibrāhīm Pasha attended the Friday prayer at al-Azhar and must have been impressed because he ordered Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn to provide him with a private sermon after Friday prayers.69 A few days later, during a private visit to the governor, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn died. Ibrāhīm Pasha descended from the Citadel to participate in Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s funeral cortege, weeping and helping to carry his bier. People began to speculate about the manner of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s sudden death. Some thought he had been suffocated, some thought poisoned, while others believed that Ibrāhīm Pasha was innocent of any wrongdoing.70 Al-ʿUrḍī quotes some of Ibrāhīm Pasha’s retinue who returned to Aleppo from Cairo as swearing solemn oaths that the governor was innocent, while some commoners claimed that the shaykh had said on the day of his sermon, “We are a speedy poison for anyone who harms us. Anyone who does not believe that can try and suffer the consequences.”71 A few days later, Ibrāhīm Pasha was ambushed by hundreds of fully-armed soldiers on the way to a banquet organized by the chief judge of Egypt Muṣṭafā Efendi ʿAzmī-zade (977-1040/1570-1631), who escaped terrified but unharmed.72 One of the shaykh’s devotees explained the decision to kill Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn in the following manner: The former governor of Egypt ʿAlī Pasha once he became grand vizier persuaded Sultan Mehmed III (reigned, 1003-1012/1595-1603) to order his execution, in spite of Ibrāhīm Pasha’s fears about the Egyptian garrison’s reaction. Not long afterwards, both the sultan and the grand vizier both died.73 This even more grandiose version of the hagiographic narrative of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s demise demonstrates the importance which his followers attributed to him. It was not sufficient for God to avenge him by taking the life of the governor; the sultan and grand vizier had to suffer the consequences as well. Just as Abū al-Surūr’s biography is dominated by the controversy over his office-seeking, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s is dominated by the rumors surrounding his sudden death and its supposed political repercussions. This focus on a single controversial event or quality seems to be characteristic of the way in which biographical dictionaries developed as a genre. We have already noted Cooperson’s conclusion that biographical 67 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 44-46. Al-ʿUrḍī, like his father, served as Shāfiʿī muftī of Aleppo. See al-Muḥibbī 1960: I, 148-152. 68 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 44-45. 69 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 45. 70 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 45. 71 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 45. 72 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 45-46. 73 Al-ʿUrḍī 1987: 46.

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entries were opportunities for authors to comment on specific historical events. Although the events cited here are not as consequential as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s involvement in the miḥna, for example, they were of use as a kind of object lesson on the consequences of harming a religious scholar or Sufi saint. I.5. The Bon-Vivant Turned Lineage Elder

Following the untimely death of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, the fifth and sole surviving brother Abū al-Mawāhib (974-1037/1567-1628) took the reins as the senior member of the lineage. Ultimately, it was Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s son eldest son Aḥmad (996-1049/15881639) who received the mantle of spiritual leadership, but he was too young at the time of his father’s death to exercise full control over the lineage’s economic assets, and his cousin, Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī (998-c. 1078/1589-1667), was even younger and his father’s untimely demise meant that he was not likely to be able to challenge the lineage’s succession in a different branch. Al-Ghazzī was either unaware of Abū al-Mawāhib’s existence or did not regard him as worthy of a biographical entry. Al-Būrīnī does provide a very laudatory biographical entry, which is a bit surprising given his rather negative opinion of Abū al-Surūr, who was a much more highly regarded scholar in law and Quranic exegesis, and his earlier comments about Abū al-Mawāhib. He begins by praising Abū al-Mawāhib’s gentle temperament and faultless disposition.74 He also notes that the Bakrī house (bayt) is blessed thanks to the prayer of Abū al-Mawāhib’s grandfather, the axial saint and savior (ghawth) Abū al-Ḥasan, that God bless his progeny and grant them eloquence in public speech (faṣāḥa wa lasan). God had clearly answered his prayer in making them all so eloquent, and “they are a grand house whose virtue/superiority is well known.”75 Al-Būrīnī goes on to note that he has provided biographies of several members of this house in his book. As for Abū al-Mawāhib, while he is not well-known among the inhabitants of Egypt for his perfect virtues and is not characterized by comprehensive qualities of superiority, nonetheless he occupies the position of the teacher of the class (yajlisu fī mawḍiʿ al-taṣdīr) and gives faultless classes in Quranic exegesis. He composes beautiful verse and eloquent figurative language.76 Al-Būrīnī goes on to praise the eloquence of Abū al-Mawāhib’s prose writings as well, but he clearly regards him as a writer whose profane literary interests prevented him from engaging in serious religious scholarship.77 Nonetheless, he is a handsome man who is highly regarded for his literary talents. Al-Būrīnī’s seeming about-face on the Bakrīs, and Abū al-Mawāhib in particular, is noticeable. Unfortunately, nothing in his

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Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 258. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 258. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 258. Al-Būrīnī 1959-1963: I, 258-259.

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account suggests a reason for this change of heart. Perhaps Abū al-Mawāhib proved more successful than expected. Al-Muḥibbī also has a detailed entry on Abū al-Mawāhib, one that suggests that his behavior changed for the better as he grew older. His picture of the man in his youth is unflattering and acknowledges the controversy regarding the succession to Muḥammad al-Bakrī. He writes, In his youth, he inclined towards debauchery (khalāʿa), and his salons (majālis) were full of music by singers and instruments. When his father died, there were rivalries between him and his brothers, and matters that can’t be expressed (reading taskutu for taskubu) in words, until [the leadership of the lineage] ended up with Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, until he passed away first, as Abū al-Surūr had died previously, and the rank rose to Abū al-Mawāhib.78 Al-Muḥibbī nonetheless concedes that Abū al-Mawāhib rose to the occasion, thanks to his lineage. He took over the teaching position in Quranic exegesis, and befriended Shaykh Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Ḥalabī (975-1044/1567 or 1568-1635), the author of the famous Sīra Ḥalabiyya, which he authored in Abū al-Mawāhib’s honor (bismihi).79 Abū al-Mawāhib taught at al-Madrasa al-Sharīfa (sic), a post reserved for the most learned of the Shāfiʿīs, which he received from the former occupant, his father-in-law Muḥammad al-Ramlī.80 He goes on to quote some of Abū al-Mawāhib’s poetry from his correspondence, including that addressed to Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Murshidī, the muftī of Mecca.81 Al-Ḥamawī’s entry is quite long and very laudatory. He praises Abū al-Mawāhib for his literary skills and religious learning, especially in the fields of Quranic exegesis and Arabic grammar (uṣūl al-lugha al-ʿArabiyya), in which he says Abū al-Mawāhib was unmatched.82 He notes that Abū al-Mawāhib received his legal learning from his friend Nūr al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī.83 There is no sign in al-Ḥamawī’s account of the rivalry between the Bakrī brothers described by al-Muḥibbī. He simply states that “he and his brothers were the notables of their age and the imams of their city,” and that Abū al-Mawāhib succeeded his brother Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn in office of shaykh of the Bakriyya.84 He also succeeded his father-in-law al-Ramlī in his teaching post at al-Madrasa al-Ashrafiyya al-Ṣalāḥiyya (sic), reserved for the most learned of the Shāfiʿī scholars. Abū al-Mawāhib was held in great esteem in Egypt, and anyone who angered him quickly fell into ignominy and disrepute. An avid student of ḥadīth, he was willing to learn from his least student and to turn against the greatest if they failed to meet his standards. Overall, he was a religious leader worthy of emulation.85

78 Al-Muhibbī 1960: I, 146. 79 Al-Muhibbī 1960: I, 146. See also, Fück 2012, and al-Ḥalabī 1932: I, 3. 80 Al-Muhibbī 1960: I, 146. 81 Al-Muhibbī 1960: I, 147-148. 82 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 119. 83 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 120. 84 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 120. 85 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 120.

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After quoting verse written to eulogize Abū al-Mawāhib after his death, al-Ḥamawī reproduces his letter to al-Murshidī.86 Abū al-Mawāhib generated less controversy in the biographical dictionaries than some of his brothers. Although he was not a great scholar, his standing as the last surviving son of Muḥammad al-Bakrī meant that he was unlikely to be criticized for usurping a position he did not deserve, especially since his nephew Aḥmad al-Bakrī ultimately succeeded to the position of spiritual leader and lineage head. One can actually interpret Abū al-Mawāhib’s role as one of the solicitous uncle who preserved the family inheritance until his nephew was ready to assume full authority over the lineage. For the biographers, the idea that Abū al-Mawāhib served as lineage head is uncontroversial. Although the biographers show a certain amount of respect for the Bakrī lineage, they treat succession as a largely worldly matter in a lineage known for its worldly wealth and influence. As religious scholars, the Bakrīs are held to a high standard of learning and conduct, but the issue of succession is not so spiritually fraught as we will see it was for the authors of hagiographical texts, who were committed to the idea that there must be one divinely chosen and inspired lineage head in each generation.

II. Succession in the Hagiographical Literature Towards the end of his al-Kawkab al-durrī, Ibn Abī al-Surūr narrates a number of miracle stories pertaining to the succession to Muḥammad al-Bakrī. He begins with a story of a nephew of Muḥammad al-Bakrī, the son of his sister Laylā and her husband Sayyidī Muḥammad al-Suʿūdī, who was the shaykh of the paper-makers’ and booksellers’ market (sūq al-warrāqīn).87 The boy memorized four books of religious knowledge by the age of ten, at a time when Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s own sons, who were older, had not accomplished this task. When the boy’s mother bragged to her brother about her son’s accomplishment, he “was terribly transformed (fa-taṭawwara al-ustādh taṭawwuran ʿaẓīman)”88 He instructed the boy to approach him, and when he did, unwrapped the boy’s turban, adjusted something, and then re-wrapped it. From that moment, the boy lost his mind, began to urinate on himself, and remained this way until he died. Ibn Abī al-Surūr concludes, without any sense of irony, “After that, he received no more knowledge, while the sons of the ustādh received knowledge.”89 While such an account could have been created to explain the existence of a mentally disturbed or disabled person in a lineage known for its sacredness and remarkable accomplishments, it also emphasizes the principle that succession should be through the patriline and not the matriline.

86 Al-Ḥamawī 2011: I, 121-125. 87 Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 34. 88 Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 34. 89 Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 35.

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Ibn Abī al-Surūr then takes up the issue of succession directly. He reports that Muḥammad al-Bakrī, during one of his pilgrimages, went to visit the tomb of the Prophet in Medina. The Prophet spoke to him, saying, “May God bless you and your progeny.”90 Ibn Abī al-Surūr concludes from this story that Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s house (bayt), with its few members, are promised, “much” (kathīr, perhaps wealth), instinctive knowledge, and all-encompassing blessing until the end of time. Furthermore, “the house must have one person who serves as khalīfa over it, this is something observable, and not open to doubt.”91 He then quotes Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s famous line, “In every generation from among them a lord / aided with victory, who erases doubt.” This paragraph and the accompanying quotation make it very clear that there is to be one head of the Bakrī lineage at a time, the choice of successor is of divine origin, and that the head of the lineage enjoys God-given knowledge. This succession of divinely-inspired leaders is to continue until the end of time. Naturally, to oppose divinely-appointed leaders such as these is to risk incurring God’s wrath. In another anecdote, Ibn Abī al-Surūr quotes one of Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s disciples, who suffered from a fault committed by one of Muḥammad’s sons, whom he rebuked in his heart, saying to himself, “He doesn’t have his father’s learning.”92 That evening, he saw Muḥammad al-Bakrī in a dream, and the shaykh told him, “So-and-so, if you did not belong to my house (bayt), I would ask God to curse you.” The disciple begged for forgiveness, which he received, swearing a covenant with God never to repeat his offense. If this is what happens to someone who mildly rebukes one of the Bakrīs, Ibn Abī al-Surūr asks, “what about someone who denounces them entirely, whether for some ulterior motive or due to an illness?”93 Another anecdote intended to establish the rules for succession is related by Muḥammad al-Bakrī himself. Abū al-Ḥasan would take his son to visit the saints and ask them to bless his son. They would respond, “Abū al-Ḥasan, the house can only belong to one.” Ibn Abī al-Surūr adds, “Exalted God’s pre-eternal grace had already [chosen] Sayyidī Muḥammad, and the tablets of righteousness and lordship (lawāʾiḥ al-ṣalāḥ wa l-siyāda) had already designated him exclusively. For this reason, he was the unique, all-comprehending, axial saint and savior.”94 Although this anecdote deals with the succession from Abū al-Ḥasan to Muḥammad, it is clearly intended to establish the God-granted authority of the head of the lineage and his unique, unchallenged power. Naturally, any discussion of the problem of succession to Muḥammad al-Bakrī would be incomplete without stories about his death. Ibn Abī al-Surūr narrates two anecdotes on this subject. In the first, Muḥammad is on his death bed. He sends after his sons and distributes his saintly gifts (mawāhib) amongst them. Each son later manifests the gift he received.95 We will see below that this is one narrative strategy to 90 91 92 93 94 95

Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 35. Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 35. Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 35. Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 35. Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 36. Ibn Abī al-Surūr 2015: 48.

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address the issue of succession. It implies that each son succeeded the father in some manner, but none received the full range of gifts he possessed. It might be regarded as an inclusive approach intended to rally the different branches of the lineage around the lineage head. In the second anecdote, the disciple Sayyidī Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Qāsim asks Muḥammad al-Bakrī on his death bed, “My lord, around whom shall we gather once you are gone?” al-Bakrī responds, “Muḥammad, there are no more than three cubits between me and my disciples (aṣḥābī), and they will not veil me. Whoever has a need to be fulfilled, let him come into my presence and ask me to intercede with Exalted God. God, may He be glorified and exalted, will not abandon him without assistance (madad) or without answering the petitioner’s prayer.” In this case, the Muḥammad al-Bakrī promises to continue his intercession on behalf of his disciples from beyond the grave. Since by the time Ibn Abī al-Surūr recorded this story Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s children, especially his daughter Fāḍila, had turned his grave behind the tomb of Imām al-Shāfiʿī into a family burial place and shrine, this anecdote not only establishes Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s role as an intercessor, it also validates the shrine established at his grave as a place of intercession.96 Anyone visiting the grave of Muḥammad al-Bakrī would also have encountered the graves of his sons and, eventually, his later descendants. The gravesite became a shrine devoted to the lineage as a whole. Let us now turn to Ibn Abī al-Surūr’s cousin, Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. His work is part auto-hagiography, part family history, part general treatise on Sufi conduct. It contains much material that is relevant to the claims of the Bakrī lineage to special status, such as a list of their ancestors, including direct descent through the patriline to Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, and through a matriline to the Prophet.97 Aḥmad also cites some of the same miraculous stories mentioned by Ibn Abī al-Surūr, including that of the nephew of Muḥammad al-Bakrī who lost his mind.98 It is in his description of his father Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn and the latter’s relationship with his father Muḥammad al-Bakrī that Aḥmad adds original material to the discourse on succession. He tells a story of how in the beginning Muḥammad had only daughters, and wished for a son to succeed him (yaqūmu bi-l-khilāfa min baʿdihi). After a visit by a mysterious “righteous man,” he had only sons.99 Among them was his successor “in the best manner” (ʿalā aḥsan uslūb qawīm), who was recognized by the mystics and great people as the axial saint, “my master and father” Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.100 According to Aḥmad, Muḥammad specifically designated Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn as his successor in “many gatherings (majālis) and especially in some of his speech in verse in his unique poems.”101 He then cites two excerpts from Muḥammad’s poems, but neither seems to explicitly mention Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn or deal with succession as such. Similarly, a series of exchanges of verse between father and son illustrates their close relationship, but 96 Sabra 2018. 97 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 78-79. 98 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 221. 99 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 232. 100 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 232-233. 101 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 233.

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not in such a way as to indicate that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was favored by his father over his brothers.102 More directly to the point is the following anecdote that is supposed to have occurred on Muḥammad’s death bed. He said, may God be pleased with him, during his fatal illness, to everyone who visited him and came to see him, “Pray to God on my behalf that I succeed in accomplishing my intention. I hope not to die until the trust (wadīʿa) passes to my son, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. Pray for me and my son Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.”103 After the visitors oblige him with a prayer, he asks to be taken to his room, where he dies. After quoting a poem by Muḥammad about his status as the axial saint, Aḥmad lists each of Muḥammad’s sons, in order of age, saying that “Exalted God gazed upon his progeny with the eye of grace (ʿayn al-ʿināya).”104 The descriptions are completely laudatory. With a nod to Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn’s immense wealth and taste for fine things, Aḥmad describes him as “a manifestation of divine beauty” (jamālī al-manẓar), but also praises his scholarship and good character.105 Abū al-Surūr he characterizes as displaying divine majesty (mashhaduhu jalālī) and as a manifestation of divine beauty.106 This combination likely indicates his prominence as a public teacher, as well as his performance of miracles. Perhaps the most interesting of these descriptions is that of the holy fool ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. Aḥmad quotes Muḥammad as saying, “My state (ḥāl) took over ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, else it would have gone out to the horizons.” (ḥālī taṣarrafa fī ʿAbd al-Raḥīm wa-law lā dhālika la-kharajat fī al-āfāq).107 The suggestion that ʿAbd al-Raḥīm was the most spiritually talented of the brothers, but held back by his lack of control over his spiritual state is reinforced by the observation, “Sometimes he looked like a Bakrī, wearing the finest clothes, doused in the most fragrant perfume, inclining towards people with better words and deeds, following the path of guidance in the most noble manner; but sometimes his state would overcome him and he would strip off these clothes and go out to people in this state. They would find him a ferocious lion and experience his unconcealed revelation which would affect their minds.”108 The deaths of the two brothers are foreshadowed in a dream that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn has, in which ʿAbd al-Raḥīm is appointed preacher in Mecca and Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn amīr al-ḥajj for that year. As for Abū al-Mawāhib, he is a less difficult figure for Aḥmad to praise. He describes him as “one of the greatest of the righteous men who disguised themselves in the clothes of worldly forms and concealed their obedience to the divine command, in their jealous protection of the secrets of lordliness.”109 Again, it is not difficult to detect this comment as an apology 102 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 233-236. 103 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 236. 104 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 242. 105 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 243. 106 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 243. 107 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 243. 108 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 243-244. 109 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 244.

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for the manifest worldliness of the Bakrīs, and Abū al-Mawāhib in particular. Aḥmad goes on to claim that Abū al-Mawāhib spent his “thousands of dīnārs on deserving people on the paths to perfection, either by feeding them, or by assisting those who were suffering or in need.”110 If Aḥmad devotes a few paragraphs to four of the Bakrī brothers at the conclusion of his chapter on their father Muḥammad al-Bakrī, he gives an entire chapter to the fourth brother, his father, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.111 He leaves no doubt that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was the legitimate successor to Muḥammad, giving him a long list of titles, including “axis of the heirs [of the Prophet, i.e. the saints],” “heir to the stations of the hidden and the manifest,” and “heir to the Bakrī succession (khilāfa).”112 For Aḥmad, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was “my shaykh, my father, my master (ustādh), my model [on the path] to God, and my refuge.”113 Aḥmad then proceeds to give a detailed account of his father’s life and accomplishments, including his miracles. He states that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn succeeded Muḥammad al-Bakrī immediately after the latter’s death.114 He also wore the ṭaylasān (head covering) of the khilāfa, and taught disciples (murīdūn), a clear statement that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was Muḥammad’s successor as a Sufi leader.115 We have seen that Aḥmad’s strategy in legitimating his father’s succession to his grandfather’s leadership position as a Sufi master and teacher of the religious sciences is to simply treat it as uncontroversial. The succession followed Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s dying wish and fulfilled the divine will. There was no hiatus between Muḥammad’s death and his son’s public accession to his teaching responsibilities and leadership of a religious community. Perhaps it really happened that way, but we have seen that questions about the relative merits of the Bakrī brothers reverberated through the seventeenth century. Rather than debate these merits, Aḥmad offers brief but laudatory descriptions of four of the brothers before devoting a separate section to his father, placing Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn on the same plane as Abū al-Hasan and Muḥammad al-Bakrī. This is a tidy solution, and one that would also have the virtue of not provoking the ire of his cousin Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī, the noted chronicler and author of his own hagiography. Given that Aḥmad had already succeeded to leadership of the lineage, there would have been few complaints about a conciliatory advocacy of Aḥmad’s status as legitimate successor to the Bakrī heritage. This neat account of the transfer of authority from Muḥammad al-Bakrī to his son Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn contrasts with Aḥmad’s own account of his succession to his father’s position. Furthermore, one of the blessings which Exalted God bestowed on me is that when my father passed away to the mercy of Exalted God, and people disagreed about who should occupy the central place after him in his gathering to teach, 110 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 245. 111 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 245 ff. 112 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 245. 113 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 246. 114 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 248. 115 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 248.

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the gifts of the Sublime, the Greatest, the Real preceded in [determining] that this weak servant would sit in his place in the al-Azhar mosque. It was a public class, a great scene, attended by scholars, great men, and noble saints. The Real guided me to speak in the manner of my forefathers and ancestors. Then he poured down upon me the gifts of the divine flux, favor, and assistance. From then on, I continued in these classes without interruption, whilst observing correct conduct with God and good order, speaking to the best of my ability in the voice of the law and mystical theology (al-sharīʿa wa-l-ḥaqīqa), following the example of my predecessors in the most exalted manner.116 On the one hand, Aḥmad claims that he was predestined to succeed his father, and that he conducted the classes he inherited from him based on divine inspiration. On the other, he does not shy away from the fact that there were doubts about his capacity to succeed Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. Although he does not say so explicitly, it seems likely that the first class he taught was something of a test, one he was worried he would not pass. In another brief passage, shortly afterwards, however, he indicates that he received confirmation from the sultan for his new role. One of the blessings that God bestowed upon me is that I received the sultan’s gifts after my father, in the form of generous gifts of furs, caftans, and commands.117 This is the first acknowledgement in the literary sources that succession within the Bakrī lineage required official approval and that the lineage head could expect to receive official gifts as signs of his office. Since he also served as a judge and as state-appointed Shāfiʿī muftī of Egypt, he may have received these gifts as emblems of office. Interestingly, he does not mention the controversy over his father’s sudden demise and the murder of Ibrāhīm Pasha. What he really believed happened to his father one can only guess. Nor for the matter, does he mention his younger brothers, implicitly excluding them as candidates for the succession to Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn.

III. The Disciple ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanafī al-Rūmī al-Shādhilī al-Azharī was a disciple of Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Qāsim, a disciple of Muḥammad al-Bakrī, who is the source of many stories in the Bakrī hagiographical tradition, and was acquainted with Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn and Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī, presumably also as a disciple. Little is known

about him beyond what he reveals in the text, but he seems to have been the son of a religious scholar from Rūm who taught (or merely studied) at al-Azhar. His text, which he may have authored with his brother Mūrād Jāwīsh, is devoted to the merits of the Bakrīs, going as far back as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī, but it also contains a lot of general Shādhilī lore. Most importantly, it gives us a picture of the Bakrīs from the

116 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 137-138. 117 Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-Bakrī 2015: 138.

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point of view of a disciple, someone who was personally familiar with their milieu, yet at a certain distance from the centers of power and from a less well-educated point of view.118 The section in al-Rūmī’s work dealing with the succession to Muḥammad al-Bakrī occurs towards the end. He begins by relating the following anecdote. Then Sayyidī Muḥammad, may God have mercy on him, when he grew ill with the sickness from which he died and Exalted God informed him that he would die, gathered all of his five sons and bestowed upon each part of what was under his control, and it turned out as he said it would. He said to Tāj al-ʿĀrifīn, “You are the exegete of the house,” and he was the best exegete of his age in Quranic exegesis and he became very influential with the governor of Egypt, the chief judge, and lesser officials, but he died on the Hajj road and arrived dead in a litter. He was buried very near to his father’s shrine (mazār), and left behind neither son nor daughter, may God have mercy on him… He said to his son Abū al-Surūr, “You are the jurist of the house,” and it turned out as he said. He was esteemed, respected, honored and pre-eminent as an imām in law, indeed in other subjects, eloquent, and well-spoken in Arabic, virtuous, perfect, and highly learned. After his death, he left behind a son named Muḥammad, may God be pleased with him. At this moment, God has given him blessings, increased [wealth], knowledge, and gnosis, and he has written several chronicles of his time… He who leaves behind children has not died… He said to his third son, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, “You are the holy fool of this house,” and it turned out as he said. God fulfilled his wish in giving him to them. This is one of his unique qualities; it did not happen to any other saint in Egypt, before or afterwards. He said to his son, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, may God have mercy on him, “You are the Sufi of this house,” and he spat some of his noble saliva into his mouth. With this spitting, he caused him to have no need of any of the scholars in the world, east or west, and he taught him the Greatest Name, as several people have quoted him as saying. It is said that one of the axial saints asked God to make his son his heir as axial saint after he was gone. He heard a voice say, “Inheritance only applies to property; this is one of our special gifts which we give to those of our servants whom we wish.” He could only remain silent. He said to Abū al-Mawāhib, “You will be master after the age of forty,” and it turned just as he said, as we will mention in his biographical entry. It is said that Abū al-Mawāhib received 13,000 dīnārs per year, not counting what he received in stipends [or] what Exalted God caused to be owed to him in zakāt. He was the most generous person of his time; it was as if he were the Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī of his age.119

118 For more details, see the introduction to al-Rūmī 2015. 119 al-Rūmī 2015: 365-366. Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī was a figure renowned for his generosity.

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The sources of al-Rūmī’s material are often unknown, but we may assume that he goes beyond the written tradition of the lineage’s hagiography and includes oral traditions that circulated within the household and religious community financially supported and led by the Bakrīs. The idea that Muḥammad al-Bakrī, as the axial and universal saint, divided his powers between his sons allows al-Rūmī to avoid the whole problem of a succession dispute. He clearly identifies Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn as the spiritual successor to Muḥammad, which in turn validates Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn as the current head of the lineage. Nonetheless, he manages to find a place even for Ibn Abī al-Surūr al-Bakrī as a learned scholar of history. In his section devoted to Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, al-Rūmī begins by identifying him as “our shaykh, (…) the absolute best of his Age according to the other leading scholars (muḥaqqiqūn).”120 In another anecdote, he quotes Shaykh Sharīf al-Kātib, a holy fool, to the effect that as a child Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn would meet with the axial saint in one of Cairo’s garbage dumps. The saint predicted, “Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, the inheritance will be yours alone, not your brothers’, after your father’s death, and you will receive the great task.”121 This story is unlikely to have made it into the official canon of Bakrī miracles, if only because it contradicts the well-established tradition that Muḥammad al-Bakrī was himself the axial saint. Nonetheless, it provides evidence for an oral tradition that Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was superior to his brothers and chosen by God to occupy a unique spiritual station. Al-Rūmī recounts the death of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn in A.H. 1013, noting the “disagreement concerning the cause of his death.122 In one version, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn is poisoned by one of Ibrāhīm Pasha’s mamlūks. In another version, he seems to suffer heart trouble. Al-Rūmī suggests that “perhaps the first is more accurate, as is said.”123 He also relates a rumor that circulated in Cairo that after Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s death a leading scholar had a dream in which he saw Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq brandishing a naked sword. When the scholar asked Abū Bakr what he wanted, he replied, “I want to kill this rebel Ibrāhīm who murdered my son.”124 A few days later, the army rose against Ibrāhīm Pasha and killed him, an unprecedented fate for a governor of Egypt. Al-Rumī goes on to provide biographical entries for a number of members of the Bakrī lineage, including Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s brother Abū al-Mawāhib and his son Aḥmad. He notes that Muḥammad al-Bakrī’s prophecy was fulfilled when Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was martyred.125 Although al-Rūmī does not designate Abū al-Mawāhib as Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s spiritual successor, he does say that “after the death of his brother, he took over the leadership (riʾāsa) in Egypt.”126 In particular, he goes on to praise Abū al-Mawāhib’s extraordinary wealth and generosity.127

120 al-Rūmī 2015: 373. 121 al-Rūmī 2015: 379. 122 al-Rūmī 2015: 383. 123 al-Rūmī 2015: 383. 124 al-Rūmī 2015: 384. 125 al-Rūmī 2015: 386. 126 al-Rūmī 2015: 386. 127 al-Rūmī 2015: 386.

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Next, al-Rūmī comes to Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. In spite of his praise of Abū al-Mawāhib, he makes it clear that Aḥmad succeeded his father in spiritual matters. His father, may God have mercy on him, gazed upon him before his death, and asked God to make him his successor when he was gone. In general, he revived his father’s place, and he took over the leadership after his paternal uncle’s death, may God have mercy on him. He came to be loved by the whole world, respected, obeyed, and sacrosanct in Cairo and its surroundings.128 He goes on to speculate that Aḥmad received some of his father’s learning and good conduct, which is only to be expected from the descendants of [Abū Bakr] al-Ṣiddīq, in whose house the essence (sirr) remains exclusively “even if there is [only] a daughter. God forbid that this essence should be stripped from this house, [since this is] a miracle of al-Ṣiddīq, may God have mercy on him.”129 Two themes that appear in the hagiographical works deserve further note. One is the intertextual relationship with the biographical or “historical” tradition. The most obvious case of this intertextuality is the story of the untimely death of Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn and the murder of Ibrāhīm Pasha. It is unclear whether al-Rūmī, for example, had access to al-Ghazzī’s work, or whether they independently reported oral traditions about these events. Both sets of writers were familiar with Ibn Abī al-Surūr’s “historical writings,” but it is unclear how widely read his hagiographical work was outside of Bakrī circles. The second theme is the distinction between khilāfa, religious leadership, and riʾāsa, leadership in a worldly sense. This implicit distinction allows the hagiographers to portray Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn as the immediate spiritual successor to his father and Aḥmad as his successor, while accommodating the well-known fact that Abū al-Mawāhib dominated the lineage’s affairs, especially after Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s death. The Bakrīs presided over an enterprise that was both spiritual and worldly at the same time, which made it possible to narrate an unbroken chain of spiritual succession while recognizing that worldly affairs were dealt with by a different member of the lineage.

IV. Narrating Succession We have identified two genres for narrating succession in a sacred lineage in the seventeenth century. The first, the genre of scholarly biography, does not take the question of succession for granted. The authors of biographical dictionaries were not necessarily convinced that any of the five sons of Muḥammad al-Bakrī was fit to fill his rather large shoes. They found fault to a greater or lesser degree with each. In particular, the Bakrīs’ wealth and political ambitions provoked criticism within their own lifetimes. Over the course of the seventeenth century, biographers became more tolerant of the Bakrīs’ worldly success. In part, this development reflects the changing 128 al-Rūmī 2015: 391. 129 al-Rūmī 2015: 391-392.

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structure of the Ottoman ʿulamāʾ during that period.130 As scholarly dynasties came to dominate many parts of Ottoman officialdom, the criticism that the sons failed to live up their father’s reputation became increasingly impolitic. Furthermore, the success of the Bakrīs in reproducing their wealth and political prominence from one generation to another became self-validating. How could one explain such unbroken success without reference to divine favor? The tendency to validate inherited wealth and status through divine favor was widespread in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century. It is most prominent, however, in the hagiographical literature intended first and foremost for the religious community of disciples. In this literature, disputes over succession are almost entirely glossed over or are resolved miraculously and reflect divine providence. A universal saint like Muḥammad al-Bakrī could divide his numerous gifts between his various sons, each of whom was destined to play a more limited role. Hagiographers could even assert that the office of axial saint was hereditary within a certain lineage. Unlike the authority enjoyed by Muḥammad al-Bakrī, however, it is unclear how widely recognized such a claim would have been. Nonetheless, the Bakrīs, often paired with their counterparts al-Sādāt al-Wafāʾiyya, continued to play a preeminent role among the Egyptian ʿulamāʾ well into the nineteenth century with the support of the Ottoman state. They could draw on the hagiographical texts as a resource to justify their lineage’s continued prominence and the recognition it received from Istanbul.

Bibliographical References 1.

Primary Sources

al-Bakrī, Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, Kitāb Qalāʾid al-minan wa faraʾid al-zaman, in Mustafa Mughazy and Adam Sabra (eds.), Manāqib al-Sāda al-Bakriyya, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 2015: 61-281. al-Bakrī, Ibn Abī al-Surūr, al-Kawkab al-durrī fī manāqib al-Ustādh al-Bakrī, in Mustafa Mughazy and Adam Sabra (eds.), Manāqib al-Sāda al-Bakriyya, Beirut: Dar elMachreq, 2015: 5-60. al-Bakrī, Ibn Abī al-Surūr, al-Minaḥ al-raḥmāniyya fī al-dawla al-ʿUthmaniyya wa-dhayluhu al-Laṭāʾif al-rabbāniyya ʿalā al-minaḥ al-raḥmaniyya, (ed.) Laylā al-Sabbāgh, Damascus: Dār al-Bashāʾir, 1995. al-Būrīnī, al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad, Tarājim al-aʻyān min abnā’ al-zamān, Damascus: alMajmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī, 1959-1963. al-Ghazzī, Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, Luṭf al-samar wa-qaṭf al-thamar min tarājim aʻyān al-ṭabaqa al-ūlā min al-qarn al-ḥādī ʻashara, Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa-al-Irshād al-Qawmī, 1981-1982. al-Ḥamawī, Muṣṭafā ibn Fatḥ Allāh, Fawā’id al-irtiḥāl wa-natā’ij al-safar fī akhbār al-qarn al-ḥādī ʻashar, Beirut: Dār al-Nawādir, 2011. 130 For more on this development emphasizing imperial careers, see Tezcan 2009 and Zilfi 1988.

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al-Muḥibbī, Muḥammad Amīn ibn Faḍl Allāh, Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʻyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʻashar, Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1960. al-Ḥalabī, al-Shāfiʿī, ʿAlī ibn Burhān al-Dīn, Insān al-ʿuyūn fī sīrat al-amīn al-maʾmūn almaʿrūf bi-l-Sīra al-ḥalabiyya, Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Azhariyya, 1932. al-Rūmī al-Shādhilī al-Azharī, ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanafī, Nismat al-nafaḥāt al-miskiyya fi dhikr baʿḍ min manāqib al-Sādāt al-Bakriyya also known as Laṭā’if al-minan fi dhikr manāqib al-Sāda al-Bakriyya wa dhikr manāqib abīhim, in Mustafa Mughazy and Adam Sabra (eds.), Manāqib al-Sāda al-Bakriyya, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 2015: 283-396. al-Ṭālawī al-Artuqī al-Dimashqī, Darwīsh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Sāniḥāt dumā al-qaṣr fī muṭāraḥāt banī al-ʿaṣr, Beirut: ʿAlam al-Kutub, 1983. al-ʿUrḍī, Abū al-Wafāʾ b. ʿUmar, Maʿādin al-dhahab fī al-aʿyān al-musharrafa bihim Ḥalab, Kuwait: Maktabat Dār al-ʿUrūba lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 1987. Egyptian National Archives, Taqārīr al-Naẓar, daftar 3, ṣafḥa 7, mādda 78. 2.

Secondary Literature

Brockelmann, Carl, “al-Muḥibbī,” in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, (eds.) P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. Consulted online 06/09/2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5431 First published online: 2012. Cooperson, Michael, Classical Arabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of alMaʾmūn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. El-Rouayheb, Khaled, “al-Burini, Hasan b. Muhammad,” https://ottomanhistorians. uchicago.edu/, eds. C. Kafadar, H. Karateke, and C. Fleischer (Makaleye erişim tarihi / Consulted online 06/09/2018) Fück, J. W., “al-Ḥalabī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, (eds.) P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs. Consulted online 30/08/2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_2643 First published online: 2012. Geoffroy, Eric, Le soufisme en Egypte et en Syrie sous les derniers Mamelouks et les premiers Ottomans: orientations spirituelles et enjeux culturels, Damascus: Institut français d’études arabes, 1995. Grill, Denis, “The Prophetic Model of the Spiritual Master in Islam,” in Jean-Louis Michon and Roger Gaetani (eds.), Sufism: Love and Wisdom, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2006: 63-87. Hathaway, Jane with Karl. K. Barbir, The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, London & New York: Routledge, 2008. Robinson, Cynthia, In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in Al-Andalus and Provence, 1005-1134 A.D., Leiden: Brill, 2002. Sabra, Adam, “Autobiography and Family History in Seventeenth-Century Egypt: Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn’s Qalāʾid al-minan wa farāʾid al-zaman,” in Nasser Ahmed Ibrahim

narrating a lineage’s transition crisis between biography and hagiography

(ed.), Objectivity and Subjectivity in the Historiography of Egypt: In Honour of Nelly Hanna. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Association, 2012: 46-72. Sabra, Adam, “Building a Family Shrine in Ottoman Cairo,” in Sabine Schmidtke (ed.), Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 19352018. Princeton: Gorgias Press, 2018: 436-441. Sabra, Adam, “Household Sufism in Sixteenth-Century Egypt: The Rise of al-Sâda alBakrîya,” in Rachida Chih and Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen (eds.), Le soufisme à l’époque ottomane, xvie-xviiie siècle = Sufism in the Ottoman Era, 16th-18th century, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 2010: 101-118. Tezcan, Baki, “The Ottoman Mevali as ‘Lords of the Law’,” Journal of Islamic Studies 20/3 (2009): 383-407. Winter, Michael, “Najmuddin Muhammad b. Muhammad,” https://ottomanhistorians. uchicago.edu/, eds. C. Kafadar, H. Karateke, and C. Fleischer (Makaleye erişim tarihi / Consulted online 06/09/2018). Zilfi, Madeline, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600-1800), Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988.

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Alberto Tiburcio

Converts and Polemicists as Bridges in Knowledge Networks The Case of Safavid Iran*

While the study of interreligious polemics and conversion narratives is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, questions regarding the dynamics of their transmission and circulation have seldom been the main focus of inquiry. Most research has centred on their role in shaping (or reacting to) societal phenomena of interreligious and communal relations.1 Studies that have valorised polemics as intellectual history in its own right, like those by Diego Sarrió Cucarella, Gabriel Said Reynolds, and Lejla Demiri have examined the intellectual upbringing of specific polemicists and to a certain extent the institutional apparatus that facilitated the circulation of their works.2 The present study, however, intends to take a different approach by considering other often overlooked aspects of the genre: to begin with, polemics are, despite their characteristically confrontational nature, intellectual bridges that connect cultural frameworks of reference and worldviews. To engage the religion of the other, polemicists needed to acquire at least a basic knowledge of the competing tradition. This of course did not preclude misrepresentation; on the contrary, misrepresentation was always the rule,3 but even this needed to be anchored in factual knowledge, however basic or flawed. This being the case, it is hardly surprising that converts played a pivotal role in the development of the genre: converts with scholarly training could boast their erudite knowledge of the scriptural traditions at both ends of their spiritual journey, while convert laymen could at the very least count on experiential knowledge of different forms of popular piety. This brings us to the second and more sociological



* I would like to thank the ANR-DFG DYNTRAN (Dynamics of Transmission) project for the opportunity it gave me to work on this and other publications during my stay at the Philipps-Universität Marburg as a postdoctoral fellow (2016-2018). 1 For examples of the Ottoman period, see Krstic 2011; Baer 2008; for examples on Moriscos, see García-Arenal 2001. 2 Sarrió Cucarella 2014; Said Reynolds 2004; Demiri 2013. 3 For a classical example of a pattern of intentional misrepresentation of Christianity in Islamic polemics, see Lazarus-Yafeh 1992: 124-125. Alberto Tiburcio  •  Bard College Berlin Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 65-86 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122931

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aspect of polemics with which this paper is concerned: in addition to connecting opposing religious worldviews through the contents of their works, polemicists in general, and convert-polemicists in particular, functioned as links between networks of religious authority and transmission of knowledge, like those comprised by the ʿulamāʾ or the missionary orders. These two aspects of interreligious debates will constitute the focus of this paper, using polemics in Safavid Iran (907-1135/1501-1722) as a case study.

I.

Converts, Polemicists, and Scriptural Translations

One of the most defining factors of change in the history of Muslim-Christian polemics from the classical to the post-Mongol and early modern periods was the expansion of the availability of biblical translations in the Muslim world. Although the question of how rapidly and how widely these translations circulated is one that will likely occupy scholars for years to come, their impact in the development of interreligious debates cannot be overstated. The major characteristic of Islamic anti-Christian polemics, represented by the genre of dalāʾil al-nubuwwa (signs of the prophecy), is their use of biblical quotations as proofs of the veracity of Islam, which would have been, according to this narrative, subjected to omission or falsification (taḥrīf) by Christians. While there are fragments of Arabic Bible translations from as early as the ninth century AD, the scholary consensus suggests that early Muslim exponents of the genre, like Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), did not have access to full biblical translations into Arabic, let alone training in relevant languages. This continued to be the case throughout most of the classical period, which explains why polemicists repeated the same pool of biblical quotations throughout generations.4 Early convert-polemicists like ʿAlī b. Rabbān al-Ṭabarī (d. 256/870) or later Samawʾal al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) were of course exceptions in this regard, as they could incorporate their knowledge of biblical sources into their works.5 As biblical translations were produced and became more available, both Muslim-born scholars and converts were able to engage the Bible directly and diversify their sources and their pool of citations. This did not mean, however, that biblical quotations which by then have become established as common tropes of the genre were abandoned, as many passages and themes continued to be used well into the modern era.6 Nor did the availability of translations threaten the dominant status of converts in the history of polemics: the Tuḥfat al-arīb fī-l-radd ʿalā ahl al-ṣalīb (The Gift to the Intelligent for Refuting the Arguments of the Christians) written by the Majorcan Anselm Turmeda, or ʿAbdallāh al-Tarjumān after conversion (d. 826/1423), became one of the classical referents of dalāʾil literature. Converts also



4 Lazarus-Yafeh 1992: 112-114, 118; Griffith 2013: 179-182. For an overview of the history of early biblical translations into Arabic, see Griffith 2013: 97-106; Vollandt 2015: 40-60. 5 Yafeh 1992: 99-100; Vollandt 2015: 91-92, 97-98. 6 For pools of citations see Schmidtke 2011: 254-260; Halft 2016: 209-240; Halft 2013: 245-248; Said Reynolds 2004: 267-281; Sarrió Cucarella 2014: 346-349; Demiri 213: 536-540.

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led the development of this genre in the Ottoman Empire, through the works of the Hungarian renegades Murād b. ʿAbdallāh (d. ca 994/1586) and Ibrāhīm Müteferrika (d. 1160/1747).7 And likewise, as we will see shortly, one of the major contributors to this tradition in Safavid Iran was the Augustinian missionary renegade António de Jesus, known to posterity by his Muslim name, ʿAlī-Qulī Jadīd al-Islām (d. 1146/1734).8

II. Circulation of Translations and Polemics in Iran and beyond The circulation of Arabic Bibles and the production of translations into other languages of the Islamic world was by no means an exclusively Iranian phenomenon in the early modern period. It was also around this time that European missionaries and scholars were competing to elaborate Ottoman Turkish Bibles with the intention of offering them to Sultan Mehmet IV (r. 1058-1099/1648-1687).9 However, should we choose to trust the assertion of European travellers, one thing would have made the Iranian case more unique, namely the openness of court dignitaries and the ʿulamāʾ to engage Christian missionaries in theological discussions.10 Up to the time of Akbar the Great (r. 963-1014/1556-1605) Mughal India was also considered as a beacon of tolerance and scholarly encounter, with theologians of different religions being patronised to produce biblical translations and allowed, in some case, to write highly militant Christian apologetics, as will be seen shortly. However, aside from this exception and in comparison with the Ottoman case, it is indeed fair to say that the Shīʿī Iranian milieu was more conducive to intellectual debates between ʿulamāʾ and missionaries. Since at least the beginning of the seventeenth century, Catholic missionaries played a major role in the dissemination of Bible translations as well as Christian apologetics in Iran, while the ʿulamāʾ played a complementary — but by no means passive — role in their reception and engagement. At different moments, exemplars of both integral and abridged Bibles found their way to Iran, often as gifts from



7 Krstic 2011: 79-82, 98-110. 8 For documents on his conversion, see Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide: Fondo di Persia, Messopotamia e i Caldei, vol. 2, ff. 219. For more on his life, see Anonymous 1939: I, 484-486; Aubin 1971: 84-87; Manucci 1907: II, 403-404. For the newest findings on biographical data, see Windler 2018: 272-282. For other studies, see Richard 1984: 74; Flannery 2013: 95-102; Pourjavady and Schmitdke 2009; Tiburcio 2014: 17-18; Tiburcio 2017c: 248-249. Regarding Jadīd al-Islām’s date of death, all older literature worked under the assumption that he might have died during the 1722 Afghan invasions. Based on newly found documentation by Willem Floor, we can now know for certain that Jadīd al-Islām’s passing occurred on 10 March 1734 (4th of Shawwāl 1146): Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East India Company), 2323, Extract uyt 'tSpahan dagregister (extract from the Isfahan factory diary), 11 September 1733 to 15 July 1734, f. 973. I thank Willem Floor for providing this information to me. See also Tiburcio 2020: 9-10. 9 For examples of a similar phenomenon involving Bible translations and polemics in the Ottoman Empire, see Malcolm 2007b: 477-478; Malcolm 2007a: 328-331. 10 Consider, for example, the testimony of Nicolao Manucci (d. 1717); see Manucci 1907: I, 41. See also Wilson 1925: 687.

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diplomatic missions. Notable cases included an illustrated Bible given by Cardinal Bernard Maciejowski of Cracow (d. 1608) to Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 996-1038/1587-1629) on behalf of Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587-1632) and an illustrated parchment of the Old Testament offered by the Carmelite Juan Tadeo de San Eliseo (d. 1634) on behalf of Pope Clement VIII (papacy, 1592-1605).11 However, two biblical editions had a wider impact in the history of biblical reception in this period, as a study by Dennis Halft has demonstrated. The first one was the Medici edition of an Arabic Vulgate published in Rome under the auspices of Giovanni Battista Raimondi (d. 1614), the founder of the Oriental Typography in Rome.12 This became the Bible used by most of the Iranian ʿulamāʾ interested in theological disputations throughout most of the 1600s.13 During the last decades of the century, however, it was superseded by the Biblia Sacra Arabica, a product of a collective project sponsored by the congregation of Propaganda Fide which had begun under the supervision of the Maronite Sarkīs b. al-Rizzī (d. 1638) in the 1620s but was completed long after his death, between 1671 and 1673.14 As with the Medici edition of the Roman Arabic Vulgate — to use Halft’s term15 — the Biblia Sacra Arabica would also become a major tool for polemical writing. Reports from European chronicles suggest that interreligious theological debates were more widespread than actual surviving polemical works would have us think. At different periods, travellers like Jean Chardin (d. 1713) and Nicolas Sanson (d. after 1695) described debates taking place in public and made references to the contents of theological disputations, without necessarily referencing any concrete treatises or disputations.16 One cycle, however, was essential to the development of the genre in Iran. This was the one triggered by a work from the Navarran Jesuit Jerónimo de Ezpeleta y Goñi (d. 1617) — known by his priestly name Jerome Xavier — , who enjoyed Akbar’s patronage, and who produced various works of missionary nature in Persian language, including a copy of an earlier Persian translation of the Bible, produced in collaboration with courtly scholars.17 His work Ᾱʾina-yi ḥaqq-numā (The Truth-Reflecting Mirror), which he completed around 1609 and which was the Persian version of his own 1597 apologetic defence of Christianity Fuente de Vida (Fountain of Life), was brought to Iran by Carmelites missionaries.18 Aḥmad b. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn al-ʿAlavī al-ʿĀmilī (d. ca. 1060/1650), at the time a prayer leader (pīsh-namāz) in Isfahan, had access to an abridged version of this book of which he then wrote a refutation entitled Miṣqal-i ṣafā (Burnisher of Purity).19 Prior to this,

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Ometto 2002: 61 Halft 2016: 43-48; Pizzorusso 2010: 249-250; Pizzorusso 2009: 257-258. Halft 2016: 69-71. Halft 2016: 172-175. For details in the history of the Biblia Sacra Arabica, see Vollandt 2013: 413-414. Halft 2016: 65. For examples, see Chardin 1811: VI, 284-285; Sanson 1695: 203. Gulbenkian 1981: 29-32; Alam and Subrahmanyam 2009: 468-469. For a modern edition of this work, see Xavier 2017. For details on the elaboration of this work, see Camps 1957: 16-19; Gulbenkian 1981: 26-28; Alam and Subrahmanyam 2009: 466-468; for the arrival of this work in Iran, see Halft 2016: 123-125. 19 Halft 2016: 121-122; see also Ha’iri 1993: 155-157.

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al-ʿAlavī had written another treatise called Lavāmiʿ-yi rabbānī dar radd-i shubah-i Naṣrānī (Divine Clarifications for the Confutation of Christian Doubts), in response to an anti-Muslim piece written by the traveller Pietro Della Valle (d. 1652).20 This in turn was brought to Rome, where it was refuted, among others, by Filippo Guadagnoli (d. 1656), by then an accomplished scholar linked to various projects of Arabic translations and language instruction at the congregation of Propaganda Fide.21 Guadagnoli’s refutation of the Miṣqāl-i ṣafā was titled Apologia pro Christiana Religione and was first published in Latin 1631, and then translated into Arabic and printed in two subsequent editions in 1637 and 1649. Slight adjustments were made to the latter edition to make it more palatable for missionary use.22 Finally, Guadagnoli’s Apologia was the target of a counter-refutation by the aforementioned convert ʿAlīQulī Jadīd al-Islām, who worked as a translator at the court of Shāh Sulṭān-Ḥusayn (r. 1105-1135/1694-1722). This treatise was called Sayf al-mūʾminīn fī qitāl al-mushrikīn (The Sword of the Faithful to Fight the Idolaters).23 This was not Jadīd al-Islām’s first work of this kind, since he had written before another apologetic work called Hidāyat al-żāllīn (The Guide of Those Who Were Led Astray).24 The two aforementioned Arabic biblical editions were of pivotal importance in the development of these and other related works. The Roman Arabic Vulgate was used by al-ʿAlavī and was later the source of a translation of the Gospels into Persian by Muḥammad Bāqir Khātūnābādī (d. 1127/1715), who served as mullā-bāshī (chief scholar) under Shāh Sulṭān-Ḥusayn.25 The Biblia Sacra, in collation with the canonical Latin Vulgate of Saint Jerome (d. 420), was used by Jadīd al-Islām in his Sayf al-mūʾminīn, which included a critical commentary and translation of the Pentateuch.26 However, while these two translation projects were sponsored by Shāh Sulṭān-Ḥusayn, it is unclear whether they were conceived in coordination as part of a greater collaborative project. In addition to this cycle, another scholar by the name of Ẓahīr al-Dīn Tafrishī (d. before 1114/1702) played a major role in polemics, using the Roman Arabic Vulgate as his main source for biblical quotations. His Nuṣrat al-ḥaqq (The Triumph of the Truth), which he first wrote in Arabic and then rendered into Persian, was a response to arguments by the French Capuchin Gabriel de Chinon (d. 1668).27 Later in the eighteenth century, the famous traveller and historian Shaykh ʿAlī Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī (d. 1180/1766) wrote a short piece by the title of Risāla dar bashārātī bā ẓuhūr-i haẓrat-i khatm al-anbiyāʾ az kutub-i āsimānī (Treatise on the

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Ometto 2002: 60; Halft 2016: 88; Halft 2017: 518-520. Pizzorusso 2010: 253-254; see also García-Arenal and Mediano 2013: 31; Girard 2017: 195-196. Pizzorusso 2010: 263-266; Trentini 2010: 300; Heyberger 2012: 505-507; Tiburcio 2017b: 750, 753-754. For a modern edition of this work, see Jadīd al-Islām 1996-1997; see also Richard 1984: 77-79; Jaʿfariyān 1996-1997: 30-34; Flannery 2013: 99-102; Tiburcio 2014: 50-51; Tiburcio 2017c: 255-256. Jadīd al-Islām, MS 2089; Pourjavady and Schmidtke 2009; Ja ʿ fariyān 1996-7: 26-29; Richard 1984: 75. Halft 2016: 96-97; 169 209-231. For an edited version, see Khātūnābādī 1384sh./2005. For more on Khātūnābādī’s translation and work, see Ometto 2002: 55-72; Moazzem 2016: 67. The identification was made by Ja ʿ fariyān, see Ja ʿ fariyān 2000-1: III, 1017; see also Halft 2016: 172-173. Richard 1982: 353-355. For a recent edition of the Persian version, see Tafrishī 2011; for studies on this, see Rashtiyānī 2011: 1224-1244; Halft 2016: 143-152, 232-238.

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Good Tidings of the Appearance of the Seal of the Prophets from the Holy Books), which is thematically similar to the abovementioned works, albeit of a much shorter length and scope. This piece, too, makes reference to an Arabic version of the Bible, and although to my knowledge the source he used has not been identified with certitude, it is likely that it was also the Biblia Sacra.28 For the purpose of internal unity and coherence, however, I will concentrate mostly on the participants of the previous cycle, with special emphasis on the figure of Jadīd al-Islām.

III. Institutional Networks of Knowledge and Authority From a structural point of view, the circulation of polemics depended on the interaction between two highly hierarchical knowledge networks: the missionaries and the ʿulamāʾ. Both of these enabled their participants to acquire religious authority through the vertical (diachronic) transmission of texts and scholarly training. The first of them, the missionary orders, functioned as an institutional substitute of family structures, through which its members gained access to networks of training and patronage and were invested with moral authority. However, it would be misleading to think of the orders as a united and monolithic group. To begin with, it is important to note that although at many instances missionaries did harbour hopes of converting the Shah or attracting adepts among the Muslim population, their activities were primarily directed towards bringing Armenian Orthodox Christians under the tutelage of the Catholic Church.29 At different times this too was a matter of controversy and, depending on the ever-changing geopolitical climate, missionaries were either favoured, tolerated, or repressed.30 But another primary function of the orders was to serve as diplomatic branches of various European powers, and as such, they were in constant competition with each other. The Augustinians, who were linked to Portugal, were successful in obtaining favours from the Shah during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, but were then temporarily expelled as were the Portuguese forces after Shāh ʿAbbās’s recapture of Hormuz in 1622.31 Already before that, in 1604, fears that the strong ties between the Augustinians and the Spanisch/Portuguese Crown could undermine the order’s loyalty to Rome had led Pope Clement VIII to dispatch the Carmelites to Iran, so that the latter would be accountable to the Pope alone.32 In 1628, the first French Capuchins arrived, sent by the newly founded congregation of Propaganda Fide and were thus also relatively autonomous from any power other than Rome, even if the most important branch of it was French.33 The order that

28 29 30 31 32 33

Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī 1377sh./1998: 107-123. Tiburcio 2020: 57.

Wilson 1925: 693-695; Flannery 2013: 135-147; Windler 2013: 508-510; Matthee 2015: 470-472. For a good overview, see Matthee 2005. Matthee 2012: 163; for a detailed chronicle of the mission, see Alonso 1973: 247-308; Flannery 2013: 53-68. Richard 1990b: IV, 832-834; Matthee 2010: 246. Richard 1990a: IV, 786-788.

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was most clearly associated with France as a diplomatic arm was that of the Jesuits, who arrived in Iran in the mid-seventeenth century. They soon became notable for their upfront approach to proselitysm. Although both Gabriel de Chinon, Tafrishī’s intellectual interlocutor, and Gabriel of Paris, another missionary actively involved in polemics, were Capuchin;34 as we will see shortly, the Jesuit Aimé Chézaud (d. 1664) also played a major role in polemics, engaging the ʿulamāʾ in public forums and writing treatises of his own.35 Finally, at the end of the century, the Augustinians regained a certain degree of influence with the short-lived attempt to form a Luso-Persian alliance against the Omani sultans in the Persian Gulf.36 The rivalries between the orders did, at moments, lead to intense hostilities: towards the end of the seventeenth century, for example, the Bishop-elect of Babylon, Louis Marie Pidou de Saint Olon (d. 1717), requested the King of Portugal to withdraw his support from the Augustinians. He recommended the employment of secular personnel, following the example of the Dutch and the English. As a reason he cited the blatant indiscipline within the order, with two cases of apostasy to account for, with Jadīd al-Islām’s being one of them.37 Also, in 1706 a priest from the order of Santa Sabina regretted that the Jesuits wanted their church to be considered the official parish in the Armenian quarter of New Julfa in Isfahan, in detriment of all other orders.38 Beyond these quarrels, however, missionaries of different affiliations did cooperate on many occasions. For example, even when the Carmelites were initially sent to neutralise the political influence of Portugal through the Augustinians, it was through the intercession of the latter that they obtained a house to establish their mission.39 Likewise, the Carmelites hosted Aimé Chézaud temporarily when his retinue was expelled from New Julfa after an altercation with an Armenian Orthodox bishop who accused him of trying to convert Muslims.40 Francis Richard has suggested that it was probably also during his stay among the Carmelites that Chézaud gained access to a copy of the Miṣqāl-i ṣafā. This serendipitous discovery lead to the composition of his own rebuttal of al-ʿAlavī, entitled the Masḥ-i miṣqāl-i ṣafā-yi āʾina-yi ḥaqq-numā (Wiping of the Burnisher of Purity of the Truth-reflecting Mirror), which was essentially a Persian version of Guadagnoli’s Apologia.41 Thus overall, Christian Windler’s assertion regarding Catholic and Protestant missions in the post-Safavid period may also hold true for the interaction between the Catholic orders in this period, albeit with some nuance: “the hostility of the Muslim surrounding allowed people to come together, who would have been separated in Europe due

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Richard 1980: 340-348. Wilson 1925: 693-701; see also Ha’iri 1993: 153; Matthee 2008: XIV, 634-638; Matthee 2015: 468-70. Aubin 1971: 16. Propaganda Fide: II, ff. 219. Propaganda Fide: II, ff. 490. Tiburcio 2020: 24. Windler 2013: 511-512. Matthee 2015: 471. Richard 2005-2006: 13-14; Jaʿfariyān and Ṣādiqī 2016: 50-51; Ha’iri 1993: 157-158; Tiburcio 2017a: 595-597.

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to confessional differences.”42 While confessional boundaries were of course not a factor among the Catholic orders, they too had group loyalties to overcome in order to circumvent repression and scapegoating. In any case, beyond the dynamics of occasional rivalry and cooperation, missionary orders were able to build effective institutions in the diaspora, including an important library collection in situ for most of the second half of Safavid history.43 They also benefitted from the institutional backing of Rome, through the congregation of Propaganda Fide, of which we will speak in more detail later. The foundation of the latter in 1622 provided the missionaries with the needed linguistic expertise, while missionaries with previous experience on the ground were reassigned to other missions where their skills were required. The case of Chézaud is again relevant, since he served in Aleppo before being appointed to the mission in Iran in 1652.44 This institutional background, thus, was the main factor of knowledge transmission within our first network group. As for our second network, the ʿulamāʾ, transmission of knowledge and authority among them ran through family ties in a more literal sense. This of course did not mean that institutions were non-existent or weak. On the contrary, seventeenth-century Isfahan was notable for the development of madrasas that hosted some of the most important minds of the early modern Muslim world. However, the well-known lack of a Church structure in Islam, as well as the obvious fact of the absence of celibacy vows, allowed for the formation of scholarly dynasties. In addition, other kinds of kin relations were also important. For instance, the nisba al-ʿᾹmilī, bore by Aḥmad al-ʿAlavī, made reference to the region of Jābal ʿᾹmil in today’s southern Lebanon. This region had a special status in Twelver scholarly circles at the time, since it was from there that legally trained Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ were recruited for most of the sixteenth century with the purpose of institutionalising sharīʿa-minded Shīʿism in Iran.45 The nisba continued to be associated with high prestige among Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ even in later periods, to the point of developing a sort of self-consciousness among the ʿᾹmilīs, as attested by the biographical dictionary Ᾱmal al-āmil fī ʿulamāʾ Jābil ʿᾹmil (The Works of the Workers among the Scholars of Jabal ʿᾹmil) by the famous jurist al-Ḥurr al-ʿᾹmilī (d. 1104/1693).46 Of the major polemicists hereto referred, Aḥmad al-ʿAlavī counted among his teachers his father-in-law, the famous philosopher Muḥammad Bāqir Astarābādī, better known as Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631), as well as the renowned jurist Shaykh Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿᾹmilī (d. 1030/1621), the Shaykh al-Islām of Isfahan under Shāh ʿAbbās I.47 Khātūnābādī too was nurtured in an influential scholarly family. His father Mīr Muḥammad Ismāʿīl was a prominent teacher at the ʿAbbasī Mosque in Isfahan and had a prolific scholarly production that ranged from commentaries 42 “Die Fremdheit der muslimischen Umgebung ließ Menschen zusammenrücken, die in Europa durch den Konfessionsunterschied voneinander getrennt wären.” See Windler 2010: 197. 43 Carnoy-Torabi 2008. 44 Matthee 2015: 468-470. 45 Abisaab 2004: 7-15. 46 Al-ʿᾹmilī 1965. 47 Halft 2016: 100-102.

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on Shīʿī hadith to philosophy and anti-Sufi treatises.48 As for Jadīd al-Islām, little is known about his training in traditional Islamic disciplines after his conversion. Some clues can of course be extracted from the contents of his works. We know, however, from his introduction to the Sayf al-mūʾminīn that he was in contact with the famous mujtahid, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Iṣfahānī, better known as Fāżil-i Hindī (d. 1137/1724-5), because it was partly through his encouragement that he decided to write this treatise.49

IV. Cross-Network Transmission While these networks were essential for the internal transmission of knowledge within their respective traditions, their internal dynamics were unevenly conducive to the acquisition of knowledge of the religion of the other, and thus to the writing of polemics. Missionaries, by their very nature, were of course obliged to develop institutional structures for this purpose. In the case of the elaboration of the Christian apologetics and biblical translations with which we are concerned, the foundation of the Propaganda Fide in 1622 provided this institutional framework through patronage and language instruction. Two internal networks played a pivotal role in the early decades after the foundation of the Propaganda Fide, namely the Clerics Regular Minor, known as the Caracciolini after their founder Francesco Caracciolo (d. 1608), and the Christian Maronites of the Levant. The former were entrusted with the teaching of Oriental languages, since they had already developed an expertise in this area through their school of Oriental languages in Sant’Agnese in Agone, founded in 1595.50 As a member of this order, Guadagnoli was trained in Arabic by Francesco Martellotto di Martinafranca (d. 1618), himself a disciple of Raimondi, the editor of the Roman Arabic Vulgate. Under Martellotto’s tutelage, Guadagnoli also had the opportunity to participate in other scholarly projects like the elaboration of Arabic grammars.51 As for the Christian Maronites, they were instrumental in the development of language instruction in the congregation. As was mentioned before, Sarkīs b. al-Rizzī was in charge of supervising the compilation and collation of manuscripts for the Biblia Sacra Arabica, for which he recruited Guadagnoli among the experts in charge of the project.52 After Rizzī’s death, his role was overtaken by another Maronite, Abraham Ecchellensis or Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāqilānī (d. 1664), who would later become also one of the harshest critics of Guadagnoli’s Arabic version of the Apologia.53 The link between them had yet another layer, as Guadagnoli would replace Ecchellensis 48 Moazzem 2016: 66. 49 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 57; Abisaab 2013. In other aspects of his work, Jadīd al-Islām demonstrated familiarity with debates which were more mainstream among Shīʿī scholars of the late Safavid period, including the rejection of certain trends of philosophy and Sufism. See Rizvi 2015: 255-256. 50 Pizzorusso 2010: 249-250; Pizzorusso 2009: 257-258; Girard 2010: 279-280. 51 Pizzorusso 2010: 253-254; Girard 2010: 280-281; Girard 2017: 196. 52 Vollandt 2013: 413-414. 53 Vollandt 2013: 413-414. For Ecchellensis’s criticism of the Apologia, see Pizzorusso 2010: 264-265.

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as Arabic teacher at La Sapienza in Rome.54 This network of expertise produced another distinguished member in the person of Ludovico Marracci (d. 1700), who translated the Qur’an into Latin.55 Marracci substituted Guadagnoli at La Sapienza and participated in a commission to examine the Arabic edition of the Apologia, the circulation of which had been momentarily halted by the Holy Office.56 In contrast with this powerful institutional infrastructure, the ʿulamāʾ lacked systematic avenues to acquire knowledge of Christianity, even at the times when translation and refutation projects were patronised by the court. To develop this expertise, they needed to establish channels to breach the boundaries between these networks. Aḥmad al-ʿAlavī, for example, got access to the Ᾱʾina-yi ḥaqq-numā through contact with an unknown ʿālim who had discovered it while teaching Arabic at the Carmelite convent.57 More enigmatic, yet seemingly important, was the role that al-ʿAlavī’s son Mīrzā Ḥabīb played in the transmission of these texts, to judge from the fact that Chézaud dedicated to him his aforementioned refutation of the Miṣqāl-i ṣafā.58 Khātūnābādī, while never having learned the languages of the original biblical sources, claimed to have consulted with experts in the matter and even temporarily hosted a priest to read the New Testament with him.59 Finally, Jadīd al-Islām had the advantage as a convert of being able to bring together his priestly instruction and his fledging expertise in Islamic sciences. And in addition to his relation with Fāżil-i Hindī, we know that prior to his conversion he engaged in uneasy exchanges with the Capuchin missionary Raphaël du Mans (d. 1696), whom he substituted as a court translator.60

V. Later Stages of Transmission and Tropes as Clues of Transmission As we have thus seen, Iranian polemicists from the Safavid period came into contact with their contemporary and near-contemporary intellectual nemeses through the bridging of knowledge networks in what could be described as horizontal transmission. However, once the works of a given generation acquired a certain status as classics of the genre, they were transmitted vertically, that is, through intergenerational teaching within the circles of the ʿulamāʾ. We know, for instance, that the influential Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (d. 1111/1699), himself the author of an anti-Jewish risāla,61 supported through an endowment (waqf) deed the teaching of al-ʿAlavī’s Lavāmiʿ-yi

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Pizzorusso 2010: 259. For a detailed study of his work, see Glei and Tottoli 2016: 15-43. Pizzorusso 2010: 267-270, 272. Halft 2010: 123-125. Richard 2005-2006: 13-14; Tiburcio 2017a: 596. Moazzem 2016: 69. Richard 1995: I, 131-132; Richard 1984: 74; Flannery 2013: 99. Majlisī (ed. Moreen) 1992.

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rabbānī in madrasas.62 And although it is hard to fully assess the scope of al-ʿAlavī and Jadīd al-Islām’s readership, they influenced polemical writings from the Qajar period (1193-1342/1779-1924) which were written in response to developments of their own time.63 For example, in an anti-Jewish and anti-Christian piece called Rādd-i shubahāt al-kuffār (Refutation of the Doubts of the Disbelievers), Ᾱqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī Kirmānshāhī (d. 1216/1801) quoted from Aḥmad al-ʿAlavī’s Lavāmiʿ-yi rabbānī and from Jadīd al-Islām’s Hidāyat al-żāllīn.64 Likewise, Mullā Aḥmad b. Mahdī al-Narāqī (d. 1245/1829) drew from Jadīd al-Islām’s Sayf al-mūʾminīn in his own Sayf al-umma va burhān al-milla (The Sword of the Community and the Proof of the Nation), itself a rebuttal against anti-Muslim writings from the British missionary Henry Martyn (d. 1812).65 Had these eighteenth/nineteenth century authors been exclusively concerned with refuting their contemporaries without any reference to a prior tradition beyond the sacred scriptures themselves, they would not have used the works of Safavid authors. This awareness of a living tradition of the genre by these Qajar authors forces us to ask whether Safavid polemicists related to the classics of dalāʾil literature in a similar way: were Aḥmad al-ʿAlavī or Jadīd al-Islām acquainted with the likes of Ibn Qutayba, Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba (d. 994/1064), ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī, or Anselm Turmeda? Since there are no explicit mentions of these or other authors in their works, this question could only be answered through an exhaustive comparison of contents, structure, and sources, the scope of which would surpass the aims of the present study. Further, even such a pursuit would not necessarily settle the issue: studies on Turmeda, for example, have pointed out similarities with ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī, thus triggering speculations about the possibility of Turmeda’s work being a forgery.66 A more modest approach to the question would then be to consider the persistence of the classical tropes of dalāʾil al-nubuwwa in the works of our authors. The most common of these is the trope of the Paraclete in the Gospel of John: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [Paraclete] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16: 7) (New International Version); which Christians interpreted as the Holy Spirit and Muslim polemicists as Muḥammad. This motif, first used in an Islamic context in Ibn Hishām’s (d. 218/ 833) reconstruction of Ibn Isḥāq’s (d. ca 150/767) al-Sīra al-nabawwīya (The Biography of the Prophet), appears in al-ʿAlavī and Jadīd al-Islām’s treatises, as well as

62 Halft 2016: 120. 63 For an overview of polemics in the Qajar period, see Amanat 2005. 64 For Bihbahānī’s use of al-ʿAlavī and Jadīd al-Islām, see Pourjavady and Schmidtke 2006: 85-86. For more on Bihbahānī and al-ʿAlavī, see Halft 2016: 120. For more on the Lavāmiʿ-yi rabbānī, see Halft 2010: 273-334; for Della Valle’s Risāla, see Halft 2017: 518-519. 65 For examples of Narāqī using the Sayf al-muʾminīn, see Narāqī 1385sh./2006-7: 313-319; for details on the circumstances of the composition of the Sayf al-burhān, see Amanat 2005: 256-258. See also Tiburcio 2020: 56. 66 Epalza 1994: 97.

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in Khātūnābādī’s biblical commentary and in Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī’s short risāla.67 This same theme appears in works of less scholarly nature, like in the autobiographical account of an Armenian merchant who converted to Islam in the 1670s.68 The fact that Chardin and Sanson also mention this same trope indicates that it had permeated the public sphere to the point to which scholars, and perhaps even laymen, could reference it without necessarily being aware of its entire genealogy.69 The same can be said to a certain extent of other tropes, although not all of them appeared necessarily in all the treatises. For instance, both Jadīd al-Islām and Khātūnābādī discuss questions of ritual impurity (najāsat).70 Further, Jadīd al-Islām devoted an important section of his work to discuss the figure of Melchizedek and his substitution of animal sacrifice by wine and bread.71 This same theme had been used in earlier dalāʾil al-nubuwwa works as an example of biblical tampering to justify the Eucharist.72 This too was common enough to merit being mentioned in Sanson’s travelogue.73 However, the fact that these motifs recur in different works does not necessarily mean that their treatment was exactly identical nor that there were no nuances or creative ways of reinterpreting classic themes. Pursuing a detailed comparison of the use of these tropes among our authors is also beyond the scope of this paper. However, one of them is of utmost importance, namely that of scriptural falsification (taḥrīf) by Christians. This too had a long standing in the genre, with two kinds of interpretations of it: taḥrīf al-maʿnā (falsification of the meaning) and taḥrīf al-naṣṣ (falsification of the text), depending on whether the polemicist in question placed the fault at the level of hermeneutics or at the level of text itself.74 Yet, not all authors provided a detailed theory of the historical (including mythical) origin of taḥrīf, and if they did, these did not always conform to the same narrative.75 One thing that seemed to have become more established in the early modern period, however, was precisely the attribution of the foundational moment of taḥrīf to the translation into vernaculars, which would seem to exculpate the original biblical source or at least to leave some ambiguity on that regard. This treatment of the theme can be found in the Ottoman Empire in the work of Murād b. ʿAbdallāh.76 In Iran, Jadīd al-Islām contributed to this trend by placing the blame firstly on the original assembly of the Septuagint under Ptolemy II Philadelphus 67 For the use of the Paraclete by Ibn Isḥāq, see Amir Moezzi 2018: 48; Lazarus-Yafeh 1992: 77-78; Griffith 2013: 179. For its use by al-ʿAlavī, see Halft 2016: 115. For its recurrence in other polemicists, see Jadīd al-Islam 1375sh./1996-7: 75, 124; Khātūnābādī 1384sh./2005: 277; Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī 1377sh./1998: 115. 68 Armānī 1388sh./2010: 62-63; for a study, see Tiburcio 2017d. 69 Chardin 1811: VI, 284-285; Sanson 1695: 203-204. 70 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 440-441; Khātūnābādī 1384sh./2005: 244. 71 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 243. 72 See Sarrió Cucarella 2014: 189-191. 73 Sanson 1695: 219. 74 For this theme in recent studies, see Demiri 2014: 33; Sarrió Cucarella 2014: 224; Said Reynolds 2004: 84. For comprehensive overviews on the matter, see Gaudeul and Caspar 1980: 61-104; Thomas 1996: 29-38. 75 Said Reynolds 2004: 86-88. 76 Krstic 2011: 84-85.

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(d. 246 BC), but more emphatically on the elaboration of the Latin Vulgate of Saint Jerome. He also reproached the translators of the sources of the Biblia Sacra Arabica for failing to mention that Saint Jerome himself confessed to never having mastered Hebrew and of having studied it only late in his life.77 This exact section of the Sayf al-mūʾminīn is referenced by Narāqī in his Sayf al-umma.78 This implies that either this genealogy of taḥrīf was considered novel enough to be quoted at large by Narāqī (as opposed to treating the subject of taḥrīf in a more general way), or that even if it was not novel, it was through Jadīd al-Islām’s work that Narāqī became acquainted with it. Further, the emphasis on the Vulgate of Saint Jerome is not insignificant coming from a former priest, given that the latter was the canonical translation of the Bible adopted by the Catholic Church during the Council of Trent (1545-1563). In another section of the Sayf al-mūʾminīn, Jadīd al-Islām makes a passing reference to Melchor Cano (d. 1560), a Spanish theologian who rejected the Trent consensus according to which the Vulgate could be used as a legitimate source to resolve disputations on matters of faith and custom, advocating instead the use of the original Hebrew and Greek sources.79 Thus, even if it would be a stretch to say that Jadīd al-Islām imported this intra-Catholic debate into Muslim apologetics, his approach to the subject could have plausibly been informed by it.

VI. Bridging Other Forms of Knowledge In addition to the themes and materials specific to the genre of polemics, including of course the biblical translations themselves, polemics of this period indirectly contributed to the propagation of other kinds of knowledge, which despite having been already available to scholars, were not necessarily used in the same circles or in the same kinds of discussions. In this sense, the work of Jadīd al-Islām was of utmost richness. For example, while Shīʿī hadith collections, even beyond the four canonical al-Uṣūl al-Arbaʿa, were of course common currency among jurists, their incorporation into interreligious polemics was not necessarily so. To be sure, the use of hadith as complementary instruments of argumentation was a component of dalāʾil al-nubuwwa, especially within a stream of the genre which was interested in providing proofs of the prophecy within intra-Islamic discussions and beyond interreligious polemics.80 These cases, however, were not necessarily Shīʿī nor was their corpus of hadith a specifically Shīʿī one. Jadīd al-Islām, however, incorporated hadith from collections of Shādhān b. Jibraʾīl al-Qumī (d. 660/1261-2), Ibn Qawlawayh (d. 367/977), Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Fattāl al-Nīsābūrī (d. 508/1114-5), among others;81 and included fragments from 77 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 58-63. 78 Narāqī 1385sh./2006-7: 313-319. 79 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 606; Horst 2016: 282-287; Walter 2014: 88-91; Walter 2016: 512-514. See also Tiburcio 2020: 112-113. 80 Koertner 2014: 7-10. 81 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 405-406, 419; al-Qumī 1381H./1962: 113; Ibn Qawlawayh 1424H./2003-4: 140-141; Nīsābūrī 1386H./1366: I, 151.

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major Shīʿī intellectual authorities, like al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’ (d. 726/1325).82 Further, he explicitly referred to — and included traditions from — his near contemporary, the influential Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī and his Biḥār al-anwār (The Seas of Light).83 The common theme of all these hadith was the idea that Ḥusayn and the ahl al-bayt had been admonished about his martyrdom at Karbalā, and that he accepted his fate as a willing martyr. These themes were not of course a novelty in and of themselves.84 Yet, their inclusion in the Sayf al-mūʾminīn gave it its distinctly Shīʿī character, within an otherwise largely non-sectarian (or pan-Islamic) tradition of dalāʾil al-nubuwwa.85 Finally, the Sayf al-muʾminīn also includes references to works on Church history, both classical and early modern, ranging from Saint Jerome’s Chronicon and Eusebius of Cesarea’s (d. ca 339-340) Historia Ecclesiastica, to Martin Opava’s (d. 1278) Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum, Batrolomeo Platina’s (d. 1481) Vitae Pontificum, and Cesar Baronius’s (d. 1607) Annales Ecclesiastici.86 Jadīd al-Islām’s references to these sources were often imprecise, which suggests that he had probably lost access to them at the time of writing his work. What is more important is the fact that by recounting the stories of allegedly apostate and idolatrous popes, such as Sylvester II (999-1003), he was able to bring forward legends from mediaeval literature, which were not necessarily common tropes of the genre.87

Conclusion As we have thus seen, at both a sociological as well as a symbolic and discursive levels, interreligious polemics connected forms and networks of knowledge, even if the intention behind their production was to delegitimize rather than to appropriate the religion of the other. Institutional patronage played an important role in the production and circulation of these texts. However, within any given time-period informal forms of transmission were also essential to facilitate the contact between missionaries and ʿulamāʾ. Once these texts became established as models of polemical writing, they continued to circulate — albeit most likely only within constrained circles — through the same hierarchical and enclosed institutional structures through which other more canonical forms of religious knowledge circulated, that is, through the convent and the madrasa. Although the genre retained standardized conventions throughout history, it was also flexible enough to incorporate sources and references

Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 407; al-Ḥillī 1388sh./2009-10: 445-447. Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 405-406; Majlisī 1403H./1983: XLIV, 223, 253. For various examples of this, see Ayoub 1978: 35-36, 63, 70-71, 75. There was also a specifically Shīʿī strain of dalāʾil literature linked to the concept of “proofs of the imamate” (dalāʾil al-imāma). However, this sub-genre was concerned only with intra-Muslim debates and hadith, and not with interreligious polemics and biblical proofs. See Tiburcio 2020: 96. 86 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 605-608; Saint Jerome 2005: 319; Troppau (Opava), http://www.mgh.de/: ff. 6v-7r; Platina 1888: II, 171, 235-237; Baronius [and Rinaldi] 1864-1883: XVII, 332-538, and XXII, 384-405. 87 Jadīd al-Islām 1375sh./1996-7: 606. For the use of this legend in mediaeval literature, see Peters 1978: 28. See also Tiburcio 2020: 110-112. 82 83 84 85

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which spoke to the confessional (that is, sectarian) specificities of their authors, and to adapt to the specific circumstances of the debate. Thus, while polemics often seem as atemporal and ahistorical texts concerned with perennial questions on divine matters, a closer examination of their use of tropes and sources reveals — however subtly — their inexorable connection to their own historical milieu.

Bibliographical References 1.

Primary Sources

a)

Unpublished

Jadīd al-Islām, ʿAlī-Qulī, Hidāyat al-żāllīn, Tehran: Majlis Library, ms. 2089. Propaganda Fide: Vatican City, Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide: Fondo di Persia, Messopotamia e i Caldei, 3 volumes. b)

Published

ʿĀmilī, Muḥammad Ibn-al-Ḥasan al-Ḥurr al-, Ᾱmal al-ʿāmil fī ʿulamāʾ Jābil ʿᾹmil, 2 volumes,

Baghdad: Maktab al-Andalūs, 1385H./1965. Armānī, ʿAlī Akbar, Iʿtirāfnāmah: diary of Abgar (ʿAli Akbar) Armani, one of new converts to Islam of Shah Sulaiman & Shah Sultan Husain Safavi’s era, along with Risāla-yi Shinākht, in Gurji script on affirming Shi‘ism by a Georgian new convert to Islam of Shah Abbas’ time, (ed.) Manṣūr Sifatgol, Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Shūrā-yi Islāmī, 1388sh./2010. Anonymous, A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Mission of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, 2 volumes London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939. Aubin, Jean, L’ambassade de Gregório Pereira Fidalgo à la cour de Châh Soltân-Hosseyn, 16961697, edited and translated by Jean Aubin, Lisbon: Comité National Portugais pour la Célébration du 2.500e Anniversaire de la Fondation de la Monarchie en Iran, 1971. Baronius, Cesare [and Odorico Rinaldi in later volumes], Annales Ecclesiastici, 37 vols., Barle-Duc,1864-1883. Chardin, Jean, Voyages du Chevalier en Perse et autres lieux de l’Orient, (ed.) L. Langlès, 10 volumes, Paris: Le Normant, 1811. Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī, Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Ᾱbī Ṭālib, Rasāʾil-i Hazīn-i Lāhījī, (ed.) ʿAlī Ūjabī, Nāṣir Bāqirī Bīd’hindī, Iskandar Isfandiyārī and ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Mahdavī, Tehran: Mirāth-i Maktub, 1377sh./1998. Ḥillī, Ḥasan b. Yūsuf al-ʿAllāma al-, Minhāj al-ṣalāḥ fī ikhtiṣār al-miṣbāḥ, (ed.) Sayyid ʿAbdallāh al-Mīrdamādī, Qum: Maktabat al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī, 1388sh./2009-10. Ibn Qawlawayh, Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad, Kāmil al-ziyārāt, (ed.) Javād Qayyūmī al-Iṣfahānī, Qum: Mūʾassasa Nashar al-Faqāha, 1424H./2003-4. Jadīd al-Islām, ʿAlī-Qulī, Sayf al-mūʾminīn fī qitāl al-mushrikīn, Qum: Intishārāt-i Anṣāriyān, 1375sh./1996-7. Khātūnābādī, Mīr Muḥammad Bāqir, Tarjuma-yi anājīl-i arbaʿa, (ed.) Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1384sh./2005.

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Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir, Biḥār al-anwār, (ed.) Muḥammad al-Bāqir al-Bihbūdī, 110 volumes, Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-Arabī, 1403H./1983. Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir, “Risāla-yi Ṣawā’iq al-Yahūd [The Treatise Lighting Bolts against the Jews] by Muḥammad Bāqir b. Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī (d. 1699),” (ed. and tr.) Vera B. Moreen, Die Welt des Islams, New Series 32/2 (1992): 177-195. Manucci, Nicolao, Storia do Mogor or Mugul India 1653-1708, (tr.) William Irvine, 4 vols., London, 1907-1913. Narāqī, Mullā Aḥmad b. Mahdī al-, Sayf al-umma va burhān al-milla, (ed.) Sayyid Mahdī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tehran: Pazhūhishgāh-i ʿUlūm va Farhang-i Islāmī, 1385sh./2006-7. Nīsābūrī, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Fattāl al-. Rawḍat al-wāʿiẓīn wa baṣīrat al-mutaʿiẓīn, (ed.) Muḥammad Mahdī Ḥassan al-Khurasān, 3 vols., Najaf: Maktaba al-Ḥaydarīya, 1386H./1966. Platina, Bartolomeo, The Lives of the Popes, (ed. and tr.) William Benham, 2 volumes, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1888. Qumī, Shadhān b. Jibraʾīl al-, al-Faḍāʾil, Najaf: Manshūrāt al-Maṭbaʿa al-Ḥaydarīya 1381H./1962. Richard, Francis, (ed.), Raphaël du Mans, missionnaire en Perse au xviie siècle, 2 volumes, Paris: Société d’Histoire de l’Orient, 1995 [Moyen Orient et Océan Indien, 9]. Sanson, Nicolas, Voyage, ou Relation de l’État présent du royaume de Perse: avec une dissertation curieuse sur les mœurs, religion & gouvernement de cet État, Paris: Chez la veuve Mabre Cramoisi, 1695. Saint Jerome, Chronicle, (ed.) Roger Pearse, online edition, 2005 [accessed on 30/01/2019]: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_06_latin_part2.htm Tafrishī, Ẓahīr al-Dīn, Nuṣrat al-ḥaqq, (ed.) Gūdarz Rashtiyānī, Payām-i bahāristān 4/14 (1390sh./2011): 1224-1379. Troppau, Martin von (Martin of Opava), Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum, (ed.) AnnaDorothee von den Brincken, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, online edition: http:// www.mgh.de/home/aktuelles/newsdetails/martin-von-troppau-chronicon-pontificumet-imperatorum/040f7e5a43/?tx_ttnews[pointer] = 14 [accessed on 30/01/2019] Wilson, Sir Arnold T., (ed. and tr.), “History of the Mission of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Established in Persia by the Reverend Father Alexander of Rhodes,” [Translation of “Relation de la mission des Pères de la Compagnie de Iesus, Etablie dans le Royaume de Perse par le R. P. Alexandre de Rhodes”, complied by Jacques de Machaud], Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 3 (1925): 675-706. Xavier, Jerónimo, Fuente de Vida, Tratado Apologético dirigido al Rey Mogol de la India en 1600, (ed.) Hugues Didier, Donostia-San Sebastián: Universidad de Deusto, 2007. 2.

Secondary Literature

Abisaab, Rula J., “al-Fāḍil al-Hindī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, three, Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (eds.), Leiden: Brill, 2013. Consulted online on 08 October 2018

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Abisaab, Rula J., Converting Persia, London-New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004 [International Library of Iranian Studies, 1]. Alam, Muzaffar, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations: Muslims and Christians in the Court of Jahangir (1608-11),” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 46/4 (2009): 457-511. Alonso, Carlos, (ed.), “El convento agustiniano de Ispahán durante el período 1621-1671,” Analecta Augustiniana 36 (1973): 247-308. Amanat, Abbas, “Mujtahids and Missionaries: Shī‘ī responses to Christian polemics on the early Qajar Period,” in Gleave, Robert (ed.), Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, London; New York: Routledge, 2005, 247-269 [Routledge/BIPS Persian Studies Series, 4]. Amir Moezzi, Mohammad Ali, “Muḥammad the Paraclete and Alī the Messiah: New Remarks on the Origins of Islam and of Shiite Imamology,” Der Islam 95/1 (2018): 30-64. Ayoub, Mahmoud, Redemptive Suffering in Islām: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ᾱshūrā’ in Twelver Shīism, The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978. Baer, Marc David, Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Camps, Arnulf, Jerome Xavier S. J. and the Muslims of the Mogul Empire: Controversial Works and Missionary Activity, Schöneck-Beckenried, Switzerland: Nouvelle Revue de Science Missionaire, 1957. Carnoy-Torabi, Dominique, “A biblioteca esquecida dos missionários do Ispaão/ The Forgotten Library of the Isfahan Missionaries,” Oriente [Fundação Oriente, Lisbon] 19 (2008): 94-105. Demiri, Lejla, Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Medieval Cairo: Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī’s (d. 716/1316). A Critical Edition and Annotated Transation with an Introduction, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2013 [History of Christian-Muslim Relations, 19]. Demiri, Lejla, “Taḥrīf in der vormodernen muslimischen Literatur,” in Güzelmansur, Timo, (ed.), Das koranische Motiv der Schriftfälschung (taḥrīf) durch Juden und Christen: Islamische Deutungen und christliche Reaktionen, Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2014: 15-45 [CIBEDO Schriftenreihe, 3]. Epalza, Míkel de, La Tuḥfah, autobiografía y polémica islámica contra el Cristianismo de Abdallāh al-Taryumān (Fray Anselmo Turmeda), Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1971. Reprinted as Fray Anselmo Turmeda (Abdallāh al-Taryumān) y su polémica islamo-cristiana. Edición, traducción y studio de la Tuḥfa, Madrid: Hiperión, 1994. Flannery, John M., The Mission of the Portuguese Augustinians to Persia and Beyond (16011747), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013 [Studies in Christian Mission, 43]. Gaudeul, Jean-Marie, and Robert Caspar, “Textes de la tradition musulmane concernant le tahrif (falsification) des écritures,” Islamochristiana 6 (1980): 61-104. García-Arenal, Mercedes, “Dreams and Reason: Autobiographies of Converts in Religious Polemics,” in García-Arenal, Mercedes (ed.), Conversions islamiques. Identités religieuses en Islam méditerranéen / Islamic Conversions. Religious Identities in Mediterranean Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose; European Science Foundation, 2001: 89-118. García-Arenal, Mercedes, and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, Converted Muslims, the Forged Lead Books of Granada, and the Rise of Orientalism, (tr.) Consuelo LópezMorillas, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013 [Studies in the History of Religions, 142].

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Girard, Aurélien, “Des manuels de la langue entre mission et érudition orientaliste au xviième siècle: les grammaires de l’arabe des Caracciolini,” Studi Medievali e Moderni: arte, letteratura, storia 16/1 (2010): 279-295. Girard, Aurélien, “Teaching and Learning Arabic in Early Modern Rome: Shaping a Missionary Language,” in Loop, Jan, Alastair Hamilton, and Charles Burnett (eds.), The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2017: 189-212 [The History of Oriental Studies, 3]. Glei, Reinhold F., and Roberto Tottoli, Ludovico Marracci at Work. The Evolution of his Latin Translation of the Qur’ān in the Light of his Newly Discovered Manuscripts with an Edition and a Comparative Analysis of Sura 18, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016 [Series Arabica-Latina, 1]. Griffith, Sidney H., The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Gulbenkian, Roberto, The Translation of the Four Gospels into Persian, Immensee: Die Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 1981 [Schriftenreihe der Neuen Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 29]. Ha’iri, Abdul-Hadi, “Reflections on the Shiʿi Responses to Missionary Thought and Activities in the Safavid Period,” in Calmard, Jean, (ed.), Études safavides, ParisTéhéran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1993: 151-164 [Bibliothèque Iranienne, 39]. Halft, Dennis, “Hebrew Bible Quotations in Arabic Transcription in Safavid Iran of the 11th/17th Century: Sayyed Aḥmad ʿAlavī’s Persian Refutations of Christianity,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1/1-2 (2013): 235-252. Halft, Dennis, “Pietro Della Valle”, in Thomas, David, and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical Study, vol. X: The Ottoman and Safavid Empires (1600-1700), Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017, 515-521 [The History of ChristianMuslim Relations, 32]. Halft, Dennis, “Schiitische Polemik gegen das Chrsitentum im safawidischen Iran des 11/17 Jarhunderts: Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlawī’s Lawāmiʿ-i rabbānī dar radd-i šubha-yi naṣrānī,” in Adang, Camilla, and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), Contacts and Controversies between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire and Pre-Modern Iran, IstanbulWurzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul, 2010, 273-334 [Istanbuler Texte und Studien, 21]. Halft, Dennis, “The Arabic Vulgate in Safavid Persia: Arabic Printing of the Gospels, Catholic Missionaries, and the Rise of Shīī Anti-Christian Polemics,” PhD Thesis, Freie-Universität Berlin, 2016. Heyberger, Bernard, “Polemic Dialogues between Christians and Muslims in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 55(2012): 495-516. Horst, Ulrich, Päpstlich Unfehlbarkeit wider konziliare Superiorität? Studien zur Geschichte eines (ekklesiologischen) Antagonismus vom 15. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Pabedorn: Ferdinand Schöning, 2016. Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl, “Muqaddima,” in Sayf al-muʾminīn fī qitāl al-mushrikīn, (ed.) Rasūl Jaʿfariyān, Qum: Intishārāt-i Anṣāriyān, 1375sh./1996-7. Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl, Ṣafavīya dar ʿarsa-yi dīn, farhang va siyāsat, 3 volumes, Qum: Pazhūhishkada-yi Ḥawza va Dānishgāh, 1379sh./2000-1.

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Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl, and Maryam Ṣādiqī, Az Darband tā Qaṭīf: Guzārishī az guftigūhā-yi masīḥī-islāmī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī va Qājār, Tehran: Nashar-i ʿIlm, 1395/2016. Koertner, Mareike, “We Have Made Clear the Signs: Dalā’il al-Nubūwa – Proof of Prophecy in Early Ḥadīth Literature,” PhD Thesis, Yale University, 2014. Kristic, Tijana, Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Malcolm, Noel, “Comenius, Boyle, Oldenburg, and the Translation of the Bible into Turkish,” Church History & Religious Culture 87/3 (2007): 327-362. Malcolm, Noel, “Comenius, the Conversion of the Turks, and the Muslim-Christian Debate on the Corruption of Scripture,” Church History and Religious Culture 87/4 (2007): 477-508. Matthee, Rudi, “Christians in Safavid Iran: Hospitality and Harassment,” Studies on Persianate Societies 3 (1384/2005): 44-72. Matthee, Rudi, “Jesuits in Safavid Persia,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), New York: Foundation for Iranian Studies, Columbia University, vol. XIV (2008): 634-638. Matthee, Rudi, Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan, London; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012 [International Library of Iranian Studies, 17]. Matthee, Rudi, “Poverty and Perseverance: the Jesuit Mission of Isfahan and Shamakhi,” Al-Qantara 36/2 ( July-December, 2015): 463-501. Matthee, Rudi, “The Politics of Protection: Iberian Missionaries in Iran under Shah ʿAbbās (r. 1587-1629),” in Adang, Camilla, and Sabine Schmidtke (eds.), Contacts and Controversies between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire and PreModern Iran, Istanbul; Wurzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul, 2010: 245-271 [Istanbuler Texte und Studien, 21]. Moazzem, Maryam, “Institutional Transformation or Clerical Status Quo? New Insights into the Career and Work of Sayyid Mīr Muḥammad Bāqir Khvātūnabādī,” Studia Iranica 45/1 (2016): 65-88. Ometto, Franco, “Khatun Abadi, the Ayatollah who Translated the Gospels,” Islamochristiana 28 (2002): 55-72. Peters, Edward, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978. Pizzorusso, Giovanni, “Filippo Guadagnoli, i Caracciolini e lo studio delle lingue orientali e della controversia con l’Islam a Roma nel XVII secolo,” Studi Medievali e Moderni: arte, letteratura, storia XVI/1 (2010): 245-278. Pizzorusso, Giovanni, “La preparazione linguistica e controversistica dei missionari per l’Oriente islamico: scuole, testi, insegnanti a Roma e in Italia,” in García-Arenal, Mercedes, Bernard Heyberger and Philippe Vismara (eds.), L’Islam visto da Occidente. Cultura e religione del Seicento europeo di fronte all’Islam, Genova: Marietti, 2009: 253288. Pourjavady, Reza, and Sabine Schmidtke, “ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, three, Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett

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Rowson (eds.), Leiden: Brill, 2009. Consulted online on 08 October 2018 Pourjavady, Reza, and Sabine Schmidtke, “Muslim Polemics against Judaism and Christianity in 18th Century Iran. The Literary Sources of Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī’s (1144/1732-1216/1801) Rādd-i shubahāt al-kuffār,” Studia Iranica 35/1 (2006): 69-94. Rashtiyānī, Gūdarz, “Muqaddima-ye Muṣaḥḥiḥ,” in Tafrishī, Ẓahīr al-Dīn, Nuṣrat al-ḥaqq, (ed.) Gūdraz Rashtiyānī, Payām-i bahāristān 4/14 (1390/2011): 1224-1244. Richard, Francis, “Capuchins in Persia,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), New York: Foundation for Iranian Studies, Columbia University, vol. IV (1990): 786788. Richard, Francis, “Carmelites in Persia,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ehsan Yarshater (ed.), New York: Foundation for Iranian Studies, Columbia University, vol. IV (1990): 832834. Richard, Francis, “Catholicisme et Islam chiite au grand siècle. Autour de quelques documents concernant les Missions catholiques au xviième siècle”, Euntes Docentes 33 (1980): 339-403. Richard, Francis, “Le Père Aimé Chézaud, controversiste et ses manuscrits persans,” Nāmeh-ye Bahārestān: International Iranian Journal for Research into Islamic Manuscripts 6-7/11-12 (Spring-Winter 2005-2006): 7-18. Richard, Francis, “Trois conférences de controverse islamo-chrétienne en Géorgie vers 1665-1666,” Bedi Kartlisa 40 (1982): 253-259. Richard, Francis, “Un augustin portugais renégat apologiste de l’Islam chiite au début du xviiie siècle,” Moyen Orient et Océan Indien 1 (1984): 73-85. Rizvi, Sajjad, “The takfīr of the Philosophers (and Sufis) in Safavid Iran,” in Adang, Camilla, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro and Sabine Schmidtke, (eds.), Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfir, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2016: 244-270 [Islamic History and Civilization, 123]. Said Reynolds, Gabriel, A Muslim Theologian in a Sectarian Milieu: Abd al-Jabār and the Critique of Christian Origin, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004. Sarrió Cucarella, Diego R., Muslim-Christian Polemics across the Mediterranean: the Splendid Replies of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2014 [History of Christian-Muslim Relations, 23] Schmidtke, Sabine, “The Muslim Reception of Biblical Materials: Ibn Qutayba and his Aʿlām al-nubuwwa,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22 (2011): 249-274. Thomas, David, “The Bible in Early Muslim Anti-Christian Polemic,” Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations 7 (1996): 29-38. Tiburcio, Alberto, Muslim-Christian Polemics in Safavid Iran, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020 [Edinburgh Historical Studies of Iran and the Persian World, 2]. Tiburcio, Alberto, “Aimé Chézaud,” in Thomas, David, and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, vol. X: Ottoman and Safavid Empires 1600-1700, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2017a: 592-597 [The History of ChristianMuslim Relations, 32]. Tiburcio, Alberto, “Filippo Guadagnoli,” in Thomas, David, and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History (1600-1700), vol. IX: Southern

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and Central Europe 1600-1700, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2017b: 749-755 [The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, 31]. Tiburcio, Alberto, “Muslim-Christian Polemics and Scriptural Translation in Safavid Iran: ʿAli Qoli Jadid al-Eslām and his Interlocutors,” Iranian Studies 50/2 (2017c): 247-269. Tiburcio, Alberto, “Some Aspects of Conversion Narratives in Late Safavid Iran and their Circulation: The Case of cAlī Akbar Armanī,” Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017d): 350-372 [special volume: Aube, Sandra, and Maria Szuppe (eds.), with the collaboration of Anthony T. Quickel, Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East]. Tiburcio, Alberto, “Convert Literature, Interreligious Polemics, and the ‘Signs of Prophethood’ Genre in Late Safavid Iran (1694-1722): the Work of ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd alIslām (d. circa 1722)”, PhD Thesis, McGill University, 2014. Trentini, Andrea, “Guadagnoli controversista e islamologo, un’analisi dell’edizioni dell’Apologia (1631, 1637),” Studi Medievali e Moderni: arte, letteratura, storia 16/1 (2010): 297-314. Vollandt, Ronny, Arabic Versions of the Pentateuch: a comparative Study of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Sources, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015 [Biblia Arabica, 2]. Vollandt, Ronny, “Che portono al ritorno quì una Bibbia Arabica integra: A history of the Biblia Sacra Arabica (1671-73),” in Khalil, Samir, and Juan Pablo Monferrer-Sala, Graeco-Latina et Orientalia: Studia in honorem Angeli Urbani heptuagenarii, Cordoba: Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit – Beirut: Centre de Documentation et de Recherches Arabes Chrétiennes/Oriens Academic, 2013: 401-418. Walter, Peter, “Melchor Cano. De Logis Theologicis (1563),” in Wischmeyer, Oda, (ed.), Handbuch der Bibel-Hermeneutiken von Origenes bis zur gegenwart, Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2016: 507-5018. Walter, Peter, “Quelle oder Steinbruch? Über den Umgang der Dogmatik mit der Bibel,” in Lehmann, Karl, and Ralf Rothenbusch (eds.), Gotteswort in Menschenwort: die eine Bible as Fundamet der Theologie, Freiburg: Herder, 2014: 79-103. Windler, Christian, “Katholische Mission und Diasporareligiosität: Christen europäischer Herkunft im Safavidenreich,” in Jürgens, Henning P., and Thomas Weller (eds.), Religion und Mobilität zum Verhältnis von raumbeyogener Mobilität und religiöser Identitätsbildung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa, Göttingen-Oackville, CT: Vadenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010: 183-212 [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte, Beiheft 81]. Windler, Christian, “La curie romaine et la cour safavide au xviie siècle: projets missionaires et diplomatie,” in Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, (ed.), Papato e politica internazionale nella prima età moderna, Rome: Viella, 2013: 505-523. Windler, Christian, Missionare in Persien: Kulturelle Diversität und Normenkonkurrenz im globalen Katholizismus (17-18. Jahrhundert), Cologne: Böhlau, 2018 [Externa, 12].

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Kinship, Status, and Legitimacy

Sacha Al sancakli

Warriors, Kings, and Caliphs Questions of Origins and Dynastic Culture in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Kurdistan*

For most of the tenth/sixteenth and eleventh/seventeenth centuries, Kurdistan was a primary battleground in the never-ending wars playing out between the two imperial states of the Middle East, namely the Ottoman and Safavid polities. If, for the common folk, this chaotic state of affairs represented a source of suffering and hardships, the dynastic rulers governing Kurdish principalities on the border found in such a conflicted political environment a golden age of opportunities. In this period, Kurdish dynasties thrived as they never had before and never would again, a phenomenon well illustrated by the composition of the Sharafnāma, a Persian-language chronicle of the Kurds written in 1005/1596-1597 by Sharaf Khān (d. 1009/1600-1601), Kurdish ruler of the principality of Bidlīs, southwest of Lake Van.1 Yet, research into this crucial period in the history of the Kurds has been mostly sidelined in favour of studies examining the more “popular” subject of the development of Kurdish national consciousness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 Meanwhile, for scholars of Ottoman and Safavid history alike, Kurdish principalities have mainly



* An earlier version of this article was presented at the DYNTRAN Symposium “Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (15th-17th centuries)”, held on 7-9 March 2018 in Paris. All translations are my own unless stated otherwise. 1 On Sharaf Khān’s life and times, see Dehqan and Genç 2015a and 2015b; also see the Introduction in Alsancakli 2018 on Sharaf Khān, the Sharafnāma and its various editions and manuscripts. In this article, the edition by Vladimir Véliaminof-Zernof (St Petersburg, 1860-1862) will be used in quoting the text. 2 Even when it is in fact considered, the early modern period is often explicitly viewed in light of later developments, as exemplified by the recently published Routledge Handbook on the Kurds (Gunter 2019), in which Michael Eppel’s chapter on the Kurdish dynasties is titled “The Kurdish Emirates. Obstacles or Precursors to Nationalism?” On contemporary perceptions of “ancien régime monarchy in general, and of Asian empires in particular” as representing “a pre-enlightened and pre-democratic past (…) associated with privilege and suppression”, and the influence of these perceptions on the choice of objects of scholarship, see Duindam 2016: 15. Sacha Alsancakli  •  Université Sorbonne Nouvelle / Centre de Recherche sur le Monde iranien – UMR 8041 Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 89-109 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122932

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been treated as marginal entities deserving of study only in the context of their interactions with the imperial centres of power. This neglect is all the more unfortunate since, I argue, Kurdish dynasties present in this period a case in point for studying the dynamic character of family-based authority and the processes of its legitimation and transmission. In an ever-changing political landscape marked by a conflict in which the sectarian identity of both empires was construed as a paramount instrument for state propaganda, Kurdish rulers were required to align with the overarching religious and cultural identity of their new protectors whenever they switched sides. In order to do this, they had a number of tools at their disposal, giving them a degree of creativity in deciding how exactly to construct the political identity of their various houses. Nasab, or “genealogy”, was perhaps the most important of these tools and in this article, I will endeavour to study the ancestry claims made by the rulers of some of the Kurdish dynasties in order to legitimate their power. I will mostly examine these claims as they were recorded by Sharaf Khān in the Sharafnāma at the end of the tenth/sixteenth century. However, I would like to start by some introductory remarks on the concept of nasab, and the question of genealogy in Islam in general.

I.

Nasab and Genealogy in Islamic Science and Historiography

Having its roots in the predominantly oral culture of the tribal societies of pre-Islamic Arabia, nasab has been described as both “the most fundamental organising principle of Arab society” and “an inheritance from the earliest times.”3 Despite its obvious connection with tribal politics, the interest in nasab did not diminish with the advent of Islam in the seventh century AD; on the contrary, precisely because of this connection, it “continued to remain a most important factor in Muslim society”.4 This is in spite of the negative opinions held by the religious authorities of early Islam on this science, best illustrated by a famous Prophetic quotation reproduced by Ignaz Goldziher in his Muhammedanische Studien: “this is a field the knowledge of which is of little use and ignorance of which does no harm.”5 However, this view applied more specifically to the research into far-removed ancestry — going further back than ʿAdnān, the traditional ancestor of the “Northern” Arabic tribes, including the



3 Rosenthal 1993: 967. The transmission of nasab was not exclusively oral, however, as the author also alludes to the “clear” existence of “written expression” of the interest in genealogy in pre-Islamic Arabia. 4 Rosenthal 1993: 967. 5 Goldziher 1888-1890: I, 180; English translation by Christa R. Barber and Samuel M. Stern as Goldziher 1967-1971: I, 166; see also Fayda 1995: 246. Religious authorities tended to stress the value of piety over lineage, and this more egalitarian view of society was also reflected in the “eternal debate” between nasab and ḥasab, that is bloodline and personal character, two terms frequently associated in the literature (Rosenthal 1993: 968; see also Marlow 2003; Goldziher, 1888-1890: I, 180 and Goldziher 1967-1971: I, 166; Kister and Plessner 1977: 53; Dönmez 2006: 573).

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Quraysh —, while knowledge of the closer generations of one’s lineage seems to have been sanctioned and even encouraged.6 Indeed, the science of nasab was an indispensable auxiliary to essential administrative matters such as the division of conquered lands between the various Arab tribes, and for this reason, it was especially promoted during the caliphate of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 13-23/634-644).7 Tribal affiliations, specifically the divide between “Northern”/ʿAdnānite and “Southern”/Qaḥṭānite Arabs, also played a significant role in the internal conflicts and civil wars that shook the Muslim community during the Umayyad period.8 In the context of these conflicts, we also witness the first known examples of how these nasab claims could be reconstructed in view of contemporary political needs, a process that will be discussed throughout this study.9 As the centuries passed, certain sub-fields developed in the science of nasab, connected with the need to account for the privileged status of specific groups inside Muslim societies. This was for example the case of Ṭālibid genealogies,10 which developed as early as the third/ninth century, a period when “the pre-occupation with genealogy was firmly entrenched as part of the literary and historiographical heritage”, and the first presentation of genealogies in “tree-forms” (shajaras) started appearing.11 In the meantime, Iranians and other converts to Islam started associating



6 See for example the following Prophetic quotation, as reproduced by Goldziher: “Learn of your genealogical tree as much as is needed for the practice of active love towards blood relations.” (Goldziher 1888-1890: I, 180-181; translated as Goldziher 1967-1971: I, 167-168; also Dönmez 2006: 573). 7 Goldziher 1888-1890: I, 180-181; translated as Goldziher 1967-1971: I, 167-168; also, Rosenthal 1993: 967; Fayda 1995: 246; Duri 1965: 323. 8 Most importantly the first, second and third fitna (35-41/656-661, 60-65/680-685 and 126-129/744747), which resulted in the accession of the first Umayyad caliph, Muʿāwiya I (r. 41-60/661-680), the restoration of Umayyad authority by Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (r. 64-65/684-685), a cousin of Muʿāwiya, and the accession of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwān II (r. 127-132/744-750; for a general outlook on these episodes, see Hawting 2000: 24-32, 46-56 and 90-103; also Hinds 1993, Bosworth 1991 and Hawting 1991). The division between “Northern” and “Southern” Arabs refers to the geographical areas of Arabia these groups supposedly hailed from. The “Northerners” were considered descendants of Ismāʿīl, while “Southerners” claimed to be from the offspring of Qaḥtān, both lines ultimately going back to Noah. 9 Thus, members of the central Syrian tribe of Qudaʿa, formerly known as “Northerners”, became “Southerners” at the end of the second civil war, “for the simple reason that most of their opponents in Syria were ‘northerners’ and Qudaʿa found it necessary to obtain the support of the ‘southerners’ there” (Hawting 2000: 36). For examples of the importance of the divide between “Northerners” and “Southerners” in Umayyad-era politics, see Hawting 2000: 53-55, 73-76, 90-103. 10 On the Ṭālibid genealogies of the sādāt and ashrāf, people claiming descent from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, see Morimoto 1999, as well as other contributions to this special issue of Oriente moderno edited by Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti and Laura Bottini and devoted to the subject. 11 Rosenthal 1993: 967. A thirteenth/nineteenth century partial copy of the Sharafnāma, presented by its copyist as an independent work called Risāla-yi Ansāb al-Akrād (“Treaty on the Genealogies of the Kurds”), actually features shajaras for two of the dynasties mentioned in the manuscript, namely the houses of Sohrān and ‘Amādiya, in southern Kurdistan. See f. 3r in ms. D 277 of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St Petersburg.

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with Arab tribes through the institution of clientage.12 This must also have been the case of various Kurdish groups and individuals, although there are few reports on this phenomenon.13 Writing in the fourth/tenth century, al-Masʿūdī (d. 344/956) even claimed Arabic origins for the Kurds, seeing them as descendants of either Rabīʿa or Mużar, who were the “ancestors” of two of the most important “Northern” tribal groups.14 Not coincidentally, the Arab tribes that had settled in Kurdistan were also affiliated with Rabīʿa and Mużar, and different parts of the Kurdish-inhabited regions later came to be known as Diyār Rabīʿa, Diyār Mużar and Diyār Bakr.15 Interestingly, in his remarks on the ancestry of the Kurds, Sharaf Khān does not mention the story of their Arabic origins, favouring instead a legendary episode related by Abū al-Qāsim Firdawsī (d. 411/1020) in his Shāhnāma and involving the pre-Islamic Iranian king Żaḥḥāk.16 From the beginnings of Islam, genealogy or nasab was closely connected to historiography, with Franz Rosenthal calling it “the prime expression of historical consciousness in Arabia”, entered in an “alliance with historiography” or even, according to the editors of the Encyclopædia of Islam, “a branch of history”.17 Providing “the historical validation of kinship and all that it involves”, nasab thus played a crucial part in the legitimising discourses of the ruling dynasties in the Islamic world, which of course led to it being subjected to all kinds of manipulations. Goldziher has thus aptly described nasab as “a battleground of individual caprices and tendentious inventions”.18 This characterisation of nasab is reflected in a famous case of genealogical reconstruction, which happened only a few decades before Sharaf Khān composed his Sharafnāma: it is the revision by Abū al-Fatḥ Ḥusaynī, at the request of the Safavid Shāh Ṭahmāsp (r. 930-984/1524-1576), of Ibn Bazzāz’s Ṣafwat al-Ṣafāʾ (composed c. mid-eighth/ fourteenth century), a biography of Shaykh Ṣafī al-Dīn (d. 735/1334),

12 See Marlow 2003; also Kister and Plessner 1977: 51 and Goldziher 1888-1890: I, 190-191; translated as Goldziher 1967: I, 175-176. These clients were known as mawlā, plural mawālī, on which see notably Crone 1991. 13 See for example the mention by John Nawas (2005: 457) of a Kurdish mawlā who was also a member of the ʿulamāʾ. The institution of patronage was an important factor of integration and assimilation into Arabic society, as suggested by a remark by al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-869) to the effect that, by being mawālī, Turkish soldiers in the Abbasid army had in fact become Arabs themselves (‫السبب‬ َّ ‫ ;صاروا من العرب بهذا‬al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. 1411/1991: III, 171; see also James 2014: 695). 14 In his Murūj al-Ẕahab (“Golden Prairies”), al-Masʿūdī favours the hypothesis of the line going back to Rabīʿa, which he calls “the most famous among the people and the soundest regarding their [the Kurds’] genealogies” (‫واالصح فی انسابهم‬ ‫)األشهر عند الناس‬. See Maçoudi, ed. 1861-1877: III, 253-254; also, James ّ 2014: 688-689. According to the genealogists’ claims, Rabīʿa and Mużar were half-brothers, both being sons of Nizār b. Maʿadd b. ʿAdnān (see Kindermann 1995). 15 The Banū Bakr were then seen as a subdivision of the Rabīʿa; this is the only name that has survived to the present day. See Caskel 1965; also James 2014: 688, note 16. 16 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 12-13; Firdawsī, ed. 1987-2008: I, 55-57; also the discussion in Alsancakli 2018: 98-106. 17 Rosenthal 1993: 967; “Ḥasab wa-Nasab”, Encyclopædia of Islam 1986: 238; see also the treatment of this subject in Rosenthal’s classic opus, A History of Muslim Historiography (1968: 84-86). 18 Goldziher 1888-1890: I, 186; translated as Goldziher 1967: I, 172.

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founder of the Ṣafaviyya and the shah’s ancestor. In this well-known example, the Kurdish origins and Sunni persuasion of the early Safavids was done away with by Ḥusaynī and replaced with an ʿAlid genealogy and a Shiite mazhab, more in line with Ṭahmāsp’s noble status and position as head of a state in which Shiism was the officially sanctioned denomination of Islam.19 This is an excellent illustration of Zoltán Szombathy’s point that nasab “does not generate but expresses prestige or status”, and it is in this framework that I will analyse the claims about the ancestry of various Kurdish dynasties present in the Sharafnāma.20 There have been many studies on specific nasab claims at various times and in various parts of the Islamic world.21 On the Kurds, however, save for an article by Yunus Emre Gördük (2014) on two manuscript shajaras of the Mirdāsid dynasty of Agīl, north of Diyarbekir, nothing has so far been written. To try and fill this void, we are fortunate enough to have at our disposal the wealth of genealogical information included by Sharaf Khān in his work, in which ancestry claims for no less than 31 Kurdish dynasties or tribes are to be found. Some knowledge can also be gathered from other literary sources, notably Evliyā Çelebi’s Seyāḥatnāme; furthermore, as Görduk’s article has shown, the search for manuscripts kept in private archives in various parts of Kurdistan might also yield interesting results.

II. Legitimation, Formalisation and Differentiation: Three Functions of Kurdish nasab As a starting point for this study, I have drawn up a summary list of the ancestry claims of Kurdish dynasties as mentioned in the Sharafnāma (Table 1; see also Map 1 for a geographical representation of the various emirates). This list is a little schematic, as it does not include the numerous cases where conflicting stories are mentioned by Sharaf Khān; nor does it reflect on the author’s very instructive comments about the reliability of these stories. However, it will suffice here in order to give a broad picture of the issue. Due to space constraints, I will not venture very far into the details of the list, and in this first section I shall just make some general remarks on its content. The first thing one notices upon a cursory glance at the list is that, save for the Ayyubids, all the dynasties for which nasab claims are specified by Sharaf Khān were still ruling at the time of writing the Sharafnāma. Thus, five of the six ruling houses of the first ṣaḥīfa (“book”), mostly devoted to the great Kurdish dynasties of times past (dar ẕikr-i vulāt-i Kurdistān ki ʿalam-i salṭanat bar-afrāshta-and va muvarrikhān īshān-rā dākhil-i salāṭīn namūda-and) — the Marwānids,22 the Ḥasanwayhids,23 the ‘Ayyārids 19 On this matter, see notably Mazzaoui 2006 and the edition of chapter 8 of the Ṣafwat al-Ṣafā’ by Heidi Zirke (1987). 20 Szombathy 2002: 12. 21 See for example the works by Abdelahad Sebti (1986) and Houari Touati (1992) on the use of genealogy in North Africa, in some ways particularly relevant to the Kurdish case. 22 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 19. 23 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 20-21.

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or ‘Annāzids,24 and the Greater and Lesser Lors — , are left without mention of a nasab by the author.25 As for the Ayyubids, the story of their origins is taken up by Sharaf Khān from Khvāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-Siyar (composed c. 927-935/1521-1529) and, furthermore, it is historically attested: it is not — like almost all of the other stories, as far as we can tell — a semi-fictitious account of a reconstructed nasab.26 The lack of interest in the genealogy of extinct dynasties on the part of Sharaf Khān is consistent with the legitimising function of nasab underscored in the introduction. Thus, nasab was not about knowledge of genealogy per se; rather, it was about mobilising and, often, transforming that knowledge in order to define the status and relationships of political actors in the present. Consequently, the nasab claims of Kurdish dynasties also reflected, to an extent, their relations with the Ottoman and Safavid central powers. Thus, as expected, all the dynasties for which Sharaf Khān indicates descent from the (Sunni) Abbasids and Umayyads were affiliated with the Ottomans at the time of writing. Likewise, most of the houses claiming a pre-Islamic Iranian ancestry are associated with the Safavids. There are of course exceptions: thus, we find the rulers of Zirqī claiming an ʿAlid genealogy,27 while Sharaf Khān presents his own Diyādīnid dynasty of Bidlīs, as well as the ʿIzizānids of Ṣāṣūn, as descendants of the Sassanids.28 But for the Diyādīnids at least, this can easily be explained by the peculiar background of their ruler: although a vassal of the Ottomans, Sharaf Khān had been educated at the Safavid court in Qazvīn in the 960s/1550s and, as we will see in the next section, his early connection with this Iranian cultural milieu informed much of his worldview and self-image. A more surprising phenomenon revealed by our table is the extent to which these nasab claims were actually directed at other Kurdish princes, rather than at the imperial centres. As far as these centres were concerned, it seems the only requirement was not to pick a nasab going against the empire’s official creed — an Umayyad nasab for a vassal dynasty of the Safavids would thus be an unthinkable example. The rest was essentially an intra-Kurdish matter. Thus, the major Kurdish dynasties boasted of the most prestigious ancestry, and nasab claims provide a good reflection of their perceived status and power. Likewise, ancestry claims also served to illustrate existing relationships between ruling houses by reconstructing “cousin dynasties”, generally with the help of a specific literary topos, that of the “three brothers”. The various stories based on this topos usually involve two or three brothers, prestigious scions of illustrious foreign houses who, after the toppling of their rule or dawla, go into exile and end up in Kurdistan, where they then separate and give rise to different dynasties. Such stories are for example told by Sharaf Khān of the 24 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 22. 25 We do find, however, an etymological explanation of the origin of the Lors’ name, taken by Sharaf Khān from Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī’s Tārīkh-i Guzīda (composed c. 730/1330); see Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 23-24; Mustawfī Qazvīnī, ed. 1339sh/1960: 537 and ed. 1913: 134. 26 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 55-82; Khvāndamīr, ed. 1333sh/1954: II, 585-598. 27 Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 238-239, 249-250. 28 Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 191, 362.

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“Abbasid” rulers of ʿAmādiya,29 Ḥakkārī30 and Kilīs;31 the “Umayyad” princes of Jazīra32 and the Maḥmūdī;33 the “Sassanid” Diyādīnids of Bidlīs and ʿIzīzānids of Ṣāṣūn; etc. In the latter case, for example, we know that the ʿIzizānids and the Diyādīnids traditionally intermarried (Sharaf Khān’s father and grandfather both had ʿIzizānid spouses), and this privileged matrimonial partnership is thus reflected in the dynasties’ ancestry claims. Another similar function of these “three brothers” stories was to explain the partition of a principality, for example with the Mirdāsid brothers of Agīl, Pālū and Charmūk,34 or the Sulaymānī brothers of Qolāb, Baṭmān and Mayyāfāriqīn.35 Nonetheless, this literary topos seems to have been so prevalent in origin stories that it sometimes appears without any discernible reason (see the houses of Suwaydī,36 Shērwān37 and Birādōst38). We should of course not neglect the desire on the part of the author to just tell a good story, and the work is indeed interspersed with colourful tales and funny anecdotes.39 Such tales and anecdotes reflect a tendency on Sharaf Khān’s part to relay in his work what were obviously folk stories mostly devoid of political concerns, and the origins of various ruling houses are a favoured topic of these accounts. Sharaf Khān notably appears much interested in explaining dynastic names by folk etymologies drawing on Kurdish or Turkish words.40 Finally, the “three brothers” stories served another important purpose in Kurdish politics, this time at the intra-dynastic level, by providing for a strict and almost systematic differentiation between the ruling houses and the clans over which they ruled. The identification of dynastic families with the descendants of prestigious foreign houses of times past allowed for the “sacralisation” of the dynastic line, effectively setting an uncrossable boundary between its members and the rest of the clan, and thus rendering it immune to potential claims from rival branches. This, in turn, helped stabilize and secure the principality’s existence.41 Although lack of

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 106-107. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 89. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 220-221. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 115. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 300-301. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 175-177. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 261-264. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 252-255. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 231. Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 296. See for example Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 311-312. See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 162-163, 210, 220-221, 272, 288. Such a differentiation is also coherent with Ibn Khaldūn’s view of nasab, according to which “the leading group of any tribal unit must be its most ‘genuine’ or ‘full-blooded’ part genealogically” (Szombathy 2002: 22; see also Hamès 1987: 101). In the case of Kurdish dynasties, it would make sense for this “most genuine” group to be of a noble foreign origin, the genuine character of its lineage referring to its association with dynasties best representing the prevalent conceptions of royalty and nobility in the Islamic world, such as the Abbasids, Sassanids, etc. On forms of this “nobility by association”, see Ibn Khaldūn, ed. 1376-1382/1957-1962: II, 488-490; (tr.) Franz Rosenthal, 1967: I, 276-277.

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information prevents us from asserting it, it is likely that, in most cases, these ruling families originated from within the tribe itself. While being designed to avoid any contradiction with the Sunni or Shiite creed of the empire with which specific dynasties were associated, ancestry claims thus remained primarily aimed at Kurdish society, confirming the image given in a previous article of Kurdistan as a territory ruled by a tight-knit group of powerful amīrs largely autonomous from the imperial centres, the so-called umarāʾ-i Kurdistān frequently mentioned by Sharaf Khān in his book.42 This function of nasab worked in Kurdish politics at the regional level, allowing for the formalisation of already established connections between allied dynasties, usually related by matrimonial alliances, as well as at the tribal level inside each principality, with the major function of disallowing rival claims to the power of the ruling house at the head of the principality. Given these aspects, ancestry claims are thus expected to be fluid and subject to change according to the political circumstances. In the next section, we will study such an example of “shifting nasab” by examining how, in about half a century, the Sassanid ancestry boasted of by Sharaf Khān for his own dynasty, the Diyādīnids of Bidlīs, was replaced by his grandson Abdāl Khān with a different claim, that of an Abbasid nasab.

III. Sharaf Khān and the Princes of Bidlīs: A Case of Shifting nasab In 1065/1655 and 1066/1656, the famous Ottoman traveller Evliyā Çelebi (d. 1095/1684) made three different visits to Bidlīs, a city strategically located to the southwest of Lake Van, at a crossroads between the Ottoman and Safavid realms.43 Bidlīs was then the seat of one of the most powerful Kurdish principalities, that of the Diyādīnid or Rōzhikid rulers, and in the mid-eighteenth century, the writers of the famous French Encyclopédie even (mistakenly) called it the “capital of Kurdistan”.44 In Bidlīs, Evliyā met the ruling prince Abdal Khān (r. 1019-1065/1610-1655 and 1066-1076/1656-1665), grandson of the author of the Sharafnāma, and he gives a lengthy description of the khān’s personality and background, including information about his ancestry.45

42 See Alsancakli 2017. We find 77 mentions of the expression umarāʾ-i Kurdistān in the Sharafnāma (including variants); in fact, the word “Kurdistan” is most frequently mentioned in this political context, rather than as a strictly geographical term. The equivalent umarāʾ-i akrād also appears 18 times in the book (including variants). 43 The parts of Evliyā’s Seyāḥatnāme devoted to his journeys in Bidlīs were edited and translated by Robert Dankoff in 1990. All quotations from the Seyāḥatnāme are from this edition and translation. 44 Diderot and d’Alembert 1751-1772: II, 216 and IV, 572; on Bidlīs’ importance, also see Tavernier 1676: 273-275. The name “Diyādīnids” refers to the dynastic line of the princes of Bidlīs, while “Rōzhikids” is used for the tribal confederation over which they ruled (see Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 364; Alsancakli 2018: 3, note 11). 45 Evliyā, ed. 1990: 92-109. On the dates of Abdāl Khān’s reign, see Alsancakli 2018: 24-25 and 376-377.

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On this subject, we are told that the khān claimed descent from an otherwise unknown Abbasid figure named Sulṭān Awḥādahullāh,46 although this assertion is questioned by Melek Aḥmed Paşa, beylerbeyi of Van and patron of Evliyā, who warns him that “All the Kurds claim descent from the house of Abbas, but there are Yezidis among them too!”47 Melek Aḥmed Paşa’s remark is certainly made in jest, as he had a conflictual relationship with the khān; nonetheless, it is not contradicted by the information provided in the Sharafnāma, in which we find claims to Abbasid ancestry by some of the most important Kurdish dynasties, the princes of ʿAmādiya, Ḥakkārī and Kilīs, those of Chamishgazak,48 and the Mirdāsids of Agīl, Charmūk and Pālū. In a letter of admonition to Abdāl Khān, Melek Aḥmed Paşa also recalls how, when the khān had been accused of plundering the territories of neighbouring principalities, he had reportedly answered: “This is Kurdistan. It is a law of the House of Abbas to raid our neighbours occasionally in order to twist their ear.”49 This letter by Melek Aḥmed Paşa further gives us an example of a counter-use of this nasab claim, as the beylerbeyi of Van begins it by saying to Abdāl Khān: “[You] pride yourself on your descent from the House of Abbas and […] are the scion of the impure Yezidi Kurds.”50 There are numerous examples of such uses and counter-uses of ancestry claims by Kurdish dynasties, and they are not limited to rhetoric. For example, the early nineteenth-century British traveller Claudius James Rich notes how the Kurdish princes of ‘Amādiya would copy the dress and court protocol of the Abbasid caliphs.51 Abdāl Khān’s claim to Abbasid descent is also a good illustration of how a dynasty’s nasab pretensions could evolve as a product of changes in its environment. Indeed, in the Sharafnāma, written about sixty years before Evliyā’s visit to Bidlīs, Sharaf Khān gives a very different account of the dynasty’s origins, linking them to the Sassanid king Jāmāsp (r. 496-498 AD), son of Pīrūz I (r. 459-484 AD), whose three sons gave rise to the Kurdish dynasty of Bidlīs and its cousin dynasty of Ṣāṣūn, as well as to the dynasties of the princes of Rustamdār and Shīrvān, two places with a long-standing tradition of local rule where Sharaf Khān had served as military commander for the Safavids. As we have seen, Sharaf Khān’s claim was not unexpected in light of the

46 Evliyā, ed. 1990: 56-57; also 46-47, 64-65, 72-73, 80-81, 142-143, 174-175, 342-343 and 356-357. This figure is perhaps to be identified with the Ayyubid ruler of Akhlāṭ Malik al-Awḥad Najm al-Dīn, as suggested by Wilhelm Köhler (1989: 60, note 4; also see Dankoff in Evliyā, ed. 1990: 12, note 7). 47 “Cümle ḳavm-ı Ekrād Āl-i ‘Abbāsiyāndan geçinirler, emmā içlerinde yezīdīleri vardır.” (Evliyā, ed. 1990: 262-263). As non-Muslims, Yezidi Kurds were traditionally seen as heretics by the Ottoman and Safavid states, as well as by their Muslim brethren, a view ostensibly shared by Sharaf Khān (see Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 222; also ms. Hunt. Don. 13, f. 6r, ll. 1-2). On the Yezidis and their religion, see Açıkyıldız 2014, Omarkhali 2017; also see Dehqan 2008 and 2015 for two examples of anti-Yezidi polemics by Kurdish scholars. 48 For whom a potential Saljūqid lineage is also postulated by Sharaf Khān (see Table 1). 49 “Kürdistāndır, birbirimiz mābeyninde gūşmāl içün gāhīce müşāmızda olan kimesneleri ġāret etmek ḳānūn-ı Āl-i ‘Abbāsiyāndır.” The beylerbeyi of Van then vows to “twist [Abdāl Khān’s] ear, and […] subject [him] and [his] kin to the house of Osman”. (See Evliyā, ed. 1990: 174-177.) 50 “Āl-i ‘Abbāsiyān neslinden[im] […] deyü ġurūr édüp […] yezīdi Ekrād ‘urūḳ-ı nā-ṭāhirindensin”; Evliyā, ed. 1990: 174-175. 51 Rich 1836: II, 153-156.

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cultural milieu in which he had been brought up, for at Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s court in the 960s/1550s, there was great enthusiasm for pre-Islamic Iranian myths, notably as found in Abū al-Qāsim Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma.52 Yet, the way in which this Sassanid ancestry was constructed by Sharaf Khān is nonetheless very original, giving us fascinating insights into hitherto unknown facets of the intellectual world of the historian, while shedding new light on the connection between nasab claims and their proponents’ political aspirations. Sharaf Khān’s story, told at the beginning of the saṭr 2 of the fourth ṣaḥīfa of the Sharafnāma, a section of the book devoted to the origins of the princes of Bidlīs, goes as follows: Jāmāsp b. Pīrūz was, at the time of the rule of his elder brother Qubād I (r. 488-496 and 498-531 AD), governing the provinces of Armenia (including the Lake Van area and its main cities, such as Bidlīs and Akhlāṭ) and Shīrvān. After his death, his three sons Narsī, Surkhāb and Bahwās̱ took abode in Gīlān, Shīrvān and Akhlaṭ, supposedly giving rise to the ruling dynasties of Gīlān and Rustamdār, Shīrvān, and Bidlīs and Ṣāṣūn.53 Interestingly, this story is not an original construction by Sharaf Khān; rather, it was taken by the prince of Bidlīs from Gīlānid-Māzandarānid historiography, more specifically the Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān va Rūyān va Māzandarān by Ẓahīr al-Dīn Marʿashī (d. 894/1489), who himself had retrieved it from the earlier chronicles of Ibn Isfandiyār (Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān, early seventh/thirteenth century) and Awliyā Allāh Āmulī (Tārīkh-i Rūyān, composed in 760/1359).54 This influence of Caspian local historiography on Sharaf Khān is not surprising in itself, as he had served for seven years as governor of Tunukābun, in Rustamdār, in the years 975-982/1568-1575. This was right after the ousting and imprisonment of Khān Aḥmad Khān (r. 945-975/1538-1568 and 985-1000/1578-1592), ruler of Gīlān-i Biyā-pīsh as head of the Kārkiyā dynasty, and during a period of historiographical revival in the Gīlān-Māzandarān region.55

52 Although it was completed in the earlier part of Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s reign, the famous illustrated copy of the work known as the Houghton Shāhnāma is the best example of this interest during the first half-century of Safavid rule (on this manuscript, see Dickson and Welch 1981). 53 Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 362. 54 See Marʿashī, ed. 1345sh/1966: 7-8; also, Ibn Isfandiyār, ed. 1320sh/1941: I, 172-173 and tr. 1905: 97-99; and Awliyā Allāh Āmulī, ed. 1348sh/1969: 29-31. This story does not appear in the Tārīkh-i Khānī, a chronicle composed in 921-922/1515-1516 by ʿAlī b. Shams al-Dīn Lāḥījī, at the request of the Gīlānid ruler Sulṭān Aḥmad Khān (r. 911-943/1505-1536). On the Caspian chronicles, see notably Melville 2000; on the Marʿashī sayyids, Calmard 1999, and on Ẓahīr al-Dīn’s career, Goto 2011: 28-29; on Āmulī, Madelung 1987 and on Ibn Isfandiyār, Melville 1997, as well as the introductions to the editions of their chronicles. 55 Thus, the earliest extant manuscript of Ibn Isfandiyār’s Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān is dated 978/1570, while another copy of the work was produced in 1003/1595 and, although we do not know where they were written, we are inclined to agree with Charles Melville’s assertion that “the mss. of Ibn Isfandiyar were presumably commissioned by local rulers interested in publicizing their hereditary rights” (Melville 2000: 50, note 19). This hypothesis is supported by the fact that both manuscripts were actually majmūʿas devoted to the local history of the region: thus, a copy of Āmulī’s Tārīkh-i Rūyān used to be attached to the manuscript dated 978/1570, before being removed from it and transferred to Tehran’s Majlis Library, number 4075 (see the explanations given by ʿAbbās Iqbāl in Ibn Isfandiyār, ed. 1320sh/1941: I, ix, and Manūchihr Sutūda in Āmulī, ed. 1348sh/1969: xvii-xviii); likewise, the manuscript dated 1003/1595 also includes the text of Marʿashī’s Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān (Ibn Isfandiyār, ed. 1320sh/1941: I, xiv). As for the

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However, in the process of borrowing Marʿashī’s story, Sharaf Khān made significant changes to its narrative: in Marʿashī’s version, Jāmāsp only has two sons, and there is no mention made of a supposed ancestor of the princes of Bidlīs and Ṣāṣūn. In fact, there is no mention made of Bidlīs, Ṣāṣūn, or any other Kurdish principality.56 It seems that Marʿashī’s story was deliberately transformed by Sharaf Khān in order to establish a link between his own dynasty and the ruling dynasties of Rustamdār and Shīrvān, two places where he had been governor in the course of his career with the Safavids.57 Indeed, he concludes his narrative by saying that “the princes of Bidlīs (…) are thus cousins with the kings of Rustamdār and Shīrvān”.58 Why did Sharaf Khān feel the need to construct a nasab connection between his own dynasty, the Marʿashī of Māzandarān and the Shīrvānshāh? What was the political purpose of such an assertion of kinship? These are difficult questions, but Sharaf Khān’s biography and the context in which he evolved allow us to venture a few guesses. As we have seen, Sharaf Khān had served as Safavid governor both in Rustamdār (975-982/1568-1575) and in Shīrvān (962-965/1555-1558 and 983-984/1576-1577). In the Sharafnāma, he notably boasts of the fairness and equity with which he treated his subjects in Tunukābun, a just government he contrasts with the wrongdoings of the Qizilbāsh commanders governing other parts of Gīlān.59 It is likely there that Sharaf Khān was first acquainted with Marʿashī’s work, and the nasab construction found in the Sharafnāma probably goes back to that period, when it might have been used by the Kurdish commander to make his rule appear more legitimate in the eyes of the local elite. If that is the case, though, how did this nasab construction remain relevant around thirty years later, in the year 1005/1596-1597, when Sharaf Khān composed his historical opus? It is worth mentioning that, precisely at the time when the Sharafnāma was being written, the local princes of Gīlān, Rustamdār and Māzandarān were in the middle of a power struggle with the Safavid state, whereas Shīrvān was, like Kurdistan, a theatre

sole extant manuscript of another work by Ẓaḥīr al-Dīn Marʿashī, the Tārīkh-i Gīlān va Daylamistān (composed in 880/1475), it is dated 993/1585 (ms. Or. 156, Bodleian Library, Oxford; see Marʿashī, ed. 1364sh/1985: 478). 56 Marʿashī had already adapted the story found in Ibn Isfandiyār’s Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān and Āmulī’s Tārīkh-i Rūyān. In these two chronicles, Jāmāsp is said to have had several sons, but only the name of Narsī is given. Narsī’s son Pīrūz is then said to have wed a princess from Gīlān, and their son Gīlān Shāh is presented as the ancestor of the ruling dynasties of the region. It is Marʿashī who adds a son of Jāmāsp named Bahwās, whose son Surkhāb is then mentioned as an ancestor of the Shīrvānshāh. In Sharaf Khān’s account, Narsī is the one to marry a princess from Gīlān (there is no mention of Pīrūz), while Surkhāb, ancestor of the Shīrvānshah, is presented as Jāmāsp’s son, rather than his grandson, and Bahwās̱ is introduced as another son of Jāmāsp and ancestor of the princes of Bidlīs and Ṣāṣūn. 57 When he was 12 years-old, Sharaf Khān was elevated to the rank of amīr by Shāh Ṭahmāsp who assigned him land in Shīrvān, namely the ulkā of Sāliyān and Maḥmūdābād, where the prince of Bidlīs ruled for three years c. 962-965/1555-1558. After his seven years in Tunukābun, Sharaf Khān was again sent to Shīrvān around Jumādā II 983/May 1575, staying there until the death of Shāh Ṭahmāsp in Ṣafar 984/ May 1576. See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 447-459. 58 ‫ ;با ملوک رستمدار و شیروان حکام بدلیس بنی عامنند‬Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 362. 59 Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 452.

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of conflict between the Safavids and the Ottomans.60 Sharaf Khān possibly still had client networks in these territories; furthermore, it is conceivable that he had been in contact with Khān Aḥmad Khān, ousted from Gīlān-i Biyā-pīsh five years earlier (1000/1592) and then a refugee in Istanbul, from where he was making plans to get his principality back.61 Some comments made by the author in the khātima of the Sharafnāma also suggest that Sharaf Khān was still closely monitoring affairs in Gīlān and Shīrvān at the time of writing.62 Beyond these short-term considerations, the Caspian provinces and Shīrvān also shared with Kurdistan “long traditions of independent rule [which] fostered the production of local historical writing”, favoured by “the formation of intensely local identities and the fragmentation of political authority in numerous petty kingdoms”.63 The connections between Kurdistan, the Caspian provinces and Shīrvān, as well as Georgia and the provinces of Shakkī (in the south Caucasus, north of present-day Azerbaijan) and Ṭālish (along the Caspian sea, east of Ardabīl), are in fact explicitly formulated by Sharaf Khān himself in the muqaddima of his book, in which he states: The greatest sultans and most illustrious potentates have never coveted their [the Kurds’] country (ulkā) nor their province (vilāyat), being content with receiving tribute (pīshkash) and oaths of allegiance (iṭāʿat) from them, alongside their obedient participation to military campaigns (mutābaʿat … bi jār u safar), and they never tried to subdue them. Those who nonetheless made every effort to try and conquer Kurdistan had to suffer unconceivable hardships and misfortunes, after which they repented and gave it back to its rightful owners. Such is also the case of the provinces (vilāyat) of Georgia, Shakkī, Shīrvān, Ṭawālish, Gīlānāt, Rustamdār and Astarābād, located in the north of Iran and opposite Kurdistan.64

60 Thus, Shāh ʿAbbās put an end to the autonomous rule in Gīlān in 1000/1592, and in Rustamdār and Māzandarān in 1006-1007/1597-1599. This happened in the context of a global reassertion of central power at the behest of the shah, who also overthrew the dynasty of the Lor-i Kūchak in 1006/1597-1598. See Iskandar Bēg Turkamān, ed. 1334sh/1956: I, 448-451, 534-543 and 585-586 and tr. 1979: II, 621-625, 713-723 and 772-773; also Melville 2000: 50, note 19. 61 After having fled Gīlān, Khān Aḥmad Khān took refuge in Shīrvān for a time, whence he crossed into Ottoman territory. He died in Istanbul in 1005/1596-1597, while the first manuscript of the Sharafnāma was being produced (on Khān Aḥmad Khān’s career, see Kasheff 2001). 62 See Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: II, 72 and 91-92; Alsancakli 2018: 137, note 435. 63 Melville 2000: 46, on the Caspian provinces. 64 ‫سالطین عظام و خواقین کرام طمع در الکا و والیت ایشان نکرده محضاً به پیشکش و اطاعت و متابعت که به جار و سفر ایشان حارض باشند راضی‬ ‫گشته مقید به تسخیر نشده­اند و اگر بعضی از سالطین در فتح و تسخیر کردستان جد و جهد متام فرموده­اند و محنت و مشقت ماالکالم کشیده­اند‬ ‫آخر نادم و پشیامن گشته باز به صاحبان داده­اند مثل والیت گرجستان و شکی و شیروان و طوالش و گیالنات و رستمدار و اسرتآباد که در شامل ایران‬ ‫ ;و محاذی کردستان واقع شده‬Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 18-19. The autograph manuscript of the Sharafnāma, Elliott 332, kept in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, has “Māzandarān and Astarābād” (Elliott 332, f. 7r, ll. 11-13). On pīshkash as “present” or “tribute”, see Lambton 1994, notably pp. 150-155; on the meaning of jār in jār u safar, also see Lambton 1954: 48, jar o janjal, translated as “commotion, uproar”.

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Thus, Sharaf Khān, who had governed or campaigned in or near all these territories, seems to have been well aware of the historical and geopolitical similarities linking them together.65 Indeed, these regions were among the main theatres of operations in the Ottoman-Safavid wars, which allowed their rulers to push for more autonomy by time and again playing one empire against the other. This insight on the part of Sharaf Khān is all the more interesting considering that he had experienced the conflicts between central powers and local rulers from both sides, first as a Safavid and Ottoman agent and then as an independent-minded local dynast, which was his situation in Bidlīs when he composed the Sharafnāma. Going back to Sharaf Khān’s assertion of Sassanid ancestry, we now see that such a nasab claim represented far more than a mere opportunistic way of declaring a prestigious lineage and legitimising the rule of an imperial agent in a rebellious region. Rather, it was an integral part of Sharaf Khān’s identity, completely coherent with his cultural worldview and political outlook, to the extent that he styled himself “al-Akāsrī” or “the Khusrawid” (that is, “the Sassanid”) in the colophon of the Sharafnāma’s autograph manuscript.66 Yet these ancestry claims were highly dependent on circumstances and, only half a century later, Sharaf Khān’s grandson Abdāl Khān seemed equally convinced of his own Abbasid lineage, incessantly referring to it in conversations reported by Evliyā Çelebi. This shows the extent to which nasab claims put forth by Kurdish dynasts in the tenth-eleventh/sixteenth-seventeenth centuries were, first and foremost, a product of their socio-political environment. The various uses and counter-uses of these ancestry claims further suggest that they were a crucial component in the political discourse of the Kurdish dynasties and in the self-image of their rulers. Although it tells us little historical truth about the shadowy origins of houses such as the Bahādīnān of ʿAmādiya, the Shambō of Ḥakkārī or the Diyādīnids of Bidlīs, research into their nasab enables us to better appreciate the relations these dynasties entertained with one another, as well as with other local rulers and the imperial states. As a fundamental means for the symbolic expression of their status, nasab was also the primary ideological instrument used by Kurdish dynasts to legitimise their rule inside their principalities, and claim their place as political actors worthy of consideration by the neighbouring dynasties and the central states alike. Given the scarcity of written material left by these dynasts, the study of nasab is especially valuable in our endeavour to understand how the Kurdish princes saw themselves, both individually and as a group, and how they acted politically in Kurdistan.

65 Sharaf Khān’s text echoes a sentiment already expressed around two and a half centuries earlier in the Tārīkh-i Rūyān by Awliyā Allāh Āmulī, who writes that “from the time of the Khusraws until our time, Ruyan was never without the Ustandar maliks, nor Mazandaran without the Bavandid maliks. Even if the people (kasān) of the Caliphs and the ʿAlawi sayyids, the Tahirids, Samanids, Daylamis and Khwarazmshahi Turks and the Buyids and others found a way into (madkhal) this province, and went to and fro, these maliks nevertheless always remained in place (sābit). Sometimes in peace, sometimes in agreement and sometimes in opposition, they were never absent, and they never will be, God willing!” See Āmulī, ed. 1348sh/1969: 117-118; quotation translated by Charles Melville (2000: 52). 66 Elliott 332, f. 246v, ll. 12-23.

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Table 1. Nasab of Kurdish dynasties at the turn of the eleventh/seventeenth century, as given in the Sharafnāma by Sharaf Khān Bidlīsī.

Name of dynasty

Affiliation Claimed nasab

Notes

ʿAmādiya

Ottomans Abbasid

Mirdāsid (Pālū, Agīl, Charmūk)

Ottomans Abbasid

Ḥakkārī

Ottomans Abbasid

Kilīs

Ottomans Abbasid

Jazīra

Ottomans Umayyad

Known as “Bānī ʿAbbās” and “Bahādīnān”, from the founder of the dynasty Bahā’ al-Dīn, who came from Ṭārūn (Mūsh) and was a brother of Shams al-Dīn, founder of the “Shambo” dynasty of Ḥakkārī, and of Mantashā, founder of the “Mund” dynasty of Kilīs. They spoke a mix of Kurdish and Arabic. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 106-107) Descendants of Pīr Manṣūr, himself a 17thgeneration descendent of Sayyid ʿAlī b. ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Abbās. Sharaf Khān mentions having consulted shajaras of this lineage. The tribe is supposedly descended from Mirdās b. Idrīs b. Naṣr b. Jamīl, leader of the Banū Kilāb. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 175-177) Sharaf Khān mentions their Abbasid origins, but adds that their genealogy is “not in order”, without giving further information. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 89) Descendants of an unspecified son of ‘Abbās, via a man named Mantashā (see above). This name suggests a possible link with the Turkish beylik of the Menteşeoğulları (7th-9th/13th-15th centuries). The dynasty’s founder, Mund, was supposedly an Ayyubid commander. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 220-221) Descendants of the Umayyad caliph “Khālid b. Wālid”, via a son of his named Sulaymān. There is no caliph with the name Khālid b. Wālid; perhaps Yazīd III b. Wālid, nicknamed Abū Khālid, is meant by the author. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 115) Descendants of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwān II, via a grandson of his named Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik or, alternatively, one or three sons of his who came to Kurdistan after having fled to Palestine. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 261-264) Also descendants of the Marwānid house of the Umayyads, via a man named Shaykh Maḥmūd, who came from Syria or the Jazīra at the time of Qara Yūsuf Qaraqoyunlu. They are said to be “cousins” with the princes of Jazīra. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 300-301)

Ottomans Umayyad Sulaymānī (Qolāb, Baṭmān, Mayyāfāriqīn) Maḥmūdī

Ottomans Umayyad

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103

Name of dynasty

Affiliation Claimed nasab

Notes

Zirqī

Ottomans Alid

Dunbulī

Safavids

Descendants of Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib via a man from Syria named Shaykh Ḥasan b. Sayyid ʿAbd alRaḥmān, called “Shaykh Azraq” because of his blue clothes. Shaykh Azraq later entered in a matrimonial alliance with the Artūqid ruler of Mardīn, whose name is not given. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 238-239, 249-250) Descendants of a man named Īsā, from Syria or Jazīra. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 310-311)

Sohrān Diyādīnid (Bidlīs)

Unspecified (Arabic origin) Ottomans Unspecified (Arabic origin) Ottomans Sassanid

ʿIzīzānid (Ṣāṣūn)

Ottomans Sassanid

Kalhur

Safavids

Suwaydī

Ottomans Barmakid

Iranian mythology (Kayānids)

Chamishgazak Ottomans Abbasid or Saljuqid

Descendants of an Arab notable from Baghdād named Kolūs. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 271-272) Descendants of the prince Bahwās b. Jāmāsp b. Pīrūz, via his son Żiyā’ al-Dīn. Cousin dynasty of the Marʿashī dynasty of Rustamdār and the Shīrvānshāh, both also descended from Jāmāsp b. Pīrūz. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 362) Descendants of the prince Bahwās̱ b. Jāmāsp b. Pīrūz, via his son ʿIzz al-Dīn. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 191) Descendants of Gudarz b. Gīv, governor of Bābil during the rule of the Kayānid kings. Acting upon orders from the Kayānid Bahmān, Ruhham b. Gudarz invdaded Syria, Egypt and Palestine. The Kalhur country remained in the hands of his offspring. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 317) Descendants of three brothers of Barmakid origin who came from Baghdad to Kurdistan. The oldest of the three, a religious man, was called upon by the Suwaydī tribesmen to guide them and, after his death, his brother Mīr Shabāb became the leader of the Suwaydī. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 252-255) Either an Abbasid origin via a descendant of the Abbasids named Malkīsh, or a Saljuqid ancestry via Amir Saliq b. ʿAli b. Qasim and a descendent of his named “Malik Shāh”, which Sharaf Khān assumes could have been reduced to “Malkīsh”. Apparently favouring the Turkish hypothesis, Sharaf Khān mentions that “the princes of Chamishgazak are of Turkish origins, because their names bear no similarity with the names of the Kurds or the Arabs.” Malkīsh’s grandson was also named Malkīsh and when he gathered the tribes of Chamishgazak, they became known as Malkīshī. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 162-163)

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Name of dynasty

Affiliation Claimed nasab

Khīzān

Ottomans Kurdish

Shērwān

Ayyubid Ardalān

Ḥisn-Kayfā

Bābān

Mukrī

Birādōst

Notes

Three brothers named Dil, Bil and Bilij, originally from Bilījān, in the province of Khunūs, came to Khīzān and conquered the country, which they divided into the three districts of Khīzān, Muks and Isbāyird. The name of “Khīzān” supposedly comes from “saḥar-khīzān”, “those who rise for the morning prayer”, as a testimony to the piety of the country’s inhabitants. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 209-210) Ottomans Kurdish Either descendants of viziers of the Ayyubids, who (Ayyubid came to Kurdistan with the Ayyubid prince of Ḥiṣnconnection) Kayfā, or descendants of the princes of Shīrvān, or Shīrvānī in Azerbaijan. Again, Sharaf Khān mentions three brothers, presumably to account for the division in three parts of the principality. (Scheref, ed. 18601862: I, 231) Extinct Kurdish Descendants of a Rawwādid Kurd from Dvīn named Shādī b. Marwān. This origin is historically attested. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 55) Safavids Kurdish Descendants of Bābā Ardalān, himself a scion of the Marwānid Marwānid Kurds who ruled in Diyārbakr and the Jazīra in the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 82-83) Ottomans Kurdish Descendants of the Ayyubids; this is historically Ayyubid attested. They ruled over the Bajnawī tribe, about which the following story is given: Bajn and Bukht were two brothers, descendants of the Umayyad princes of Jazīra, among whom infighting erupted. As a result, Bukht seized Bukhtān and Bajn ḤiṣnKayfā, before the Ayyubids conquered it from the Bajnawī. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 149-150, 158) Ottomans Kurdish? Nothing is said of the ancestry of the dynastic line of the Bābān. After Pīr Budāq’s death, the line went extinct and the nukarān of the dynasty took over the rule, keeping the name of Bābān. (Scheref, ed. 18601862: I, 279-280) Safavids Kurdish The whole tribe are said to be descendants of a Bābān Bābān exile (presumably from the original line). He was renowned for his cunning (“makr”), hence the name of the tribe. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 288) Safavids Kurdish Descendants of Halāl b. Badr b. Ḥasanwayh; after his (Gūrān) death at the hands of the Daylamite Shams al-Dīn, Ḥasanwayhid his three sons migrated to the lands of the Birādōst, where they ruled in various positions. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 296)

War ri o rs, Ki ngs, and C ali phs

Name of dynasty

Affiliation Claimed nasab

Akrād-i Īrān (SiyāḥManṣūr, Chaknī and Zingana)

Safavids

Pāzūkī

Safavids

105

Notes

Kurdish (Lor Three brothers came from Luristān or, in another or Gūrān) version, from the Gūrān/Ardalān country and entered the service of “the Iranian sovereigns”. Henceforth they achieved the rank of amīr and their partisans became known by their proper names (Siyāḥ-Manṣūr, Chaknī and Zingana). (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 322-323) Barmakid/ Descendants of the Suwaydī; they are divided into Kurdish two branches named Khālidbēglu and Shukrbēglu, Suwaydī presumably referring to two persons named Khālid Bēg and Shukr Bēg. (Scheref, ed. 1860-1862: I, 328329)

Map 1. Kurdish dynasties at the turn of the eleventh/seventeenth century.

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Bibliographical References Açıkyıldız, Birgül, The Yezidis. The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, London: I. B. Tauris, 2014. Alsancakli, Sacha, “Matrimonial Alliances and the Transmission of Dynastic Power in Kurdistan: The Case of the Diyādīnids of Bidlīs in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries”, Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017): 222-249. Alsancakli, Sacha, “Le Šarafnāma de Šaraf Xān Bidlīsī (ca. 1005/1596-1597). Composition, transmission et réception d’une chronique des dynasties kurdes entre les Safavides et les Ottomans”, PhD thesis, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, 2018. Āmulī, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan Awliyā Allāh, Tārīkh-i Rūyān, (ed.) Manūchihr Sutūda, Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1348sh/1969. Bosworth, Clifford E, “Marwān I”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Charles Pellat, Leiden: E. J. Brill: Volume VI (1991), 621-623. Calmard, Jean, “Une famille de sādāt dans l’histoire de l’Iran: les Marʿašī”, Oriente Moderno Nuova serie 18/2 (1999): 413-428. Caskel, Werner, “Bakr b. Wā’il”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Bernard Lewis, Charles Pellat and Joseph Schacht, Leiden: E. J. Brill: Volume II (1965): 962-964. Crone, Patricia, “Mawlā. II. In Historical and Legal Usage”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Charles Pellat, Leiden: E. J. Brill: Volume VI (1991): 874-882. Dehqan, Mustafa, “The Fatwā of Malā Ṣāliḥ al-Kurdī al-Hakkārī: An Arabic Manuscript on the Yezidi Religion”, Journal of Kurdish Studies 6 (2008): 140-162. Dehqan, Mustafa, “A Yezidi commentary by Mawlānā Muḥammad al-Barqal‘ī”, Nûbihar Akademî 1/3 (2015): 137-151. Deqhan, Mustafa, and Vural Genç, “Reflections on Sharaf Khān’s autobiography”, Manuscripta Orientalia 21/1 (2015a): 46-61. Dehqan, Mustafa, and Vural Genç, “Why was Sharaf Khān killed?” Manuscripta Orientalia 21/2 (2015b): 13-19. Dickson, Martin B., and Stuart Cary Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Diderot, Denis, and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, (eds.), Enyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton et Durand, 1751-1772. Dönmez, İbrahim Kâfi, “Nesep”, in İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm araştırmaları merkezi: Volume 32 (2006): 573-575. Duindam, Jeroen, Dynasties. A Global History of Power, 1300-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. al-Duri, Abd al-Aziz. “Diwan. i. The Caliphate”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Bernard Lewis, Charles Pellat and Joseph Schacht, Leiden: E. J. Brill, Volume II (1965): 323-327. Encyclopædia of Islam, “Ḥasab wa-Nasab”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Bernard Lewis, Victor-Louis Ménage, Charles Pellat and Joseph Schacht, Leiden: E. J. Brill, Volume III (1986), 238-239. [Article signed by the editors.]

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Evliyā Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis. The relevant section of the Seyahatname, (ed.) Robert Dankoff, Leiden: Brill, 1990. Fayda, Mustafa, “Ensâb”, in İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm araştırmaları merkezi: Volume XI (1995): 244-249. Firdawsī, Abū al-Qāsim, Shāhnāma, (ed.) Jalāl Khāliqī Muṭlaq, 8 volumes, New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1987-2009. Goldziher, Ignaz, Muhammedanische Studien, Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1888-1890. Translated by Christa R. Barber and Samuel M. Stern as: Goldziher, Ignaz, Muslim Studies, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1967-1971. Gördük, Yunus Emre, “Eğil emirliği’nin kısa tarihçesi ve Eğil emirlerine ait şecere metninin tercümesi”, Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi 35 (2014): 89-120. Goto, Yukako, Die südkaspischen Provinzen des Iran unter den Safawiden im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Eine Analyse der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2011. Gunter, Michael M., (ed.), Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. Hamès, Constant, “La Filiation généalogique (nasab) dans la société d’Ibn Khaldun”, L’Homme 27/102 (1987): 99-118. Hawting, Gerald R., “Marwān II”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Charles Pellat, Leiden: E. J. Brill, volume VI (1991): 623-625. Hawting, Gerald R., The First Dynasty of Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750, London: Routledge, 2000. [First edition, London: Croom Helm, 1986.] Hinds, Martin, “Mu‘āwiya I”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Charles Pellat, Leiden: E. J. Brill, volume VII (1993): 263-268. Ibn Isfandiyār, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan, Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān, (ed.) ʿAbbās Iqbāl, Tehran: Kulāh-i Khāvar, 1320sh/1941. [Ibn Isfandiyār, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan,] An abridged translation of the history of Tabaristan, (tr.) Edward G. Browne, Leiden: Brill, 1905. Ibn Khaldūn, ʿAbd al-Raḥman b. Muḥammad, Muqaddimah, (ed.) ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Waḥīd Wāfī, 3 volumes, Cairo: Lajnat al-Bayān al-ʿArabī, 1376-1382/1957-1962. Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History, (tr.) Franz Rosenthal, 3 volumes, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967. [First edition, 1958.] al-Jāḥiẓ, Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn, 4 volumes, Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1411/1991. [First edition, Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1384/1964.] James, Boris, “Arab Ethnonyms (‘Ajam, ‘Arab, Badū and Turk): The Kurdish Case as a Paradigm for Thinking about Differences in the Middle Ages”, Iranian Studies 47/5 (2014): 683-712. Kasheff, Manouchehr, “Gīlān v. History under the Safavids”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, (ed.) Ehsan Yarshater, New York: Columbia University, Volume X (2001): 635-642. Khvāndamīr, Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn b. Ḥumām al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i Ḥabīb al-siyar fī akhbār afrād albashar, (ed.) Jalāl al-Dīn Humā’ī, 4 volumes, Tehran: Khayyām, 1333sh/1954.

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Kindermann, Hans, “Rabīʿa and Muḍar”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Gérard Lecomte, Leiden: E. J. Brill, volume VIII (1995): 352-354. Kister, Meir J., Plessner, Martin, “Notes on Caskel’s Ǧamharat an-Nasab”, Oriens 25-26 (1976): 48-68. Köhler, Wilhelm, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesinde Bitlis ve halkı, translated by Haydar Işık, Istanbul: Alan, 1989. Lāḥījī, ʿAlī b. Shams al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i Khānī: shāmil-i ḥavādis-i chihil sāla-yi Gīlān, az 880 tā 920 qamarī, (ed.) Manūchihr Sutūda, Tehran: Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1352sh/1973. Lambton, A. K. S., Persian Vocabulary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954. Lambton, A. K. S., “Pīshkash: present or tribute?”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 57/1 (1994): 145-158. Maçoudi, Les Prairies d’or, (ed. and tr.) C. Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille, 9 volumes, Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1861-1877. Madelung, Wilferd, “Awlīā’ Allāh Āmolī”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, (ed.) Ehsan Yarshater, New York: Columbia University, Volume III (1987): 120-121. Marʿashī, Ẓahīr al-Dīn b. Naṣīr al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān va Rūyān va Māzandarān, (ed.) Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tasbīḥī, Tehran: Sharq, 1345sh/1966. Marʿashī, Ẓahīr al-Dīn b. Naṣīr al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i Gīlān va Daylamistān, (ed.) Manūchihr Sutūda, Tehran: Intishārāt-i Iṭṭilāʿāt, 1364sh/1985. [First edition, 1347sh/1968]. Marlow, Louise, “Ḥasab o nasab”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, (ed.) Ehsan Yarshater, New York: Columbia University, Volume XII (2003): 23-24. Mazzaoui, Michel M., “A ‘New’ Edition of the Ṣafvat al-ṣafā’”, in Pfeiffer, Judith, and Sholeh A. Quinn, (eds.), History and Historiography of Post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East. Studies in Honor of John E. Woods, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006: 303-310. Melville, Charles, “Ebn Esfandīār, Bahā’ al-Dīn Moḥammad”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, (ed.) Ehsan Yarshater, New York: Columbia University, volume VIII (1997): 20-23. Melville, Charles, “The Caspian Provinces: A World Apart. Three Local Histories of Mazandaran”, Iranian Studies 33/1-2 (2000): 45-91. Morimoto, Kazuo, “The Formation and Development of the Science of Talibid Genealogies in the 10th and 11th Century Middle East”, Oriente Moderno Nuova serie 18/2 (1999): 541-570. [Mustawfī Qazvīnī, Ḥamdullāh], The Taʾrīkh-i Guzīda, or “Select History”, (ed. and tr.) Edward G. Browne and index by Reynold A. Nicholson, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1913. Mustawfī Qazvīnī, Ḥamdullāh, Tārīkh-i guzīda, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Navāʾī, Tehran: Amīr Kabīr, 1339sh/1960. Nawas, John A., “A Profile of the Mawālī ‘Ulamā’”, in Bernards, Monique, and John A. Nawas, (eds.), Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam, Leiden: Brill, 2005: 454-481. Omarkhali, Khanna, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition: From Oral to Written, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017. Rosenthal, Franz, A History of Muslim Historiography, Leiden: Brill, 1968.

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Rosenthal, Franz, “Nasab”, in Encyclopædia of Islam, (ed.) Clifford E. Bosworth, Emeri van Donzel, Wolfhart P. Heinrichs and Charles Pellat, Leiden: E. J. Brill, Volume VII (1993): 967-968. Sharaf Khān Bidlīsī, Sharafnāma, ms. Hunt. Don. 13, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Sharaf Khān Bidlīsī, Sharafnāma, ms. Elliott 332, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Sharaf Khān Bidlīsī, Sharafnāma, ms. D 277, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Saint Petersburg. Scheref, prince de Bidlis, Scheref-Nameh ou Histoire des Kourdes, (ed.) Vladimir VéliaminofZernof, 2 volumes, Saint Petersburg: Académie impériale des Sciences, 1860-1862. Sebti, Abdelahad, “Au Maroc: sharifisme citadin, charisme et historiographie”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales 41/2 (1986): 433-457. Szombathy, Zoltán, “Genealogy in Medieval Muslim Societies”, Studia Islamica 95 (2002): 5-35. Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Les six voyages, Paris: G. Clouzier et C. Barbin, 1676. Touati, Houari, “Prestige ancestral et système symbolique šarifien dans le Maghreb central du xviie siècle”, Arabica 39 (1992): 1-24. Turkmān, Iskandar Bēg, Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, (ed.) Īraj Afshār, 2 volumes, Isfahan: Kitābfurūshī, 1334sh/1956. [Turkmān, Iskandar Bēg,] History of Shah Abbas the Great, (tr.) Roger Savory, 2 volumes, Boulder: Westview, 1979. Zirke, Heidi, Ein hagiographisches Zeugnis zur persischen Geschichte aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts. Das achte Kapitel des Ṣafwat aṣ-ṣafā in kritischer Bearbeitung, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1987.

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Wann fällt der Apfel nicht weit vom Stamm? Zeitpunkte familiärer Amtsübertragung in mamlukischer Zeit*

Einleitung In mamlukischer Zeit, also in Ägypten und Syrien des 13. bis 15. Jahrhunderts, existierten viele bezahlte Ämter in der Verwaltung und im Bildungswesen. Michael Chamberlain hat in beeindruckender Weise aufgezeigt, welch enorme Bedeutung diese bezahlten Posten für die städtische Gesellschaft als prestigebringende, finanzielle Resourcen hatten.1 Das Bild jedoch, das Chamberlain von einer familiären Amtsübergabe zeichnet, möchte ich in diesem Beitrag korrigieren. Grundsätzlich gab es kein formelles Verfahren zur Besetzung dieser Ämter, weshalb neben einer gesellschaftlich anerkannten Qualifikation auch gesellschaftliches Ansehen verbunden mit guten Beziehungen wichtig waren, um einen der bezahlten Posten zu erhalten. Entsprechend gab es auch keine Anrechte auf das Verbleiben im Amt, von dem man jederzeit wieder zugunsten eines anderen Amtsträgers entlassen werden konnte. In der Tat weisen die Karrieren sehr vieler Notablen dieser Zeit häufige Amtswechsel auf. Wenn schon der Amtsinhaber keinen rechtlichen Anspruch auf das Verweilen im Amt hatte, so war es natürlich auch nicht rechtlich abgesichert, dass ein Familienmitglied als Nachfolger in das Amt eingesetzt werden konnte. Diese bezahlten Posten waren grundsätzlich nicht vererbbar.2

* Ich danke Andreas Herdt, Robin Flack, Thomas Thiemann und Ines Weinrich für eine kritische Lektüre. 1 Chamberlain1994. 2 Eine mögliche Ausnahme stellen Posten dar, die vom Stifter für eine spezifische Person und deren Nachkommen, sofern qualifiziert, gestiftet wurden, was auf einige Ämter zutrifft, die allerdings nicht zu den hierarchisch besonders hoch im Kurs stehenden gehörten. Siehe die Diskussion bei Chamberlain 1994: 93. Syrinx von Hees  •  Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 111-136 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.123652

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Dennoch wird in den Biographien der Notablen dieser Zeit manchmal darauf hingewiesen, dass der Sohn dem Vater im Amt gefolgt sei oder ein anderer nahestehender Verwandter dem Amtsinhaber folgte. Dieses Phänomen ist bereits von vielen Nahosthistorikern bemerkt worden, die sich insbesondere Gedanken über die Gründe einer solchen familiären Amtsübertragung gemacht haben. Bernadette Martel-Thoumian zum Beispiel geht aufgrund dieser Beobachtung davon aus, dass neben den Mitteln des Klientelismus und der Käuflichkeit auch die Erblichkeit zu einem Amt in der Verwaltung führen konnte.3 Sie diskutiert an dieser Stelle zwar den Begriff “Erblichkeit” nicht; es wird aber deutlich, dass sie ihn als bildlichen Ausdruck einer familiären Kontinuität in einer Amtsausübung versteht, und nicht etwa im Sinne eines juristisch verbrieften Rechts. Im Hinblick auf diese “Erblichkeit” geht sie davon aus, dass eine solche familiäre Kontinuität in den hierarchisch niedrigeren Posten häufiger vorgekommen sei, als in den höheren und daher besonders begehrten Verwaltungsposten.4 Sie macht darauf aufmerksam, dass ein Vorteil des Weiterführens des Amtes innerhalb einer Familie in den familiär weitergegebenen praktischen Erfahrungen liegen könnte, die für die Ausübung des Amtes genauso wichtig waren, wie bei anderen Personen erlernte Schulkenntnisse.5 Ergänzend möchte ich hinzufügen, dass in einem System, in dem gute Beziehungen insgesamt von zentraler Bedeutung sind, es naheliegend ist, dass familiäre Beziehungen bei der Besetzung von Ämtern eine große Rolle spielten. Eine familiäre Amtsnachfolge scheint jedoch im mamlukenzeitlichen System der Ämterbesetzung nicht die Regel gewesen zu sein.6 Zumindest notieren die zeitgenössichen Biographen und Historiker eine solche familiäre Nachfolge, wenn sie denn eintritt, und heben sie damit als etwas Erwähnenswertes hervor. Meist heißt es schlicht, dass eine Person “nach seinem Vater (baʿda abīhī)” mit dessen Amt betraut wurde. So schreibt Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (773-852/1372-1449) – um nur ein Beispiel zu nennen – über Abū ʿĪsā al-Muqayrī al-Karakī (741 o. 742-801/1341 o. 1342-1398), dass “er das Richteramt von al-Karak nach seinem Vater leitete (wa-waliya qaḍāʾa l-Karak baʿda abīhī).”7 In einigen Fällen, die von einer familiären Amtsnachfolge handeln, wird von einer regelrechten Übertragung des Postens gesprochen, und zwar von nuzūl (Abtretung, Verzicht, freiwilliger Rücktritt) oder verbal ausgedrückt nazala ʿan … lahū (er trat freiwillig von … für ihn zurück). Chamberlain, der einige dieser freiwilligen Rücktritte wahrgenommen hat, diskutiert nun nicht nur die Gründe einer familiären Amtsübertragung, sondern auch den Zeitpunkt. Er schlussfolgert, dass in Fällen, in denen ein Amt innerhalb



3 4 5 6

Martel-Thoumian 1991: 78-92. Martel-Thoumian 1991: 79. Martel-Thoumian 1991: 79 und 82. Auch Martel-Thoumian geht davon aus, dass keiner der von ihr beschriebenen Wege, an ein Amt zu kommen, klar vorherrschte; Martel-Thoumian 1991: 79. 7 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Dhayl al-durar al-kāmina: 27 (Nr. 5).

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einer Familie blieb, häufig von nuzūl (“descent”) gesprochen wurde.8 Er geht davon aus, dass dies in einem Augenblick passierte, “while they [die älteren Amtsinhaber] had the power to do so”.9 Er meint “lecturers could pass on their posts to others most easily at the height of their prestige” und daher komme es vor, dass sogar ein noch sehr junger Sohn als Nachfolger ins Amt eingesetzt werde.10 Er diskutiert dann auch die Gründe: Da diese nuzūl-Praxis keine rechtliche Grundlage hatte, sei diese Art der Amtsübergabe innerhalb einer Familie abhängig vom Prestige des übergebenden Amtsinhabers und seiner Fähigkeiten, mächtige Unterstützer für sein Vorhabens zu finden.11 Chamberlain geht in diesem Zusammenhang auch von einer allgemeinen Erwartungshaltung aus, dass Söhne den Posten des Vaters erben sollten.12 Auch Chamberlain verwendet hier das Verb “erben (inherit)”, ohne jedoch damit einen rechtlichen Anspruch zu postulieren. Er spricht noch “äußere Faktoren” an, von denen eine solche Amtsübergabe weiter abhängig sei, wie den Status des Kandidaten, die gegebene Wettbewerbssituation um diesen Posten und das Interesse des Sultans.13 Chamberlains Schlussfolgerungen werden auch in neuerer Forschung als gültig angenommen und stoßen bisher nicht auf Kritik, so etwa in folgendem Zitat: “A widely used method for securing the tenure of one’s intimates was the nuzūl, or ‘resignation’ of the office holder in favor of them, while he ‘had the power to do so’.”14 Dieses von Chamberlain gezeichnete Bild, das heute von vielen als gültig akzeptiert wird, scheint mir in mehrfacher Hinsicht unpräzise zu sein. In meinem Beitrag möchte ich daher auf einige Aspekte der Weitergabe von Ämtern innerhalb von Familien in mamlukischer Zeit etwas genauer eingehen, um unser Bild von den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhängen bei einer familiengebundenen Amtsweitergabe möglicherweise leicht zu modifizieren. Dabei werde ich mein Augenmerk insbesondere auf die Zeitpunkte der Amtsübertragung richten.

8 Chamberlain 1994: 94; Fn. 16 verweist er auf eine “Definition” von nuzūl bei al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā: XII, 353. Al-Qalqashandī bringt hier aber keine Definition dieses Begriffs, sondern zitiert ein Einsetzungsschreiben für das Unterrichtsamt in der Madrasa al-Nūriyya, verfasst von Ibn Nubāta, für den ḥanafitischen Oberrichter Najm al-Dīn beim freiwilligen Rücktritt (nuzūl) dessen Vaters von diesem Posten. Diesen Fall werde ich später noch diskutieren. 9 Chamberlain 1994: 93; das in der Fn. 7 angegebene Beispiel bezieht sich auf den freiwilligen Rücktritt des Emirs al-Gharb (al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XII, 364), den ich später noch diskutieren werde. 10 Chamberlain 1994: 95, verweist z.B. auf Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIII, 327, wo es heißt: “Am Dienstag, den 7. Jumādā al-Ākhira (des Jahres 691/1292) unterrichtete in der Najībiyya der Shaykh Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ṭūsī entsprechend des freiwilligen Rücktritts davon (von diesem Unterrichtsposten) seitens al-Fāriqīs für ihn (bi-muqtaḍā nuzūli l-Fāriqī la-hū ʿanhā)”. Es handelt sich also um ein Beispiel eines freiwilligen Rücktritts zu Gunsten eines Nicht-Familienmitglieds. 11 Chamberlain 1994: 95. 12 Chamberlain 1994: 95, mit Verweis auf al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XVIII, 520-522 (Nr. 522), speziell S. 522, wo ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Sulamī (577 o. 578-660/1181 o. 1182-1262) vom Sultan gefragt wird, welchen seiner Söhne er als Nachfolger im Amt sehen möchte. Auf diesen Fall werde ich ebenfalls am Ende nochmals eingehen. 13 Chamberlain 1994: 95. 14 Tezcan 2011: 80.

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I.

Der üblichste Zeitpunkt einer familiären Amtsübertragung: Nach dem Tod des Vaters oder eines anderen Familienmitglieds

Es steht außer Frage, dass trotz der rechtlich nicht gesicherten Verhältnisse eines Amtsinhabers im Amt bleiben, geschweige denn dieses Amt an ein Familienmitglied weitergeben zu könnnen, dennoch immer wieder ein Verbleiben oder „Vererben“ geschieht. Es kommt durchaus vor, dass ein Amt innerhalb einer Familie übertragen wird. Wie im gesamten System der Ämtervergabe ist auch in diesen Fällen das Prestige des Amtsinhabers/der Familie verbunden mit guten Beziehungen sowie der Qualifikation des Nachfolgers von ausschlaggebender Relevanz. Es ist jedoch festzuhalten, dass in den meisten Fällen, in denen ein Amt innerhalb der Familie bleibt, eine Nachfolge des Sohnes im Amt des Vaters erst nach dessen Tod erfolgt. In den Biographien wird dies meist sehr schlicht als Einsetzung im Amt “nach seinem Vater (baʿda abīhī)” (oder eines anderen nahen Verwandten) beschrieben. Diese sehr häufig verwendete Formulierung “nach seinem Vater (baʿda abīhī)” bedeutet hier immer “nach dessen Tod”.15 Das ist auch naheliegend, wenn 15 Einige Beispiele seien hier angeführt, um diesen Sachverhalt zu verdeutlichen: Al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 88 (Nr. 30) schreibt über Ibn Ḍiyāʾ al-Fazārī (660-729/1262-1329): “Er leitete das Predigeramt in der Umayyadenmoschee nach seinem Onkel (im Sinne von nach dessen Tod), dem Shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn (wa-waliya al-khiṭāba … baʿda ʿammihī).” — Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 306: “Am Dienstag, den 7. Rabīʿ al-Awwal (des Jahres 765/1363), verstarb der Shaykh Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad, Sohn des Shaykhs Abū Bakr Qawām in ihrer beider Zāwiya am Fuße des Berges Qāsiyūn. Die Leute kamen zu seiner Beerdigung, denn er gehörte zu den tugendhaften Rechtsgelehrten der Shāfiʿīten. Er hatte in der Nāṣiriyya al-Barāniyya zwei Jahre lang nach seinem Vater (also nach dessen Tod) unterrichtet (darrasa bi-… baʿda abīhī) und im Ribāṭ al-Dawīdārī innerhalb des Bāb al-Faraj und pflegte in den Medresen anwesend zu sein. Er stieg bei uns ab in der Madrasa al-Najībiyya und liebte die Sunna, die er gut verstand. Gott möge sich seiner erbarmen.” — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Dhayl al-durar al-kāmina: 27 (Nr. 5) schreibt über Abū ʿĪsā al-Muqayrī al-Karakī (741 o. 742-801/1341 o. 1342-1398), dass “er das Richteramt von al-Karak nach seinem Vater (nach dem Tod des Vaters) leitete (wa-waliya qaḍāʾa l-Karak baʿda abīhī).” — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Dhayl al-durar al-kāmina: 45 (Nr. 60), sagt über Ibrāhīm al-Kinānī (768-802/1367-1399): “Er leitete das Richteramt nach seinem Vater als er noch keine 30 war (waliya al-qaḍāʾa baʿda abīhī wa-lam yakmilu ath-thalāthatīn).” — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Dhayl al-durar al-kāmina: 54 (Nr. 93): “Muwaffaq al-Dīn al-Kinānī (769-803/1367-1401) … leitete das Richteramt nach seinem Bruder Shihāb al-Dīn (wa-waliya l-qaḍāʾa baʿda akhīhī).” — al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ: I, 7 f. (Nr. 8), schreibt über Ibrāhīm Ibn Sābiq (geb. nach 860/1456) … arbeitete zunächst auf geringfügig bezahlten Posten an der Mankūtamuriyya, bevor er dann “das Amt des Gebetvorstehers und andere Posten z.B. in der Ṣalāḥiyya nach seinem Vater übernahm (bal akhadha imāmatahā wa-ghayrihā mina l-waẓāʾifi ka-ṣ-Ṣāliḥiyya wa-ghayrihā baʿda abīhī).” — al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ: I, 18 (Nr. 36), sagt über Ibrāhīm Ibn Ghānim (780-809/1378-1406), dass er das Amt des Leiters im Khānqāh al-Ṣalāḥiyya in Jerusalem nach dem Tod seines Onkels ʿĪsā im Jahr 797/1395 besetzte (wa-staqarru fi l-mashyakhati l-mushāri ilayhā baʿda mawti ʿammihī)”, der seinerseits dieses Amt nach seinem älteren Bruder (baʿda akhīhi l-akbar) besetzte, der es nach deren Vater Ghānim (baʿda abīhumā) um 760/1359 besetzt hatte. — al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ: I, 30 (Nr. 83) schreibt über Ibrāhīm al-Muʿallā al-Ḥamawī: “Nach seinem Vater im Jahr 893/1488 leitete er das ḥanafitische Richteramt (waliya baʿda abīhī …) und dabei war er ein Jahr jünger als sein Bruder und hervorragender.” — al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: IV/3, 1222 (im Jahr 844/1441, am Samstag, den 12. Ramaḍān): “Der Richter Muʿīn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Ibn Sharaf al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Ashqar erhält ein Ehrengewand und wird im Amt des Stellvertreters des Geheimsekretärs, sowie in anderen Ämtern seines Vaters bestätigt, nach dessen Tod (baʿda

Wan n fäl lt d e r A p fe l ni cht we i t vo m S tamm?

wir berücksichtigen, dass in dieser Gesellschaft das Verweilen im Amt bis zum Tod das Lebensideal darstellte.16 Das Amt verlieh Würde und finanzielle Absicherung, auf die auch herausragende Amtsträger angewiesen waren. Eine Art Pensionierung war trotz der Institutionalisierung monatlicher Gehälter bei diesen bezahlten Posten in der mamlukenzeitlichen Vorstellungswelt nicht vorgesehen. Natürlich war eine solche Nachfolge nach dem Tod eines Familienmitglieds dann ihrerseits nicht weiter abgesichert,17 oder musste – wie bei manch anderen Amtsbesetzungen auch – teuer erkauft werden. Zur Veranschaulichung sei ein Beispiel ausführlicher vorgestellt: Ibn Iyās (852-c. 930/1448-1524) erwähnt aus Anlass des Todes von Abū Bakr Muzhir (832-893/1429-1488), dem Geheimsekretär (kātib al-sirr) von Ägypten,18 dass dieser gute Beziehungen zu den Herrschenden und eine ganze Reihe von hohen Ämtern inne gehabt hatte, wie die Aufsicht über die Pferdeställe, die Aufsicht über das Heer und das Amt des Geheimsekretärs, in dem er mehr als 20 Jahre lang verweilt hatte; und er starb, während er es noch besetzte (ḥattā māta wa-huwa muqarrarun bihā).19 Ibn Iyās betont also, dass Abū Bakr Muzhir im Amt und damit in Würde gestorben ist. Darüberhinaus erwähnt er, dass Abū Bakr Muzhir zu diesem Zeitpunkt “bereits alt und hochbetagt war (wa-qad shākha wa-kabira sinnuhū).” Trotz seines hohen Alters blieb er aber bis zu seinem Tod im Amt und das war das Übliche. Ibn Iyās zitiert ein Trauer-Epigramm von sich selbst über Abū Bakr Muzhir und beschreibt die Beerdigung, bei der die Totenbahre mit einem Wolltuch bedeckt war. Dann berichtet er: Als er also starb, bekleidete der Sultan seinen Sohn, Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad, mit einem Ehrengewandt und setzte ihn in das Amt des Geheimsekretärs von Ägypten ein, anstelle von seinem Vater aufgrund dessen Tod, und zwar am Freitag, den 16. Ramaḍān – (also knapp zwei Wochen nach dem Tod des Vaters) – und er (der Sultan) verlangte von ihm (dem Sohn) Geld, das Gestalt hat (i.S. von “und nicht

16

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18 19

mawtihī).” Vgl. hierzu Martel-Thoumian 1991: 83, die dieses Beispiel für direkte Vererbung von Ämtern bringt und verwunderlicherweise schreibt “avant sa mort”. — Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr: III, 242, z.B. schreibt: “(Im Shaʿbān des Jahres 892/1487) verstarb der Shaykh Tāj al-Dīn, Sohn des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters Saʿd al-Dīn al-Damīrī. Nach seinem Vater leitete er das Mashyakha-Amt in der Moschee al-Muʾayyads (wa-kāna waliya baʿda abīhī …). Er war gelehrt und tugendhaft. Er hatte bei seinem Vater gelernt. Er wurde im Jahr 805/1402 geboren.” Diese Aussage basiert auf meiner bisherigen Forschung zu den Handlungsmöglichkeiten älterer Personen in mamlukischer Zeit. Eine ausführliche Belegung und Darstellung dieses Sachverhalts an dieser Stelle würde den Rahmen dieses Beitrags sprengen. Ich verweise auf meine ausstehende Publikation zur Geschichte des Alters in mamlukischer Zeit. Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr: 3, 240 z.B. berichtet: “(Im Jumādā al-Ūlā des Jahres 892/1487) verstarb der mālikitische Richter Sirāj al-Dīn ʿUmar b.  Ḥarīz, … Er war gelehrt, tugendhaft, fromm und gut. Er leitete das mālikitische Richteramt nach seinem Bruder Ḥusām al-Dīn (wa-waliya qaḍāʾa l-mālikiyya baʿda akhīhī). Dann ereilten ihn Übel und Unglücke und er wurde vom Richteramt entlassen und blieb entlassen, bis er starb (wa-ʿuzila mina l-qaḍāʾi wa-dāma maʿzūlan ḥattā māta).” Vgl. zu dieser Person und der Familie Muzhir insgesamt: Martel-Thoumian 1991: 267-282. Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr: III, 255.

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wenig”), damit er mit diesem Amt beauftragt werde. Dabei war er (noch) jung, in seinen 30ern, als er das Amt des Geheimsekretärs besetzte. Der Sultan ehrte ihn und entzog ihm die Güter seines Vaters mit schönen Phrasen. Als er so mit dem Amt des Geheimsekretärs betraut wurde, rezitierte ich die folgenden zwei Verse: Der Inshāʾ (die Verwaltung/die Kunst des Briefeschreibens) wird durch die Familie Muzhir vornehm gemacht durch einen Sprössling, der sich an Rang erhebt und für den sich der Ruf ausbreitet. / Durch ihn erstrahlen die Tage in Ägypten in Glanz und wieso nicht? Der Mond beginnt ja für es (Ägypten) zu scheinen.20 Deutlich zeigt sich, dass von den Zeitgenossen die familiäre Kontinuität wahrgenommen wurde. Insgesamt belegen derartige Fälle, dass Posten innerhalb einer Familie bleiben konnten. Die Nachfolge im Amt folgte dann jedoch meist auf den Tod des früheren Amtsinhabers. Natürlich wäre es jetzt interessant, genauer zu untersuchen, aus welchen Gründen in diesen Fällen ein Familienmitglied im Amt des Verstorbenen bestätigt werden konnte. Das ist aber in diesem Beitrag nicht mein zentrales Anliegen. Einige der von Chamberlain angeführten Kriterien werden höchstwahrscheinlich von großer Bedeutung dabei gewesen sein, wie etwa Prestige und gute Beziehungen sowohl des Verstorbenen wie des Nachfolgers und der Familie insgesamt, sowie Geldressourcen und auch fachliche Kenntnisse, also unterschiedliche Formen von Kapital. Eine Interpretation von Chamberlain trifft jedoch auf diese Fälle nicht zu, dass nämlich eine Weitergabe des Amtes “at the height of their prestige” am Besten möglich war, “while they had the power to do so”.21 Die bislang geschilderten Fälle beschreiben alle eine Amtsweitergabe nach dem Tod des vorherigen Amtsinhabers, also in einem Augenblick, als dieser sicherlich nicht mehr auf der Höhe seiner Karriere war und keine direkte Macht mehr ausüben konnte. Chamberlain ist zu dieser Vorstellung gelangt, weil er davon ausging, dass die meisten Fälle von Amtsweitergabe innerhalb von Familien als nuzūl bezeichnet worden seien und mithin zu Lebzeiten des weitergebenden Amtsinhabers stattgefunden hätten. Er hat also, gewissermaßen geblendet durch die Deutlichkeit und z.T. Ausführlichkeit der geschilderten Fälle von freiwilligen Rücktritten zugunsten eines Familienmitglieds, die Mehrheit der Fälle außer Acht gelassen, in denen eine Amtsweiterbesetzung innerhalb von Familien erst nach dem Tod stattfand.

II. Familiäre Amtsübertragung noch zu Lebzeiten: Gegen Ende der Karriere - aus Altersgründen Es gibt durchaus vereinzelte Fälle, die von einem freiwilligen Rücktritt (nuzūl) des Amtsinhabers zu Lebzeiten zugunsten eines Familienmitglieds sprechen. Einige dieser Fälle sollen im Folgenden genauer betrachtet und auf die Frage

20 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr: III, 255. 21 Chamberlain 1994: 95 und 93.

Wan n fäl lt d e r A p fe l ni cht we i t vo m S tamm?

hin untersucht werden, wieso das passiert. Wenn es in der mamlukenzeitlichen Gesellschaft doch als Lebensideal galt, bis zum Lebensende in Amt und damit verbundener Würde und finanzieller Absicherung zu bleiben, warum sollte dann ein Amtsinhaber freiwillig zurücktreten? Welche Motivationen könnten hinter diesen Fällen stecken? Wieso verzichtet jemand darauf, den idealen Lebensweg zu Ende zu führen? Wenn die Hauptgründe für eine Weiterbesetzung eines Amtes innerhalb einer Familie Prestige und gute Beziehungen sind, dann ließe sich für diese Fälle vermuten, dass das Ansehen des Amtsträgers oder seines angestrebten Nachfolgers eventuell für zu gering eingeschätzt wurde, und der Verdacht bestand, dass der Sohn nach dem eigenen Ableben möglicherweise nicht im Amt bestätigt werden könnte. Nach meiner Interpretation geht es in diesen Fällen allerdings um etwas anderes. Betrachten wir zunächst das Beispiel, das Chamberlain als Beleg anführt für seine Aussage “They ‘resigend’ (nazala) in favor for their intimates and protégés while they had the power to do so”, nämlich das Beispiel des Emirs Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibn Amīr al-Gharb (668-751/1269-1350), der aus einer etablierten Lokalherrscherfamilie stammte, die über die westlichen Berge von Beirut herrschte.22 In seiner Biographie des Emirs geht al-Ṣafadī (696-764/1297-1363) zunächst auf diese Familiengeschichte ein23 und erwähnt, wie er mit Ibn Amīr al-Gharb in Beirut zusammentraf. Er schreibt dann: Als er alt und hochbetagt wurde, trat er freiwillig von seinem Emirsamt zurück zugunsten seines Sohnes, dem Emir Zayn al-Dīn Ṣāliḥ. Danach lebte er noch ungefähr zwei Jahre, bevor er dann – Gott der Erhabene möge sich seiner erbarmen – Mitte Shawwāl des Jahres 751/1350 starb (wa-lammā kabira wa-asanna nazala ʿan imratihī li-waladihī al-amīr Zayn al-Dīn Ṣāliḥ wa-baqiya baʿda dhālika qarīban min sanatayn thumma innahū tuwuffiya).24 Wie in anderen Fällen von Lokalherrschaft unter den mamlukischen Sultanen war dieses Emirsamt offiziell vom Sultan bestätigt und damit nicht absolut erblich.25 Es scheint mir dennoch, dass Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibn Amīr al-Gharb sich keinerlei Sorgen machen musste, dass ihm nach seinem Ableben sein Sohn als Emir der westlichen Berge (Jibāl al-Gharb) eventuell nicht folgen könnte und er daher sein eigenes Prestige ins Gewicht legen wollte, um durch einen freiwilligen Rücktritt diese Folge in der 22 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XII, 362-364 (Nr. 347)); siehe auch (al-Ṣafadī, al-Aʿyān, II: 265-268 (Nr. 596)); Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: II, 167 f. (Nr. 1586); al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: II/3, 834; vgl. Chamberlain 1994: 93 mit Fn. 7.) 23 Die Familientradition wird von al-Ṣafadī bis in die Zeit al-Mutanabbīs (303-354/915-955) zurückverfolgt, der bereits für einen der Urahnen Lobgedichte verfasst haben soll. Eine Generation nach Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibn Amīr al-Gharb verfasste sein Urenkel Ṣāliḥ b. Yaḥyā (gest. 839/1436) eine Familiengeschichte, bekannt als die Geschichte der drusischen Familie Banū Buḥtur (s. Salibi 1969). 24 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XII, 364 (Nr. 347). 25 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: II, 168 (Nr. 1586), schreibt, dass er von seinem Iqṭāʿ und seinem Emirat zurücktrat: lamma asanna nazala ʿan iqṭāʿihī wa-imratihī li-ibnihī Ṣāliḥ. Vgl. etwa die Verhältnisse des Lokalfürstentums von Ḥamāh, z.B. Bauer 2011. Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: II/3, 834, hält im Jahr 751/1350 aus Anlass des Todes von Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibn Amīr al-Gharb nur noch fest: wa-waliya ʿawḍahū ibnuhū (und an seiner Stelle wurde sein Sohn eingesetzt).

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Lokalherrschaft zu garantieren. Der Schlüssel der Interpretation liegt mir viel eher in der Formulierung, dass Nāṣir al-Dīn zum Zeitpunkt des freiwilligen Rücktritts “alt und hochbetagt” war und dann auch zwei Jahre später sterben wird. Möglicherweise fühlte er sich zu diesem Zeitpunkt im Alter von 81 Jahren nicht mehr in der Lage (körperlich oder auch geistig), seine Herrschaftsfunktionen auszuüben, und hielt es daher für angebracht, die Amtsgeschäfte bereits zu Lebzeiten an seinen Sohn zu übergeben. Aus der Perspektive des älteren Amtsinhabers stellt sich meines Erachtens nämlich die Frage, wie er (um Frauen handelt es sich in diesen Fällen nicht) in Hinblick auf das Lebensideal bis zum Tod in Amt und Würde zu bleiben damit umgehen soll, wenn er sich für seine Amtsausübung zu schwach fühlt, sei es aus spezifischen Krankheitsgründen oder wegen allgemeineren Altersbeschwerden? Die zeitgenössischen Gelehrten schildern solche Fälle in ihren Biographien. Es scheint in mamlukischer Zeit verschiedene Möglichkeiten gegeben zu haben, um auf solch eine Situation zu reagieren. Eine Handlungsstrategie war es wohl zu versuchen, ein Familienmitglied an seiner statt einsetzen zu lassen. Betrachten wir eines der anderen Beispiele, die Chamberlain anführt, das Beispiel des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī (669-748/1271-1348),26 der zugunsten seines Sohnes Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī (720-758/1320-1357)27 von verschiedenen Ämtern zu Lebzeiten freiwillig zurücktrat. ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī hatte zunächst verschiedene Lehrämter in Damaskus inne und fungierte fünf Jahre als Stellvertreter des amtierenden Oberrichters, bevor er als Höhepunkt seiner Karriere Mitte Ramaḍān 727/1327 – er war damals 58 Jahre alt – das Amt des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters von Damaskus zusammen mit dem Unterrichtsamt an der Madrasa al-Nūriyya erhielt.28 Neunzehn Jahre später (im Jahr 746/1346) – er ist nun 77 Jahre alt – tritt er freiwillig zugunsten seines Sohnes von diesem hohen Amt zurück und wird dann zwei Jahre später sterben. Schon allein diese Daten machen deutlich, dass ʿImād al-Dīn nicht auf dem Höhepunkt, sondern gegen Ende seiner Karriere abdankt. Al-Ṣafadī schreibt: Er wurde nicht müde, den Koran zu rezitieren und seine Zunge ließ nicht nach, dessen Verse aufzusagen, jederzeit jederorts, bis er um den freiwilligen Rücktritt vom Richteramt zugunsten seines Sohnes bat und ihn dafür (für das Amt) vorschlug (wörtl.: bevorzugte) aufgrund dessen, was sein Gemüt erregte. Da antwortete der Sultan positiv auf das, was er erstrebte, und trieb zu Eile in der Angelegenheit, auf die er lauerte. Daraufhin blieb er nur noch in seinem Haus, bei Tag und bei Nacht, und wirkte auf seine Errettung hin an einem zukünftigen

26 al-Nuʿaymī (st. 927/1521), al-Dāris: I, 478 f. 27 al-Ṣafadī (st. 764/1363), Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 23-24; für eine moderne Biographie, siehe Tezcan 2011, 78-84; vgl. Chamberlain 1994: 94 mit Fn. 16. 28 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 270-275 (Nr. 1112). Al-Ṣafadī gibt u.a. die Einsetzungsurkunde für ʿImād al-Dīn in das Unterrichtsamt an der Madrasa al-Qāymāziyya im Rabīʿ al-Ākhir 732/1332 wieder, die er selbst verfasst hat.

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Tag, wenn er Halt macht am Rand des niedergerissenen Steilhangs – bis die Zeit seines Untergangs kam und er den Kelch des Todes kosten musste.29 Die Schilderung dieses freiwilligen Rücktritts in al-Ṣafadīs Reimprosa verweist meines Erachtens auf folgende Umstände: Erstens fällt dem älteren Amtsinhaber die Entscheidung freiwillig abzudanken wohl nicht leicht, denn seine zunächst geschilderte, ununterbrochene Geschäftigkeit scheint in diesem Augenblick zu einem Stillstand zu kommen.30 Zweitens handelt es sich bei so einem “freiwilligen Rücktritt” (nuzūl) nicht gänzlich um eine eigenständige Möglichkeit, da man auch für diese Form der Abdankung die Erlaubnis des Herrschers benötigt.31 Freiwillig war so ein Rücktritt nur insofern, als es sich nicht um eine von Seiten des Herrschers erzwungene Absetzung handelte. Gute Beziehungen zum Herrschenden – mindestens auf lokaler Ebene – waren also auf jeden Fall nötig, um eine Erlaubnis zur Entlassung auf eigenen Wunsch aus einem so hohen Amt zu erhalten. Drittens, und darauf richtet sich in diesem Beitrag mein Hauptaugenmerk, verlässt ʿImād al-Dīn nach seinem Rücktritt sein Haus nicht mehr, um sich auf seinen bevorstehenden Tod vorzubereiten, der in diesem Fall noch zwei Jahre auf sich warten lässt. Diese Beschreibung legt die Vermutung nahe, dass der Grund für den freiwilligen Rücktritt von ʿImād al-Dīn in der Tatsache liegt, dass er sich zu diesem Zeitpunkt nicht mehr in der Lage fühlte, die herausfordernden Amtsgeschäfte eines Oberrichters in Damaskus auszuüben, zu denen er auf jeden Fall sein Haus hätte verlassen müssen. Chamberlain verweist zur Definition von nuzūl auf al-Qalqashandī (756-821/13551418), der an dieser Stelle das Einsetzungsschreiben für Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī für das Unterrichtsamt in der Madrasa al-Nūriyya beim freiwilligen Rücktritt (nuzūl) seines Vaters von diesem Posten aus der Feder Ibn Nubātas (686-768/1287-1366)

29 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 271 (Nr. 1112): Wa-kāna lā yamallu min qirāʾati l-qurʿān * wa-lā yafturu lisānuhū ʿan sardi āyātihī fī kulli zamānin wa-makān * ilā an saʾala fi n-nuzūli ʿan manṣabi l-qaḍāʾi li-waladihī * wa-āthārahū bihī li-mā thāra fī khaladihī * fa-ajābahu s-sulṭānu ilā mā qaṣadahū * wa-ʿajalla la-hu l-amra l-ladhī raṣadahū * fa-lāzama baytahū ānāʾa l-layli wa-aṭrāfa n-nahār * wa-yaʿmalu ʿalā khalāṣihī fī ghadin idhā waqafa ʿalā shafan jurfin hār * ilā an ḥāna maṣraʿuhū * wa-āna min wirdi l-maniyyati makraʿuhū. Vgl. auch Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 218 und Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 221, der zu Beginn des Jahres 748/1347 berichtet, dass die Richterposten wie im Vorjahr besetzt seien, “bis auf den ḥanafitischen Richter ʿImād al-Dīn, der für seinen Sohn, den Oberrichter Najm al-Dīn freiwillig zurückgetreten war, der noch zu Lebzeiten seines Vaters (dieses Amt) ausübte (nazala li-waladihī … fa-bāshara fī ḥayāti abīhī).” 30 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 218, berichtet allerdings, dass ʿImād al-Dīn ein Unterrichtsamt noch behielt: Zu Beginn des Jahres 747/1346 erwähnt er, dass die Richterposten wie im Vorjahr besetzt seien, “bis auf den ḥanafitischen Oberrichter ʿImād al-Dīn …, der vom Richteramt für seinen Sohn Najm al-Dīn freiwillig zurückgetreten war, der nun das Richteramt sowie auch den Unterricht in der al-Nūriyya übernahm, während sein Vater das Unterrichtsamt an der Rīḥāniyya behielt (nazala ʿani l-qaḍāʾi li-waladihī … wa-baqiya wāliduhū …).” 31 In der Biographie des Sohnes beschreibt al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 101 (Nr. 38), das Verfahren bei der Bittstellung im Dhu l-Ḥijja 746/1346 noch genauer, denn der Vater fragte zunächst den Emir Sayf al-Dīn Yalbughā (der in diesem Augenblick das Gouverneursamt in Damaskus innehatte und zu dem ʿImād al-Dīn gute Beziehungen hatte). Der Gouverneur schreibt dann für ihn an den Sultan, woraufhin das entsprechende Einsetzungsschreiben eintrifft.

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zitiert.32 Der Vater hatte damals das Oberrichteramt zusammen mit dem Unterricht in der Madrasa al-Nūriyya erhalten; sein freiwilliger Rücktritt schloss ebenfalls beide Ämter gemeinsam ein. In dieser Einsetzungsurkunde verweist Ibn Nubāta ausdrücklich auf das hohe Alter als Ausscheidungsgrund: Jener verzichtete zugunsten seines Sohnes auf das Richteramt (wa-kāna dhālika qad nazala li-waladihī fulān ʿana l-ḥukm). … Er wünschte – möge Gott ihn hochachten – was sich jemand im hohen Alter und mit außerordentlichem Ansehen in Hinblick auf den Rückzug (ins Private) wünscht (wa-raghiba – ajallahu llāh – fīmā yarghabu fīhī mina l-inqiṭāʿi dhu s-sinni l-ʿālī wa-l-qadri l-ghālī).33 Ich denke, diese Formulierung bestätigt die Vermutung, dass ʿImād al-Dīn zwar mit hohem Ansehen, dennoch aus einer gewissen Notlage heraus, im hohen Alter nämlich, zurücktreten möchte. ʿImād al-Dīn bittet aber nicht einfach darum, seine Amtsgeschäfte niederlegen zu dürfen, sondern darum, dass diese von seinem Sohn an seiner statt übernommen werden. Wir können vermuten, dass diese familiäre Nachfolgeregelung aufgrund eines freiwilligen Rücktritts zu Lebzeiten insofern von besonderer Bedeutung war, als der abtretende Amtsinhaber sich dadurch eine gewisse weitergehende finanzielle Absicherung durch seinen Sohn versprach und möglicherweise auch ein wenig den Erhalt seiner Würde, die mit der Ausübung des Amtes verbunden gewesen war. In diesem Fall wird ʿImād al-Dīn sein Anliegen unter anderem aufgrund seiner guten Beziehungen und seines eigenen Ansehens gewährt. Sein Sohn Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī war erst 25 Jahre alt, als er durch dieses Verfahren das ḥanafitische Oberrichteramt in Damaskus erhielt. Das war ein außergewöhnlich junges Alter für ein so hohes Amt. Al-Ṣafadī erwähnt, dass (deswegen) der shāfiʿītische Oberrichter Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī für ihn ein Schreiben verfasste, indem er seine Eignung und Tauglichkeit für dieses Amt beglaubigte,34 und al-Ṣafadī betont, dass Najm al-Dīn im Amt auch vollkommene Redlichkeit und Zuverlässigkeit bewies.35 Dennoch wird ihm sein Platz bei Gericht vom mālikitischen Oberrichter streitig gemacht, der sich aufgrund seines Alters in der Rangfolge vor ihn hinsetzte,36 obwohl dem ḥanafitischen Richter eigentlich Vorrang vor dem mālikitischen gebührte. Diese Ausführungen machen deutlich, dass neben dem Prestige des abtretenden

32 al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā: XII, 353: wa-hādhihī nuskhatu tawqīʿin bi-tadrīsi l-madrasati n-Nūriyya, min inshāʾi sh-shaykhi Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Nubāta, kutiba bihī li-qāḍi l-quḍā Najm al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī bi-nuzūli wālidihī ʿanhā bi-l-janābi l-karīm. 33 al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā: XII, 354. 34 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 101 (Nr. 38): wa-kāna qad kataba lahū qāḍi l-quḍā Taqī al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Subkī al-shāfiʿī - raḥimahu llāhu taʿālā – bi-ahliyyatihī li-dhālika wa-ṣalāḥiyyatihī wa-jahhaza khattahū bi-dhālika. 35 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 101 (Nr. 38): wa-bāshara l-manṣaba wa-t-tadārīsa ʿalā atamm mā yakūn mina l-ʿiffati wa-l-amāna. 36 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 101 (Nr. 38): wa-nāzaʿahū qāḍi l-quḍā Sharaf al-Dīn al-mālikī fi l-julūs fa-ajlasa l-mālikī fawqahū li-kibari sinnihī …

Wan n fäl lt d e r A p fe l ni cht we i t vo m S tamm?

Amtsinhabers auch die Qualifikation des gewünschten Nachfolgers in der Aushandlung eines solchen Verfahrens von den Zeitgenossen durchaus Berücksichtigung fand und gegebenfalls besonders betont, von dritter Seite beglaubigt oder aber auch bestritten werden konnte. In jedem Fall ist deutlich geworden, dass auch ʿImād al-Dīn nicht auf der Höhe seiner Karriere zurücktritt, sondern zu einem Zeitpunkt, als er sich zumindest Ruhe wünschte. In diesen beiden vorangegangenen Beispielen wird jeweils als Motivation für den freiwilligen Rücktritt das hohe Alter genannt, ohne jedoch ausdrücklich eine Arbeitsunfähigkeit aufgrund des hohen Alters zu erwähnen. Eine solche Arbeitsunfähigkeit anzunehmen, bleibt also nur eine Vermutung, wobei meiner Meinung nach eine solche Vermutung naheliegend ist. Anhand weiterer Beispiele soll im Folgenden diese Vermutung gestützt werden. Ibn Kathīr (c. 700-774/1301-1373) z.B. berichtet im Jahr 764/1363 vom Tod des Richters Fakhr al-Dīn Sulaymān, dem Sohn des Richters ʿImād al-Dīn Ibn al-Shayrajī, und schreibt: Es war ihm schon beschieden worden, dass er das Ḥisba-Amt von Damaskus bekleiden sollte anstelle von seinem Vater, der für ihn davon zurückgetreten war (nazala lahū ʿanhā), auf seinen eigenen Wunsch hin (bi-khtiyārihī), aufgrund seines Alters und seiner Schwäche (li-kibarihī wa-ḍuʿfihī).37 In diesem Fall wird als Grund für den freiwilligen Rücktritt neben dem Alter deutlich die Altersschwäche genannt. Wir können also davon ausgehen, dass der Vater in diesem Augenblick aufgrund eines Gefühls von Schwäche wegen seines hohen Alters sich nicht mehr in der Lage fühlte, das anspruchsvolle und vielen Angriffen ausgesetzte Amt des Marktvorstehers auszuüben. Schwäche ist zwar ein sehr allgemeiner Begriff, der vielleicht auch nicht unbedingt eine Arbeitsunfähigkeit bezeichnet, in diesem Kontext eine solche Vermutung jedoch noch wahrscheinlicher macht. In diesem Augenblick der (körperlichen) Schwäche wird es Ibn al-Shayrajī gewährt, dass sein Sohn als Nachfolger im Amt bestätigt wird. Ibn Kathīr berichtet, dass dem Sohn in Ägypten ein Ehrengewand verliehen wurde, der dann allerdings auf dem Rückritt mit dem Postdienst krank wurde und nach ein bis zwei Tagen verstarb. Dieses Schicksal wurde als besonders tragisch wahrgenommen: Deswegen erlitt sein Vater großen Schmerz und die Leute bekundeten ihm Beileid. Ich fand ihn geduldig, Lohn im Jenseits erwartend (für den Schmerz), weinend, sich Gott ergebend.38 Trotz dieses tragischen Schicksals ist dann aber keine Rede davon, dass der Vater etwa erneut im Amt eingesetzt wird. Dies scheint mir ein weiterer deutlicher Hinweis darauf zu sein, dass er dazu auch nicht mehr in der Lage gewesen war.

37 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 299. 38 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 299.

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Im Jahr 756/1355 berichtet Ibn Kathīr vom Tod des Oberrichters Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, der in der Montagnacht, den 3. Jumādā al-Ākhira, in Ägypten im Alter von 93 Jahren das Zeitliche segnete:39 Er hatte das Richteramt in Damaskus ungefähr 17 Jahre lang inne, bevor er darauf verzichtete zugunsten seines Sohnes (thumma nazala ʿan dhālika li-waladihī), dem Oberrichter Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Dann reiste er in einer Sänfte nach Ägypten, wie wir erwähnt haben, und als er in Ägypten ankam, verweilte er dort weniger als einen Monat, bis er starb.40 Ibn Kathīr hatte zuvor davon berichtet, wie an einem Samstag im Ṣafar das Einsetzungsschreiben für das Richteramt in Damaskus für Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, den Sohn des Oberrichters Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, eintraf, “auf der Grundlage/nach dem Modell seines Vaters und zwar zu Lebzeiten seines Vaters (ʿalā qāʿidati wālidihī wa-dhālika fī ḥayāti abīhī).”41 Mit dieser Formulierung hebt Ibn Kathīr deutlich den besonderen Umstand hervor, dass der Sohn das Amt des Vaters noch zu dessen Lebzeiten erhält (und nicht, wie gewöhnlich, erst nach dessen Tod). Ibn Kathīr fährt dann fort: Am frühen Morgen, Sonntag, den 26. Rabīʿ al-Ākhir begab sich der Oberrichter Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī nach der Amtsübernahme (istiqlāl) seines Sohnes Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb über das Oberrichteramt und das Mashyakha-Amt im Dār al-Ḥadīth der al-Ashrafiyya auf Reise Richtung Ägypten in einer Sänfte (miḥaffa), zusammen mit einer Gruppe seiner Leute, darunter sein Enkel, der Richter Badr al-Dīn Ibn Abī l-Fatḥ und andere. Die Leute verabschiedeten ihn vor seiner Abreise, wobei er geschwächt war (wa-qad kāna n-nāsu waddaʿūhū qabla dhālika wa-ʿindahū ḍaʿf). Es gab auch Leute, die Angst um ihn hatten, dass er die Strapazen der Reise wegen des Alters und der Schwäche nicht erträgt (wa-mina n-nās man yakhāfu ʿalayhī waʿathāʾ s-safr maʿa l-kibar wa-ḍ-ḍaʿf).42 Aus dieser Beschreibung geht deutlich hervor, dass Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī zum Zeitpunkt seiner Abdankung altersschwach war und wir können davon ausgehen, dass dies der Grund für seinen freiwilligen Rücktritt war, weil er die Amtgeschäfte nicht mehr leiten konnte. In diesem Augenblick der körperlichen Schwäche wird dem wohlverdienten Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī die Übergabe seines hohen Amtes an seinen Sohn gewährt. Er selbst strebte wohl an, seinen Ruhestand in der Nähe des Sultans in Ägypten zu verbringen, wo er kurz darauf stirbt. Der ḥanafitische Rechtsgelehrte Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī (690 o. 691-776/1291 o. 1292-1375) arbeitete zunächst als stellvertretender Richter, bevor er im Jahr 758/1357

39 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 252): wa-qad akmala thalāthan wa-tisʿīn sana wa-dakhala fi r-rābiʿa ashhuran (er hatte 93 Jahre vollendet und einige Monate). Siehe zu dieser Person und der Familie al-Subkī ingesamt: Schacht und Bosworth 1997. 40 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 252. 41 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 252. 42 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 252.

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ḥanafitischer Oberrichter in Damaskus wurde, also im Alter von c. 68 Jahren.43 Er

hatte darüberhinaus den Unterrichtsposten in der Rukniyya inne. Ibn Kathīr berichtet zu Beginn des Jahres 764/1363:

Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn, Sohn des Oberrichters Sharaf al-Dīn al-Kafrī, ist jetzt im Amt des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters, den sein Vater für diesen Posten vorgeschlagen (wörtl.: vorgezogen) hatte (ātharahū wāliduhū bi-l-manṣab), während er (der Vater) im Unterrichtsamt der Rukniyya verblieb, sich dem Dienste Gottes widmend und (den Koran) rezitierend und sich für die gottesdienlichen Handlungen entschloss (wa-aqāma ʿalā tadrīs ar-Rukniyya yataʿabbadu wa-yatlū wa-yujmiʿu ʿala l-ʿibāda).44 Im Jahr zuvor berichtet Ibn Kathīr: Am Montagmorgen, den 18. Rabīʿ al-Ākhir (des Jahres 763/1362), hatte Jamāl al-Dīn ein Ehrengewand erhalten und war als Teilhaber neben seinem Vater im Amt des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters eingesetzt worden (wa-juʿila maʿa abīhī sharīkan fi l-qaḍāʾ).45 Nur einen knappen Monat später notiert Ibn Kathīr: Am Montagmorgen, 10. Jumadā al-Ūlā, traf die Post ein … und damit ein Einsetzungsschreiben (taqlīd) für das Amt des ḥanafitischen Oberrichters für Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf, Sohn des Oberrichters Sharaf al-Dīn al-Kafrī, entsprechend des freiwilligen Rücktritts seines Vaters für ihn von diesem Posten/oder: den freiwilligen Rücktritt seines Vaters für ihn enthaltend (bi-muqtaḍā nuzūli abīhī lahū ʿan dhālika).46 Ibn Kathīr betont, dass der Vater bei keinem Teil der Einsetzungszeremonie anwesend war (wa-lam yaḥḍur wāliduhū bi-shayʾin min dhālika), weder bei der Bekleidung mit dem Ehrengewand im Dār al-Saʿāda, noch bei der Verlesung der Einsetzungsurkunde in der Freitagsmoschee, noch bei dem Unterricht des Sohnes in der Nūriyya-Madrasa. Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī war also nur fünf Jahre im höchsten Amt gewesen, bevor er im Alter von c. 73 Jahren freiwillig zurücktrat. Wie anhand der Darstellung bei Ibn Kathīr deutlich wird, verzichtete Sharaf alDīn Ibn al-Kafrī zunächst nicht vollständig, sondern hatte vor, sich das Amt mit seinem Sohn zu teilen. Dann aber tritt er ganz zurück zugunsten seines Sohnes. Wieder zeigt sich, dass dieser Schritt für die betreffende Person wohl kein einfacher Entschluss war. Dass Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī zu diesem Zeitpunkt sein hohes Amt verlässt, liegt höchstwahrscheinlich auch bei ihm an seiner Altersschwäche, die ihm nicht einmal mehr ermöglicht, der Einsetzung seines Sohnes beizuwohnen, und ihn unter anderem – ähnlich wie in unserem ersten Beispiel – zu besonderer Frömmigkeit bewegt.

43 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 104 (unter den Verstorbenen des Jahres 776/1374-5). 44 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 297. 45 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 292-93. 46 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 293.

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In der Biographie des Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī wird ebenfalls das Zögern vor dem Rücktritt, seine besondere (Alters-)Frömmigkeit und dann auch das Altersgebrechen von Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī deutlich angesprochen. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī notiert: Seit 758/1357 im Amt. Dann verließ er schon das Richteramt und trat im Jahr 763/1362 davon freiwillig zurück zugunsten seines Sohnes Yūsuf (qad-kāna taraka l-qaḍāʾa wa-nazala ʿanhū li-waladihī Yūsuf). Er widmete sich (nun) dem Unterrichten, gottesdienlichen Handlungen und ließ den Koran in den unterschiedlichen Überlieferungen rezitieren, bis er im Alter von 85 Jahren starb und bereits erblindet war (wa-aqbala huwa ʿala l-ifādati wa-l-ʿibādati wa-iqrāʾi l-qurʾāni bi-r-riwāyāti ḥattā māta ʿan khamsin wa-thamānīnin sana wa-qad kuffa baṣaruhū).47 Eine Erblindung stellte für einen Richter sogar eine eindeutige Arbeitsunfähigkeit dar. Sie wird von den zeitgenössischen Biographen zwar nicht in direkten Bezug zur freiwilligen Abdankung gesetzt, scheint aber der entscheidende Grund zu sein. Trotz seiner Erblindung – oder auch wegen dieser erbarmungswürdigen Situation – wird der Sohn im Richteramt als Nachfolger eingesetzt. Ein weiteres Beispiel bietet Sharīf al-Dīn Ibn Harmās (nach 710-773/1310-1371), der lange Zeit mit dem Amt des Predigers in der Tūba-Moschee von Damaskus betraut war. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī berichtet über ihn: Als er sich im Jahr 772/1371 entschloss, die Pilgerfahrt zu unternehmen, (also im Alter von 62 Jahren), verzichtete er darauf (auf das Amt des Predigers) zugunsten seines Schwiegersohnes (oder des Manns seiner Schwester) (nazala ʿanhā li-ṣihrihī) ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ḥāsbānī … (für den er auch von seinem Unterrichstamt in der Madrasa al-Khātūniyya freiwillig zurücktrat). … Er pilgerte und starb auf dem Rückweg von der Pilgerfahrt in der Nähe von Maʿān im Muḥarram 773/1371 mit etwas über 60 Jahren.48 In diesem Fall wird zwar keine spezielle Arbeitsunfähigkeit erwähnt, nicht einmal ein Verweis auf das Alter findet sich. Wir wissen allerdings, dass Sharīf al-Dīn Ibn Harmās zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits die sechzig überschritten hatte. Der Entschluss zu pilgern, entspricht gemäß den zeitgenössischen Vorstellungen den Frömmigkeitsübungen, die zur Vorbereitung auf den Tod im Hinblick auf ein gutes Auskommen im Jenseits dienen. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī erwähnt außerdem, dass laut Ibn Kathīr dieser Mann prächtige Kleidung zu tragen pflegte, ein gutes Aussehen und gute Kleiderstoffe

47 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 104 (unter den Verstorbenen des Jahres 776/1374-5). Vgl. auch Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: I, 144 (Nr. 350; unter Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn): “Er vertrat eine zeitlang das Richteramt, bevor er es dann selbständig führte (wa-nāba fi-l-ḥukmi muddatan thumma waliya qaḍāʾ Dimashq istiqlālan), dann aber das Richteramt verließ und darauf verzichtete zugunsten seines Sohnes Yūsuf, und zwar im Jahr 763/1362 (wa-kāna qad taraka l-qaḍāʾa wa-nazala ʿanhū li-waladihī Yūsuf).” Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī macht an dieser Stelle noch darauf aufmerksam, dass der Sohn dann allerdings im Jahr 766/1365 verstarb, während sein Vater nach ihm noch zehn weitere Jahre lebte. 48 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: IV, 207-08 (Nr. 415)).

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liebte.49 In diesem Kontext scheint mir der Verzicht auf das Amt nur aufgrund des Gefühls des nahenden Lebensendes Sinn zu ergeben, wobei allerdings auch in diesem Fall gewährleistet wurde, dass ein nahestehender Verwandter das Amt übernehmen konnte. Wie beim vorletzten Beispiel von Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī bereits erwähnt, stellt Erblindung eines der in den Biographien deutlich benannten Altersgebrechen dar, da die Sehkraft als wichtige Bedingung für die Ausübung des Richteramtes angesehen wurde. Al-Ṣafadī berichtet über den Oberrichter Najm al-Dīn al-Bārizī (708-764/1308-1363), dass er das Richteramt in Ḥamā erhalten habe, als sein Großvater, der Oberrichter, das Amt (freiwillig) verließ, als dieser bereits erblindet war (tawallā al-qaḍāʾa Najmu d-Dīn … bi-Ḥamā lammā taraka qāḍiyu l-quḍā jadduhu l-manṣaba wa-qad uḍirra).50 In der Biographie des Großvaters Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī (645-738/1248-1337) schreibt al-Ṣafadī: So verblieb er in Ḥamā (als Oberrichter), bis er das Richteramt verließ, als seine Sehkraft verschwunden war. Da pries er das Schicksal und den göttlichen Entschluss (wa-lam yazal ʿalā ḥālihī bi-Ḥamā ilā an taraka l-qaḍāʾa wa-dhahaba baṣaruhū fa-shakara l-qadra wa-l-qaḍāʾ).51 Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī starb im Alter von 93 Jahren.52 Der Grund für die Aufgabe des Richteramtes wird klar benannt: Es ist die Sehkraft, die der Oberrichter Sharaf al-Dīn im Alter verliert. Da Sehkraft eine unabdingbare Voraussetzung für das Richteramt ist, führt Erblindung zu einer Amtsuntauglichkeit, die im Zweifelsfall eine Entlassung zur Folge hat. Sharaf al-Dīn kommt durch seinen freiwilligen Rücktritt einer eventuellen Amtsenthebung aufgrund von Erblindung zuvor. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī führt noch genauer aus, wobei er deutlich vom freiwilligen Rücktritt (nazala ʿan … li…) spricht: Gegen Ende seines Lebens erblindete er (Sharaf al-Dīn) und blieb (doch) im Richteramt, dann trat er vom Richteramt freiwillig zurück zugunsten seines Enkels Najm al-Dīn, wobei er weiterhin in den Angelegenheiten um Rat gefragt wurde. Er war 40 Jahre lang im Richteramt gewesen (wa-ʿamiya fī ākhiri ʿumrihī wa-stamarra yaḥkumu thumma nazala ʿan waẓīfati l-qaḍāʾi li-ḥafīdihī Najmi d-Dīn … wa-stamarra yushāwaru fi-l-ʿumūr wa-kānat muddatu wilāyatihi l-qaḍāʾi bi-Ḥamā arbaʿīn sana).53

49 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: IV, 208 (Nr. 415): wa-kāna yalbisu th-thiyāba l-fākhirata wa-lahū hayʾatun wa-bizzatun ḥasana. 50 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 50 (Nr. 964). Al-Ṣafadī verwendet hier das Verb taraka, das ähnlich wie nazala in Bezug auf einen Posten in der Bedeutung von “freiwillig verlassen” verwendet wurde; siehe auch Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 104: qad-kāna taraka l-qaḍāʾa wa-nazala ʿanhū li-waladihī Yūsuf. 51 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: V, 533 (Nr. 1924). 52 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: V, 534 (Nr. 1924): fa-tuwuffiya … ʿan thalāthin wa-tisʿīnin sana. 53 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: VI, 167-169 (Nr. 2450), hier speziell S. 169.

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Wir erfahren, dass Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī trotz nachlassender Sehkraft zunächst noch im Richteramt verweilte, bevor er dann wirklich den Schritt machte und freiwillig zurücktrat, wenn auch zugunsten seines Enkels. Meiner Meinung nach lässt sich an dieser Formulierung ablesen, dass es auch Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī schwergefallen ist, sein Amt zu verlassen. Er lässt sich auf diesen Schritt erst ein, als er wirklich seine Arbeit nicht mehr ausüben kann, also in einem Augenblick größter körperlicher Schwäche. Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī war eine herausragende Persönlichkeit. Er verfasste eine große Anzahl eigener Werke und wurde von al-Ṣafadī als “shaykhu l-islām” bezeichnet.54 Er besaß eine besonders große Bibliothek und al-Ṣafadī unterrichtet uns, dass “er das Richteramt ausübte, ohne Gehalt, weil er darauf (aufgrund seines Reichtums) verzichten konnte (wa-bāshara l-qaḍāʾa bi-lā maʿlūmin li-ghināhu ʿanhū).”55 Die Banū al-Bārizī zählten seit zwei Generationen bereits zur lokalen Elite wichtiger Notablenfamilien von Ḥamā:56 Der Großvater von Sharaf al-Dīn hatte als erster dieser Familie das Richteramt von 652/1254 bis zu seinem Tod im Jahr 669/1271 inne,57 woraufhin ihm sein Sohn im Amt folgte (thumma waliya baʿdahū)58 – wie wir oben ausgeführt hatten, war die Nachfolge im Amt nach dem Tod die gewöhnlichere Art, wenn das Amt überhaupt innerhalb der Familie blieb. Auch dieser Sohn übernimmt das Amt, “ohne dafür ein Gehalt zu nehmen (wa-lam yaʾkhudh ʿani l-qaḍāʾi rizqan)”.59 Es zeigt sich, dass solch eine Nachfolgeregelung niemals abgesichert war, denn dieser Sohn wurde einige Jahre vor seinem Tod des Amtes enthoben60 und ein Mitglied einer anderen wichtigen Familie der Stadt erhielt das Amt.61 Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī erlangt dann wieder das Richteramt von Ḥamā und zeichnet sich durch besondere Leistungen aus. Sein freiwilliger Rücktritt aufgrund seiner Erblindung im hohen Alter zugunsten seines Enkels dient in seinem Fall deutlich nicht einer finanziellen Absicherung in diesem geschwächten, möglicherweise hilfsbedürftigen Zustand, da er ja überhaupt kein Gehalt erhielt. Umso klarer zeigt sich die Bedeutung der Würde und Ehre, die das Richteramt mit sich brachte, auf die auch eine höchst angesehene Persönlichkeit ungern verzichtete. In diesem Fall erhält der Enkel Najm al-Dīn al-Bārizī das Amt, weil – wie die Biographen explizit festhalten – sein Vater, der Sohn von Sharaf al-Dīn bereits verstorben war.62 Wir können dies als Hinweis lesen, dass eine Amtsübertragung von Vater auf Sohn allgemeinen Erwartungen entsprochen hätte. 54 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: V, 532-536 (Nr. 1924). 55 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: V, 534 (Nr. 1924). 56 Vgl. zu dieser Familie auch Martel-Thoumian 1991: 249-266. 57 Siehe Hirschler 2008: 106. 58 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XVIII, 317 (Nr. 369): Najm al-Dīn, bekannt als Ibn al-Bārizī (608-683/1211-1284): wa-qad ḥakama qadīman bi-Ḥamā bi-ḥukmi n-niyābati ʿan wālidihī Shams al-Dīn thumma waliya baʿdahū wa-lam yaʾkhudh ʿani l-qaḍāʾi rizqan wa-ʿuzila ʿani l-qaḍāʾi qabla mawtihī bi-aʿwāmi. Er verstarb dann während der Pilgerfahrt und wurde in Medina begraben. 59 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XVIII, 317 (Nr. 369).) 60 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XVIII, 317 (Nr. 369)): wa-ʿuzila ʿani l-qaḍāʾi qabla mawtihī bi-aʿwām. 61 Hirschler 2008: 106. 62 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 50 (Nr. 964): wa-qad kāna Ibrāhīm wāliduhū tuwuffiya fī ḥayāti wālidihī Sharaf al-Dīn.

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Der Zeitpunkt des freiwilligen Rücktritts zusammen mit der Einsetzung des Enkels wird in den Biographien zwar nicht genau datiert, wir können aber davon ausgehen, dass dies nicht lange vor Sharaf al-Dīns Tod war. Der Enkel war zu diesem Zeitpunkt maximal 30 Jahre alt, oder etwas jünger. Insofern war er ähnlich wie im Fall von Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī relativ jung für die Bekleidung des Richteramts. Und so betont al-Ṣafadī auch im Fall von Najm al-Dīn al-Bārizī, dass er herausragend für dieses Amt geeignet war und es mit Würde ausfüllte, wie es sich gehörte und so auch über 30 Jahre lang im Amt blieb bis zu seinem eigenen Tod.63 Wieder zeigt sich, dass natürlich auch die Fähigkeiten des Nachfolgenden bei einer Amtsübernahme innerhalb einer Familie eine Rolle spielten.

III. Variante gegen Ende der Karriere - aus Altersgründen: Keine familiäre Amtsübertragung – nur familiäre Vertretung im Amt Immer wieder liess sich anhand der Zeitgnossen ein Zögern vor dem Schritt des freiwilligen Rücktritts zu Lebzeiten feststellen. Einige Personen schreckten anscheined ganz davor zurück und liessen sich lieber von einem Familienmitglied nur vertreten. So berichtet al-Ṣafadī über den Lokalherrscher von Medina, den Emir Jammāz b. Shīḥa (gest. 704/1305), dass er ein Mann von hohem Alter war, der am Ende seines Lebens erblindete, so dass noch zu seinen Lebzeiten sein Sohn, der Emir Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr, im Emirsamt an seiner statt stand (wa-kāna shaykhan kabīran uḍirra fī ākhiri ʿumrihī wa-qāma ʿanhū bi-l-amri fī ḥayātihī waladuhū al-amīr Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr).64 Der Sohn steht zwar nun an der Stelle des Vaters im Amt. Es ist aber keine Rede von einem Rücktritt des Vaters. Durch die Formulierung “noch zu Lebzeiten” des Vaters betont auch al-Ṣafadī diesen Zeitpunkt einer Übernahme der Geschäfte. Als Grund für diese Art der Übernahme werden das hohe Alter und insbesondere die Erblindung des Herrschers von Medina benannt. Das sind also deutliche Altersgebrechen. Einige Zeilen zuvor formuliert al-Ṣafadī den gleichen Sachverhalt in Reimprosa, wobei die aktive Weitergabe der Amtsgeschäfte vom Vater an seinen Sohn deutlicher ausgesprochen wird, aber auch das Beharren des Vaters auf das Amt, dessen Geschäftsführung er nur abgibt. Al-Ṣafadī spricht daher auch in diesem Zusammenhang nicht von nuzūl oder nazala: Er wurde alt und hochbejahrt; er wurde so nach der Frische der Jugend und nun ist er ein eingetrockneter Schlauch. Da erblindete er und hielt doch am Emirsamt

63 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 50 (Nr. 964): wa-lam yakun fī ʿaṣri Najmu d-Dīn hādhā aḥadun min quḍāti l-quḍā aqdamu minhū fī hādha l-manṣabi Shāman wa-Miṣran muddatun tazīdu ʿala th-thalāthīni sana wa-kāna sākinan khayran qāʾiman bi-waẓīfatihī ʿalā mā yajib. 64 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: II, 160 (Nr. 542).

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fest und vertraute seine Befehlsgewalt seinem Sohn Nāṣir al-Dīn Abī ʿĀmir Manṣūr an im Hinblick auf was erfreut/geheim und was erbost/bekannt ist.65 In diesem Fall war der Lokalherrscher von Medina wohl nicht bereit, seine Amtswürde zu Lebzeiten ganz aufzugeben, sondern vertraut die Amtsgeschäfte seinem Sohn nur an, ohne offiziell auf den Titel “Emir, Herrscher von Medina” zu verzichten. In späteren historiographischen Darstellungen wird möglicherweise deswegen auch nur berichtet, dass Jammāz b. Shīḥa alt und erblindet war und dass sein Sohn “nach ihm” (also wie üblich erst nach seinem Tod) die Regierungsgeschäfte übernommen habe.66 Dadurch führt dieser Fall die Wichtigkeit der Amtswürde nochmals vor Augen und zeigt deutlich, dass man idealerweise bis zum Tod im Amt bleiben will. Den Emir Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-Naḥḥās (gest. 713/1313), der sich aus dem Handwerkerstand bis zum Amt der Kriegsführung (wilāyat al-ḥarb) in Damaskus hochgearbeitet hatte und dadurch auch reich geworden war, ereilte ein ähnliches Schicksal: Als seine Sehkraft schwach wurde, vertrat ihn sein Sohn eine zeitlang. Als er dann jedoch vollständig erblindete, wurde er seines Amtes enthoben und verließ sein Haus nicht mehr, bis er starb (wa-lam yazal ilā an ḍaʿufa baṣaruhū wa-nāba ʿanhū waladuhū ilā an ʿamiya fa-ʿuzila wa-lazima baytahū ilā an māta).67 Al-Ṣafadī macht in seiner Reimprosa deutlich, dass diesem Emir sein Schicksal, aufgrund seiner Erblindung des Amtes enthoben zu werden, Schwierigkeiten bereitete: “Der Hass tobte in seiner Brust und er war zornig.”68 Dieses Beispiel zeigt deutlich, was es für den älteren Amtsinhaber bedeuten konnte, aufgrund eines Altersgebrechen wie Blindheit sein Amt zu verlieren. In diesem Fall konnte der Emir, solange er nur sehschwach war, seinen Sohn als Vertretung für sich arbeiten lassen. Sein Sohn erhielt aber nicht das Amt, hierfür reichte das eigene Prestige und/oder dasjenige des Sohnes wohl nicht aus. Prestige und Beziehungen waren sicher zentral für eine Weitergabe des Amtes innerhalb der Familie. Ausgelöst durch eine Arbeitsunfähigkeit, beziehungsweise eine Arbeitsbeeinträchtigung, ergab sich jedoch auch die Möglichkeit, sich zu Lebzeiten durch ein Familienmitglied vertreten zu lassen. Abgesehen von den beiden letzgenannten Sonderbeispielen zeigt sich aber deutlich, dass ein freiwilliger Verzicht (nuzūl) auf das Amt noch zu Lebzeiten eine Ausnahme darstellt, die im Widerspruch zum Lebensideal des Sterbens in Amt und Würde steht. Dennoch ergriffen Personen diese Möglichkeit, allerdings in einem

65 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: II, 160 (Nr. 542): kabira wa-ṭaʿana fi s-sinn * wa-ṣāra baʿda tilka l-ghaḍārati fi ṣ-ṣibā wa-huwa shann * fa-uḍirra wa-huwa ʿala l-imrati qad aṣarrā * wa-asarra min amrihī ilā waladihī Nāṣiru d-Dīn Abī ʿĀmir Manṣūr mā asarra wa-mā asharrā *. 66 So z.B. bei al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: II/1, 12); aber auch bei anderen. 67 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 72 (Nr. 21). 68 al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: I, 72 (Nr. 21): wa-lam yazal ilā an ḍaʿufa bāṣiruhū * wa-qalla fī dhālika nāṣiruhū * wa-nāba ʿanhū waladuhū muddatan ilā an ʿamī * wa-jāsha ṣadruhū bi-l-ḥiqdi wa-ḥamī * fa-ʿuzila ʿan wilāyatī * wa-dhahabat tilka l-ʿināyatī *.

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Zustand der (körperlichen) Schwäche, wie es die angeführten Beispiele deutlich zeigen. Ein Hauptgrund für einen freiwilligen Rücktritt vom Amt lag in der gefühlten Altersschwäche oder in einer deutlich benannten Arbeitsuntauglichkeit meist aufgrund von Erblindung im Alter.

IV. Familiäre Amtsübetragung noch zu Lebzeiten: Im Verlauf der Karriere – als Karrieresprung In den zeitgenössischen Biographien finden sich allerdings – wenn auch relativ selten – noch Fälle von freiwilligen Rücktritten zugunsten von Familienmitgliedern, die in einem anderen Kontext stehen. In diesen Fällen ist der Zeitpunkt der Amtsübergabe wesentlich früher zu verorten. Es handelt sich dabei um Personen, die im Verlauf ihres eigenen Karriereaufstiegs auf unbedeutendere Posten verzichten, auf denen sie dann jüngere Familienangehörige einsetzen lassen. Einige Beispiele sollen dies veranschaulichen: Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī (724-805/1324-1403) zum Beispiel erhielt im Jahr 773/1372 das Amt des Armee-Richters in Kairo, wo er außerdem verschiedene Unterrichtsämter innehatte.69 Als im Jahr 779/1377 das Oberrichteramt in Kairo frei wurde, fiel das Auge des Emirs Tashtumur auf Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī, der deswegen vom Amt des Armeerichters freiwillig zugunsten seines Sohnes Badr al-Dīn (757-791/1356-1389) zurücktrat, der seinerseits zugunsten seines jüngeren Bruders Jalāl al-Dīn (761824/1360-1421) seinen Posten im Registrierungsrat (tawqīʿ al-dast) räumte.70 Hier zeigt sich also, dass Personen von bereits relativ hohen Posten freiwillig zurücktreten, um hierarchisch noch höher angesehene Ämter zu bekleiden, wobei dann bislang noch nicht so hoch aufgestiegene Familienmitglieder nachrücken können. Im Fall von Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī konnte der Emir Tashtumur seinen Kandidaten für das Oberrichteramt allerdings nicht durchsetzen und versuchte, Sirāj al-Dīn mit dem shāfiʿītischen Unterricht in der Nāṣiriyya-Madrasa in der Nachbarschaft des Mausoleums von Imām al-Shāfiʿī auf dem Qarāfa-Friedhoft zufriedenzustellen.71 Sein freiwilliger Rücktritt wird also nicht rückgängig gemacht. Als im Jahr 789/1387 Badr al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī zugunsten seines Bruders Jalāl al-Dīn vom Muftiamt im Dār al-ʿAdl freiwillig zurücktrat, während er das Amt des Armeerichters in seiner Hand behielt, trat Jalāl al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī freiwillig vom Posten im Tawqīʿ al-Dast zugunsten des Ehemannes seiner Tochter Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-Burajī zurück.72

69 Er hatte das Unterrichtsamt in der Khashābiyya (einer shāfiʿītischen Zāwiya in der ʿAmr Ibn al-ʿĀṣMoschee), den Tafsīr-Unterricht in der Ibn Ṭulūn-Moschee und das Unterrichtsamt in der Ẓāhiriyya und andere Unterrichtsämter inne. (Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: V, 107-109) (Biographie aus Anlass seines Todes im Jahr 805/1403); (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ: VI, 85-90 [Nr. 286]); zu al-Bulqīnī und der Familie insgesamt, siehe auch Petry 1981: 232 ff.; speziell zur Einsetzung als Armee-Richter siehe (al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/1: 199 [im Jahr 773]). 70 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 339; al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/1, 319-320. 71 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 339; al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/1: 320. 72 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: II, 254-255.

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Ihr Vater Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī wurde zwar nicht Oberrichter und kehrte auch nicht auf sein Amt als Armeerichter zurück, hatte aber sehr gute Beziehungen zum Sultan und wurde bei öffentlichen Zeremonien immer neben den vier Oberrichtern namentlich als shaykh al-islām genannt.73 Im Jahr 796/1394 trat Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī dann freiwillig von seinen Unterrichtsposten in der Zāwiya al-Khashābiyya der ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ-Moschee, vom Mashyakha-Posten in Tafsīr und der Repetition in der Ẓāhiriyya-Madrasa zugunsten seines Sohnes Jamāl al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī (sein Bruder Badr al-Dīn war im Jahr 791/1389 verstorben) zurück.74 Dieses Niederlegen aller Unterrichtsämter vollzog Sirāj al-Dīn im Alter von 72 Jahren, neun Jahre vor seinem Tod und al-Maqrīzī formulierte: “Und er blieb beim Sultan”.75 Sein Sohn Jalāl al-Dīn hatte zu diesem Zeitpunkt im Alter von 35 Jahren bereits das Amt des Armeerichters und seit dem Tod seines Bruders auch das Amt als Muftī im Dār al-ʿAdl inne. Daher scheint es auch in diesem letzten Fall naheliegend, dass Sirāj al-Dīn aufgrund eines Wunsches nach Ruhe im Alter schließlich seine Unterrichtsämter aufgab. Dieses Beispiel zeigt, wie wichtig es ist, die Umstände eines freiwilligen Rücktritts genauer zu beleuchten, um die Hintergründe hierfür besser verstehen zu können. Es ist ein Unterschied, ob jemand im Laufe seiner Karriere von einem niedriger angesehenen Amt zurücktritt, um ein höheres Amt übernehmen zu können, oder am Ende seiner Karriere freiwillig auf sein höchstes erreichtes Amt verzichtet. Ein weiteres Beispiel für eine Person, die im Laufe ihrer Karriere zugunsten eines Familiemitglieds freiwillig zurücktritt, um ein höheres Amt zu besetzen, ist der Oberrichter Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf al-Maḥajjī (686-738/1287-1338): Als er im Jahr 733/1333 im Alter von 47 Jahren das Oberrichteramt von Syrien erhielt, trat er zugunsten seines Neffen Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Thanāʾ al-Maḥajjī (c. 707-764/c. 1308-1363) freiwillig von seinem Posten als Repetitor in der Qaymariyya-Madrasa in Damaskus zurück.76 Zu diesem Zeipunkt war sein Neffe 26 Jahre alt. Dieser Sachverhalt wird allerdings – anders als durch meine Formulierung suggeriert – nicht in der Biographie des Oberrichters Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf erwähnt, sondern ausschließlich in der Biographie seines Neffen. Für Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Thanāʾ al-Maḥajjī war dies ein erster Karriereschritt; für seinen Onkel dagegen ein eher unbedeutendes Ereignis. Auch der bereits als Beispiel herangezogene shāfiʿītische Oberrichter Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī (638-756/1284-1355), der im Jahr 756/1355 ein paar Monate vor seinem Tod im Alter von 93 Jahren zugunsten seines Sohnes Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb eindeutig aufgrund von Altersschwäche auf sein Amt als Oberrichter in Damaskus verzichtete, war bereits zehn Jahre zuvor – er war zu diesem Zeitpunkt immerhin auch schon 83 Jahre alt – zugunsten seines anderen Sohnes Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn (der vor seinem Vater im Jahr 755/1354 starb) vom Unterrichtsposten an der Madrasa al-Shāmiyya 73 al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, an verschiedenen Stellen, so auch noch im Jahr 802. 74 al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/2, 814: wa-qad nazala lahū wāliduhū ʿan tadrīs … wa-aqāma wāliduhū maʿa s-sulṭān; zum Tod des Bruders siehe al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/2, 658. 75 al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk: III/2, 814: wa-aqāma wāliduhū maʿa s-sulṭān. 76 al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā: V, 434 (Nr. 1409): wa-lammā waliya ʿammuhū qaḍāʾa l-quḍā bi-sh-Shām nazala lahū ʿan iʿādati l-madrasati l-Qaymariyya bi-Dimashq.

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al-Barāniyya zurückgetreten, worüber dieser ein sultanisches Schreiben erhalten hatte.77 Auch wenn Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī zu diesem Zeitpunkt schon relativ alt war, verzichtete er jedoch noch nicht auf sein höchstes Amt als shāfiʿītischer Oberrichter. Im Jahr 752/1351 – Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī ist 89 Jahre alt – berichtet Ibn Kathīr von einem Gerücht, Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī habe auf mehrere Unterrichtsämter zugunsten seines Sohnes verzichtet.78 Der Enkel, der mit dem altersschwachen Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī im Jahr 756/1355 die Reise nach Ägypten antrat, nachdem dieser sein Oberrichteramt aufgegeben hatte, um beim Sultan zu verweilen, erhielt ein paar Jahre später von seinem eigenen Vater das Unterrichtsamt in der Manṣūriyya-Madrasa, während der Vater noch andere Posten innehatte. Er starb dann allerdings noch vor seinem Vater im jungen Alter von 19 Jahren an der Pest des Jahres 764/1363.79 Diese Beispiele belegen, dass in einigen Fällen Väter, die ein gutes Amt erhielten oder bereits mehrere Posten innehatten, bei ihrem Aufstieg auf der Karriereleiter – also durchaus in einer Situtation der Macht – in der Lage waren, ihre Söhne bereits zu Lebzeiten in ein unbedeutenderes Amt einsetzen zu lassen, dass sie für diesen Zweck extra freiräumten. Diese Praxis, von der es nur wenige Beispiele gibt, wurde zum Teil von den Zeitgenossen beargwöhnt. So waren beim (ersten) Unterricht von Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn (gest. 755/1354), dem Sohn von Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, als dieser – wie gerade erwähnt – im Jahr 746/1345 zu dessen Gunsten vom Unterrichtsposten an der Madrasa al-Shāmiyya al-Barāniyya freiwillig zurückgetreten war, die Richter, Notablen, eine ganze Reihe von Emiren und Rechtsgelehrte anwesend. Er ( Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn) saß zwischen seinem Vater (Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī) und dem ḥanafitischen Richter und begann seinen Unterricht über die Worte Gottes: “Wir gaben David und Salomon Wissen, und beide sagten: ‘Lob sei Gott, der uns vor vielen seiner gläubigen Diener ausgezeichnet hat’.” (Koran 27:15). Der Sharīf Majd al-Dīn al-Mutakallim redete über den Unterricht mit Tadel und Verachtung, woraufhin er (aber) von den (anderen) Anwesenden angeprangert wurde und so, nach Beendigung des Unterrichts, diesen für gut befand.80

77 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 216 (im Jahr 746/1345): “Jamāl al-Dīn … Sohn von Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī unterrichtete in der Madrasa al-Shāmiyya al-Barāniyya, nachdem sein Vater für ihn davon zurückgetreten war (nazala lahū abūhū ʿanhā).” 78 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 239: “Am Donnerstag, den 15. Rabīʿ al-Awwal (im Jahr 752/1351) präsentierte sich der Richter Ḥusayn, der Sohn des Oberrichters Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, anstelle seines Vaters im Amt des Mashyakha des Dār al-Ḥadīth der Ashrafiyya-Madrasa und er trug ihm etwas vor, wofür ihm gerade einige Ḥadīthgelehrte einen Auszug gemacht hatten. Da verbreitete sich in der Stadt die Nachricht, er sei zu seinen Gunsten davon freiwillig zurückgetreten und man redete viel darüber, sodass sich die Rede darüber weiter ausbreitete. Einige meinten, er sei für ihn auch freiwillig von (seinen Posten in) der Ghazāliyya und der ʿĀdiliyya zurückgetreten und habe ihn darin zu seinem Nachfolger erklärt – Gott weiß es am Besten!” 79 al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā: V, 73 (Nr. 1307).) 80 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 216 (im Jahr 746/1345): “Jamāl al-Dīn … Sohn von Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī unterrichtet in der Madrasa al-Shāmiyya al-Barāniyya, nachdem sein Vater für ihn davon zurücktrat (nazala lahū abūhū ʿanhā).”

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Diese Art von Kritik mag sich nun wirklich auf die Unterrichtsqualität von Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn bezogen haben, ganz unabhängig von der Tatsache, dass hier der Sohn auf einen Posten kam, den dessen Vater unmittelbar davor bekleidet hatte. Deutlicher dagegen spricht folgender Bericht, den al-Ṣafadī von Fatḥ al-Dīn (Ibn Sayyid al-Nās) gehört hat: Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd (625-702/1228-1302) sei zugunsten seines Sohnes von einem Unterrichtsamt in einer Madrasa zurückgetreten – wobei sich al-Ṣafadī weder an den Namen des Sohnes noch an den der Madrasa erinnern kann. Als dann einmal Athīr al-Dīn (Abū Ḥayyān) dem Unterricht des Oberrichters Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Bint al-Aʿizz beiwohnte, und dieser den Vers Gottes vortrug, den er an diesem Tag erläutern wollte, und zwar: ‚Den Schaden tragen jene, die ihre Kinder aus törichter Unwissenheit töten (Koran 6:140)‘, trat Abū Ḥayyān aus dem Kreis und sagte: ‚Oh, mein Herr Oberrichter: Die ihre Kinder vorziehen; die ihre Kinder vorziehen!‘. Auf die Frage dann, was er damit meine, verwies Abū Ḥayyān auf den freiwilligen Rücktritt vom Unterrichtsamt von Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd zugunsten seines Sohnes.81 Es bleibt festzuhalten, dass es einerseits die Praxis gab, sein Kind in einem nicht so hohen Amt einsetzen zu lassen, von dem man selbst freiwillig zurücktrat, während man ein höheres Amt erhielt oder bereits innehatte. Für diese Praxis konnten erstens bislang nicht so viele Belege gefunden werden und zweitens wurde sie von den Zeitgenossen zum Teil wohl kritisch wahrgenommen. Dieser Zeitpunkt der familiären Amtsübertragung ist jedoch deutlich von der Praxis zu unterscheiden, dass ein älterer Amtsinhaber aus Altersgründen – wie von den Zeitgenossen ausdrücklich erwähnt – von seinem höchsten Amt, das er erreicht hatte, freiwillig zurücktritt.

Zusammenfassung Auch wenn es nicht die Regel war, so lassen sich doch häufig familiäre Amtsübertragungen in den mamlukenzeitlichen biographischen und historiographischen Quellen nachweisen. Die Gründe für eine solche familiäre Amtsübertragung standen nicht im Zentrum dieser Untersuchung. Dennoch überrascht es nicht, wenn in einem System, in dem insgesamt persönliche Beziehungen von größter Bedeutung waren, auch familiäre Beziehungen eine sehr wichtige Rolle spielten. Eine allgemeine Erwartungshaltung, dass ein Familienmitglied die Nachfolge antritt, kann zwar nicht eindeutig belegt werden, aber das bereits von Chamberlain angeführte Beispiel von ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Sulamī (577 o. 578-660/1181 o. 1182-1262) deutet darauf hin: Als er krank wurde, schickte der Sultan nach ihm und bat, er möge seine Ämter für denjenigen seiner Söhne bestimmen, den er wolle.82

81 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: IV, 193-209 (Nr. 1741), hier speziell 195-196. 82 al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī: XVIII, 520-522 (Nr. 522), speziell 522.

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Al-Sulamī hält aber keinen seiner Söhne für qualifiziert, sondern schlägt jemanden anderen vor, der dann aber auch erst nach dem Tod al-Sulamīs (baʿdahū) damit betraut wird. Im Hinblick auf die Zeitpunkte einer familiären Amtsübertragung konnten verschiedene Möglichkeiten festgestellt werden. Erstens ließ sich klar zeigen, dass der üblichste Zeitpunkt für eine Amtsübergabe innerhalb einer Familie nach dem Tod des früheren Amtsinhabers erfolgte. Eine Nachfolge eines Familienmitglieds im Amt ereignete sich in der Regel erst nach dem Tod des Vorgängers. Darüberhinaus fanden sich Beispiele die zeigen, dass in einigen Fällen ein Amtsinhaber bereits zu Lebzeiten freiwillig zurücktrat, meist verbunden mit einem klaren Vorschlag für seine Amtsnachfolge. Hierbei lassen sich zwei Zeitpunkte deutlich voneinander unterscheiden. Einerseits konnten einige Fälle nachgewiesen werden, in denen dies zu einem frühen Zeitpunkt erfolgte, meist verbunden bei einem eigenen Karriereschritt nach oben, wobei man auf einen unbedeutenderen Posten zugunsten eines Familienmitglieds freiwillig verzichtete. Davon zu unterscheiden ist der Zeitpunkt eines freiwilligen Rücktritts am Ende der Karriere. Mein zentrales Anliegen war es zu zeigen, dass die herausragenden Fälle, in denen ein Amtsinhaber von seinem höchsten erreichten Posten noch zu Lebzeiten freiwillig zurücktrat, erst gegen Ende des Lebens erfolgten, und zwar nur, weil sie mit Altersschwäche oder einem eindeutigeren Altersgebrechen, wie insbesondere der Blindheit, zusammenhingen. Dies wird von den Zeitgenossen selbst so wahrgenommen und beschrieben. In einem solchen Augenblick der besonderen Hilfsbedürftigkeit bei gleichzeitigem Respekt vor der geleisteten Arbeit war es einem angesehenen Amtsinhaber möglich, ein Familienmitglied an seiner Stelle einsetzen zu lassen. Hierfür ließen sich noch weitere Beispiele anführen.83 In den zeitgenössischen

83 Weitere Beispiele, bei denen ein derartiges Verfahren dokumentiert ist, bei denen ebenfalls der Grund der Altersschwäche naheliegen ist: — al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: IV, 310-311 (Nr. 1487) berichtet über Amīn ad-Dīn al-Qalānisī (701-763/1302-1362), der viele Ämter innegehabt hatte (z.B. hatte er nach dem Tod seines Vaters (gest. 731/1331) von dessen Posten die Aufsicht über die Ẓāhiriyya und das Unterrichtsamt in der ʿAṣrūniyya erhalten), dass er als höchstes Amt in seiner Karriere (seit Ṣafar 760/1359) das Amt des Geheimsekretärs in Damaskus erhielt. Von diesem hohen Amt wird Amīn al-Dīn al-Qalānisī allerdings in Unehren wieder abgesetzt. Al-Ṣafadī schreibt schließlich: “Ihm blieb kein Madrasa-Amt und kein Vorstand in der Umayyaden-Moschee, außer unbeträchtliche Wächterposten, von denen er zugunsten seines Sohnes freiwillig zurückgetreten war (wa-lam tabqa maʿahū madrasa wa-lā … ġayri anṭārun yasīratun nazala ʿanhā li-waladihī)”, als er starb und dann begraben wurde; — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: III, 210-211 (Nr. 510), notiert über den mālikitischen Rechtsgelehrten Sharaf al-Dīn al-Manjalātī al-Ḥumayrī (664-743/1266-1342), der das Unterrichtsamt in der mālikitischen Zāwiya in Kairo innehatte, dass er “im Jahr 732/1332 (also im Alter von c. 68 Jahren) die Pilgerfahrt unternahm, nachdem er zugunsten seines Sohnes vom Unterrichtsamt in der Zāwiya freiwillig zurückgetreten war. Er verblieb als Repetitor bei seinem Sohn und so blieb es, bis er im Jahr 743/1342 starb.”; — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: I, 295 (die Verstorbenen des Jahres 780/1378), notiert über Maḥmūd al-Qayṣarī (gest. 780/1378), der Shaykh im Khānqāh al-Khātūniyya war, dass er zugunsten seines Sohnes ʿAbd al-Malik vom Mashyakha-Posten freiwillig zurückgetreten sei “kurz vor seinem Tod”; — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: VI, 123 (die Verstorbenen des Jahres 811/1408), notiert über Kamāl al-Dīn al-ʿAqīlī, bekannt als Ibn al-ʿAdīm (754-811/1353-1408), dass dieser starb, “nachdem er zugunsten seines Sohnes Muḥammad, der noch jung war, von seinem Unterrichtsamt in der Shaykhūniyya zurückgetreten

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Biographien finden sich auch Beispiele von freiwilligen Rücktritten aufgrund von Altersbeschwerden zugunsten anderer Personen, die außerhalb der Familie standen.84 Warum also in den behandelten Fällen es zu einer Übergabe des Amtes zu Lebzeiten an ein Familienmitglied kam, ist damit immer noch nicht geklärt. Klar jedoch ist, dass dies nicht der übliche Weg bei einer familiengebundenen Nachfolge im Amt war. Ein freiwilliger Rücktritt vom höchsten Amt ist zweifelsohne im Kontext der besonderen Situation des abdankenden Amtsinhabers aufgrund von Alter oder Krankheit zu verstehen. Diese Praxis wird in den Biographien erwähnt, wenn auch nicht sehr häufig. Die angeführten Beispiele zeigen, dass einige Personen es erreichen konnten, in diesem Augenblick der körperlichen Schwäche, ein Familienmitglied an ihrer statt einsetzen zu lassen. Die hier vorgestellten Beispiele zeigen dabei deutlich, dass diese Möglichkeit auf höchster Ämterebene genutzt wurde. In allen Fällen handelte es sich um Personen mit sehr hohen Ämtern. Davon Gebrauch machten einerseits Personen der Militärelite wie der Lokalherrscher über die westlichen Berge von Beirut, Ibn Amīr al-Gharb (668-751/1269-1350). Die meisten Beispiele allerdings fanden sich unter Personen, die hohe religiöse Ämter innehatten, wie das Ḥisba-Amt in Damaskus im Fall von ʿImād al-Dīn al-Shayrajī (gest. nach 764/1363) und dann vor allem das Amt des Oberrichters verschiedener Rechtsschulen an unterschiedlichen Orten, wie die

war und schon vorher (vom Unterrichtsamt) der Manṣūriyya und er (der Sohn) habe beide geleitet noch zu seinen Lebzeiten.”; — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr: VIII, 252 berichtet (im Jahr 835/1432), dass der ḥanafitische Richter Zayn al-Dīn at-Tafhanī, “während seiner Krankheit zugunsten seines Sohnes Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad vom Unterrichtsamt in der Ṣarghitmashiyya freiwillig zurückgetreten sei, worüber sich al-ʿAyntābī aufregte, … der Sultan aber den freiwilligen Rücktritt unterzeichnete. Als at-Tafhanī dann starb, musste sein Sohn 500 Dīnār bezahlen.”; — Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina: I, 260-261, notiert über Shihāb al-Dīn al-Anṣārī (648-775/1250-1373), dass er das Predigeramt in der Freitagsmoschee von Aleppo über zwanzig Jahre lang innehatte, und dann davon zugunsten von Abu l-Ḥasan Ibn ʿAshāʾir (ein Nicht-Familienmitglied) und seines Neffen Abu l-Barakāt … freiwillig zurückgetreten sei. 84 Zum Beispiel: Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIII, 327, berichtet im Jahr 691/1292: “Am Montag, den 7. Jumādā al-Ākhira unterrichtete in der Najībiyya der Gelehrte Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn … al-Ṭūsī entsprechend des freiwilligen Rücktritts von al-Fāriqī zu seinen Gunsten davon (bi-muqtaḍā nuzūli l-Fāriqī lahū ʿanhā).”; — Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 74, berichtet im Jahr 715/1315, dass “am Mittwoch, den 16. Ramaḍān Fakhr al-Dīn …, bekannt als Ibn Kātib Qaṭlūbak in der kleinen ʿĀdiliyya unterrichtete ensprechend des freiwilligen Rücktritts davon von ihrem Lehrer Kamāl al-Dīn al-Zamlakānī (bi-muqtaḍā nuzūli mudarrisihā … ʿanhā).”; — Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya: XIV, 214, berichtet im Jahr 745/1344 zunächst, dass, “am Freitag, den 22. Rajab wurde der ḥanafitische Rechtsgelehrte ʿImād al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿIzz in der Moschee von Tankiz außerhalb des Bāb al-Naṣr im Amt des Predigers eingesetzt aufgrund des freiwilligen Rücktritts des Gelehrten Najm al-Dīn … al-Qafjārī zu seinen Gunsten davon (khuṭiba … ʿan nuzūli sh-shaykh … lahū ʿan dhālika)” und dann aus Anlass des Todes von Najm al-Dīn al-Qafjārī am Mittwoch, den 24. Shaʿbān (also einen Monat später), dass dieser “Prediger in der Moschee von Tankiz und in der Ẓāhiryya gewesen war, und dass “er kurz vor seinem Tod davon freiwillig zurückgetreten sei zugunsten ʿImād al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿIzz (wa-qad nazala ʿanhā qabla wafātihī bi-qalīl)”; — al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr: III, 538-540 (Nr. 1233), berichtet über ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ibn al-Fāmī (721-763/1321-1362), der das Ḥisba-Amt in Damaskus innehatte, “dass er, als sich sein Krankheitszustand verschlechterte, aus eigenen Stücken davon zurücktrat (ohne dass irgendjemand benannt wird zu dessen Gunsten er dies tat, obwohl es heißt, dass er eine Anzahl von Söhnen hinterließ).”

Wan n fäl lt d e r A p fe l ni cht we i t vo m S tamm?

shāfiʿītischen Oberrichter Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī (638-756/1284-1355) in Damaskus und Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bārizī (645-738/1248-1337) in Ḥamā und die beiden ḥanafitischen Oberricher in Damaskus, ʿImād al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī (669-748/1271-1357) und Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Kafrī (690 o. 691-776/1291 o. 1292-1375), aber auch Sharīf al-Dīn Ibn Harmās (nach 710-773/1310-1371), der das Amt des Predigers in der Tūba-Moschee in Damaskus innehatte. Das sind gar nicht so viele Beispiele und es scheint, dass insbesondere Ibn Kathīr, aber auch al-Ṣafadī diese Praxis notiert haben. Wir können anhand dieser Beispiele festhalten, dass diese Möglichkeit, sich aus Altersgründen aus der Verantwortung eines sehr hohen Amtes zurückzuziehen, wohl nur selten genutzt wurde, da die Ehre und Würde, die ein Amt mit sich brachte, anscheinend selbst für diese sehr hoch geschätzten und gut vernetzten Persönlichkeiten viel galt und man nur ungerne darauf freiwillig verzichten wollte. In einzelnen Fällen ließ sich in den zeitgenössischen Biographien ein Zögern vor diesem Schritt erkennen. Dass in einer solchen Situation – ein hochverdienter Amtsinhaber, der aufgrund von körperlicher Schwäche zurücktreten möchte – dann sein Sohn oder ein anderer naher Verwandter an seiner statt eingesetzt werden konnte, liegt vielleicht auf der Hand. Der Wunsch nach einer derartigen Regelung konnte anhand der Beispiele gezeigt werden. Auch wenn dies in den zeitgenössischen Biographien nicht so deutlich formuliert wird, lässt sich vermuten, dass der ausscheidende Amtsinhaber durch eine familiäre Nachfolgeregelung, wenn er schon auf ein eigenes Auskommen, das mit der Ausübung des Amtes verbunden war, verzichten musste, wenigstens auf eine innerfamiliäre finanzielle Unterstützung hoffen konnte, sofern er dieser bedurfte. Gegebenenfalls hatte man in solch einer Situation ja sogar einen besonderen Bedarf auch finanzieller Art, um etwa Hilfe im Haushalt finanzieren zu können. Vor allem aber scheint ein wenig der Würde des Amtes, die in dieser Gesellschaft einen so hohen Wert hatte, gerade aufgrund der Tatsache, dass das Amt innerhalb der Familie blieb, noch auf den ehemaligen Amtsinhaber ausgestrahlt zu haben.

Bibliographische Angaben Bauer, Thomas, “‘Der Fürst ist tot, es lebe der Fürst!’ Ibn Nubātas Gedicht zur Inthronisation al-Afḍals von Ḥamāh (732/1332),” in Marzolph, Ulrich (Hg.), Orientalische Studien zu Sprache und Literatur. Festgabe zum 65. Geburtstag von Werner Diem, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011: 285-315. Chamberlain, Michael, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-1350, Cambridge: University Press, 1994. Hirschler, Konrad, “The Formation of the Civilian Elite in the Syrian Province: The Case of Ayyubid and Early Mamluk Ḥamāh,” Mamluk Studies Review 12/2 (2008): 95-132. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abī al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, al-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa al-thāmina, 6 Bände, 2. Auflage, Hayderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1972-1976.

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Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abī al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, Dhayl al-durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa ath-thāmina, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1419/1998. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abī al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-abnāʾ alʿumr - fī al-tārīkh, 9 Bände, Hayderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1967-1976. Ibn Iyās, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr fī waqāʾiʿ al-duhūr / Die Chronik des Ibn Ijās, (ed.) Muḥammed Muṣṭafā, 5 Bände in 6, Kairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1982-1984. Ibn Kathīr, ʿImād al-Dīn Abī al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar, al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya fī al-tārīkh, 14 Bände in 7, Kairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda, 1932-1959. Maqrīzī (766-845/1364-1442), Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-, al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk, 4 Bände in 12, Kairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya / Maṭbaʿat Lajnat al-Taʾlīf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1934-1973. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, Les civils et l’administration dans l’état militaire mamlūk (ixe/ xve siècle), Damaskus: Institut Français de Damas, 1991. Nuʿaymī, ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad al-, al-Dāris fī tārīkh al-madāris, (ed.) Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn, 2 Bände, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1410/1990. Petry, Carl, The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Qalqashandī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-, Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-inshā, 14 Bände, Kairo: Maṭābiʿ Kosta Tsumas wa-Sharikāt, 1963. Ṣafadī, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl ibn Aybak al-, al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, 30 Bände, Stuttgart (u.a.): Steiner (in Komm.), 1931-2004. Ṣafadī, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl ibn Aybak al-, Aʿyān al-ʿaṣr wa-aʿwān al-naṣr, (ed.) ʿAlī Abū Zayd u.a., 6 Bände, Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 1418/1998. Sakhāwī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn at-tāsiʿ, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 12 Bände in 6, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1424/2003. Salibi, Kamal, Tārīkh Bayrūt. Récits des anciens de la famille de Buḥtur b. ʿAlī, émir du Gharb de Beyrouth, Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1969. Schacht, J., und Bosworth, C. E., “al-Subkī,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997: IX, 743-745. Subkī, Tāj al-Dīn Abī Naṣr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī al-, Ṭabaqāt alShāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, (ed.) Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā, 6 Bände, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,1420/1999. Tezcan, Baki, “Hanafism and the Turks in al-Ṭarasūsī’s Gift for the Turks (1325),” Mamlūk Studies Review 15 (2011): 67-86.

Nicolas Michel

Families of Cairene Civil Servants, from Mamluk to Ottoman Times (Fifteenth – Sixteenth Centuries)

Mamluk Egypt civil servants have been the focus of two major studies by Carl F. Petry (1981) and Bernadette Martel-Thoumian (1991). Both relied on historical literature, especially on the lengthy fifteenth-century biographical dictionaries, which present in detail many high-ranking civil servants.1 In 1517 the Ottomans did not intend to crush the latter as they did the Mamluks themselves, but the lack of historical narrative after 1524 obscures their fate. Mamluk public archives do not survive, whereas some registers have been preserved from the beginning of the Ottoman period in Egypt. However, they shed light on few facets of the way the new masters ruled the country, and no comprehensive study has yet been undertaken about the civilian administration they set up.2 When the writing of chronicles and historical biographies resumed in Egypt in the first decades of the seventeenth century,3 any trace of the descent of the Mamluk civil servants had vanished, and the mere possibility of a continuity in positions and families after 1517 seems unlikely. For lack of material, recent historians of the first century of Ottoman Egypt have passed over this issue in silence, which seemed minor especially in comparison with the topic of the Mamluks’ fate.4





1 Petry 1981: 8-14 (biographical sources) and chap. IV, “Occupation Patterns of the Civilian Elite”: 202-220, “The Bureaucratic (Secretarial-Financial) Professions”; Martel-Thoumian 1991: 18-23 (biographical and narrative sources), chap. I: 35-57 “Les structures administratives — A. Les fonctions civiles”. 2 The administration of Egypt during the first century of Ottoman rule is the topic of a major study by Es-Seyyid Mahmud 1990. 3 Hanna 2001: 238-239, underlines the fact that our knowledge of the historiography of Ottoman Egypt remains quite incomplete, some unpublished sources still only being known by their title, like al-Budūr al-safīra fī man waliya al-Qāhira by Nūr al-Dīn al-Minhājī (Vienna, Oriental Manuscrits 918) or the biographical dictionary by Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad Madyan al-Qūṣūnī, al-Rūḥ al-baṣīr ʿalā baʿḍ wafayāt aʿyān al-qarn al-ʿāšir. For the historiographical production in Ottoman Egypt, see Weintritt 2008. 4 e.g. Winter 1992, who devotes well-documented developments to the military and the Bedouin during the sixteenth century, does not mention the civil servants. Nicolas Michel  •  Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 137-152 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122933

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It has been a surprise for me to come across familiar names of Mamluk civil servant families when exploring Islamic court records of the sixteenth century. Thus, they did not disappear altogether. We would of course very much like to know what happened to them and their occupations. But these records or sijillāt are our only source of knowledge, and their very nature does not allow us to trace the fate of these civil servants accurately. The main contribution of these sources is to shed light on the way descendants of Mamluk civil servants presented themselves, or were identified, before the Islamic courts. Therefore, the focus shifts from the narrative history of a prominent social group, to a more specific issue: the role and meaning of family within a social group that was confronted — with the Ottoman conquest — with a potentially catastrophic event. I shall focus on family names first, because they provide a sure key to family consciousness, and I shall examine whether their use was widespread or even general among the social group of civil servants during the period under scrutiny; then I shall try to identify the ways and objects of transmission, i.e., why and how the cohesiveness of this group was maintained, by dealing first with internal characteristics we can understand from sources, then by comparing them with the other privileged groups before and after the Ottoman conquest.

I.

Familial Transmission among Mamluk High Civil Servants

Biographical dictionaries are our main source for the knowledge of civil servants during the Mamluk period. Only the most prominent ones appear there, because these dictionaries were a Who’s Who with a social function and one of the tools by which the élite asserted its prominence. These upper-rank civil servants were listed in hierarchical order in the annals of a few chroniclers, at the beginning of each year, as a kind of official almanac.5 Furthermore, chroniclers mentioned more or less frequently dismissals as well as appointments according to the importance they gave to the post at stake. Some of these chroniclers, who belonged to the awlād al-nās, i.e. the descendants of Mamluks, were close to upper-rank civil servants, like Ibn Taġrī Birdī (1409-1470) to Yūsuf Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Kātib Jakam (d. 1458),6 or Ibn Iyās (1448-1524 or after) to Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn al-Jīʿān. Thus, biographers as well as historians





5 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 29-31 and n. 7. Example of the chroniclers for the years 778/1376-1377, 793/13901391 and 804/1401-1402 in Massoud 2007: 43, 209 (778H.: al-ʿAynī), 267 (793H.: al-ʿAynī; Ibn Ḥijjī for religious officials), 363 (804H.: Ibn Ḥijjī, copied by his pupil Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba; al-ʿAynī copied by al-Jawharī al-Ṣayrafī). However, the majority of chroniclers Massoud put under scrutiny do not provide such lists; they lack — as may be expected — from the works that did not choose the form of Annals, e.g. Ibn Ḫaldūn (Ibid.: 16). Differences between chroniclers in areas of interest, criteria of choice, and narrative style were broad in the fifteenth century, as noted by Li Guo, who compared Ibn Taġrī Birdī and al-Biqāʿī (1406-1480) for the year 855/1451 (Guo 2001: 127). 6 His tomb was built next to Ibn Kātib Jakam’s, see Hamza 2008: 152 Fig. 1. This connection was heavily criticized by al-Sakhāwī, see Popper 1956: 381 and footnote 3. For an overview of Ibn Taġrī Birdī’s relationships within high society, see Hamza 2008:148 and n. 40.

Fam il ie s o f C a i r e n e C i vi l Se rvan t s, fro m M amlu k to Ot to man Ti me s

were keen to put in front of their readers’ eyes the top of this civilian hierarchy, and knew very well how to distinguish it from the common ranks. Mubāshirūn was the generic term for civil servant of all ranks, whereas chroniclers from the Mamluk period used the expression aʿyān al-mubāshirīn for the most prominent among this group; united with the holders of upper-rank military and religious posts they formed the aʿyān/arkān/arbāb al-dawla or al-mamlaka. However, the use of the term aʿyān could be extended to truly distinguished people among the lower ranks, who would otherwise have remained buried in nothingness.7 C. Petry and B. Martel-Thoumian, as well as many case studies, have shown that in Mamluk Egypt and Syria administrative positions were frequently passed from father to son, uncle to nephew, and so on. What is more, members of the same family were often specialized in a specific office.8 For instance, the Banū al-Jīʿān were attached for seven generations to three positions: mustawfī dīwān al-jaysh (first accountant of the army), kātib and nāẓir al-ḫizāna (secretary and controller of the royal wardrobe); the Banū al-Fukhayra held the post of kātib al-mamālīk (secretary to Mamluks) for four generations.9 Because trained state servants could not apply or choose between a range of positions and move freely from one to another, the best way to serve their family interests was to train their sons and relatives and then wait until a vacancy arose either by disgrace, or by death — as Syrinx von Hees discusses in this volume, resignation was possible, if allowed, but seldom requested. The transmission only happened through blood or occasionally, through marriage ties.10 No freed slave ever inherited an administrative position.11 The widespread use of familial transmission of positions within civil servant families was closely related to two phenomena: large facilities for apprenticeship within the state offices, and the existence of a high-skilled practical culture restricted to the administrative circles. In this respect civil servants may be compared and partly opposed to ʿulamāʾ. The latter learned their science and part of their skill in an open structure of learning, the madrasa, then moved in a wider occupational market — where, nonetheless, familiarity with the cultural and social codes of the literate milieu shared by civil servants and ʿulamāʾ remained almost mandatory.12 This familial transmission would not have been possible had the political conjuncture remained chaotic during a long period. Martel-Thoumian has shown that the Cairene administrative personnel were affected by profound changes during the reign of Barqūq (1382-1399), founder of the Circassian regime, then remained stable

Martel-Thoumian 2001a: 276-277; she discusses the term aʿyān in Ibid.: 277-280. Martel-Thoumian 1991: 82-84. Banū al-Jīʿān: Martel-Thoumian 1991: 296-297, 308-309; Banū al-Fukhayra: Ibid.: 188, 197-201. For transmission through in-law relationships, see Martel-Thoumian 1991: 85. However, freed mamlūks of civil servants could pursue a career in the military administration, Martel-Thoumian 1991: 168-171. 12 For this issue, see Perho 2011, who draws on Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s biographies of fourteenth century individuals. For the cultural convergence of kuttāb and ʿulamāʾ between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, see Bauer 2003: 79-81 (I thank Syrinx von Hees for providing this reference). 7 8 9 10 11

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through the whole period (with some homines novi being able to enter the milieu),13 so that, except for the Banū al-Jīʿān, no well-known family of the Circassian period could claim prestigious ancestors before that reign. And even the Banū al-Jīʿān did not have access to first-rank positions before Barqūq’s reign.14

II. Family Names among Civil Servants and beyond In the Circassian period, families were perceived and recognized as such, and Bernadette Martel-Thoumian devoted one chapter in her book to each of the ten most prominent families she identified and traced in chronicles and biographical dictionaries. All these families had a name by which they were known. Here identifying family names is not an historians’ device. In sixteenth century court records the family name was usually introduced by al-shahīr nasabuhu al-karīm bi- (his honourable nasab being known as) at the end of a complete name. Nasab may be translated here as ‘family name’. Sometimes the formula was abbreviated to al-shahīr bi- (known as, named), which could refer either to a personal nickname or to the family name. This meaning of nasab was so common that al-Sakhāwī (1427-1497), in the last part of his monumental biographical dictionary al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ fī aʿyān al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, completed in 1491, wrote a ‘Kitāb al-alqāb’ (The Book of Honorific Titles), followed by a ‘Kitāb al-ansāb’ as a kind of index for the individuals for whom he wrote the notice, only this time arranged in the alphabetical order of their family name. By doing so, he managed to add other members of these families he had not mentioned in the main part of his dictionary.15 He imitated a method invented by Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba (1377-1448) in his dictionary of Shafii ʿulamāʾ, the Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya.16 It should be noted that for al-Sakhāwī as well as for other biographers from the Circassian period, ansāb was used as the plural form of nisba, not of nasab. Family links were of paramount importance, as Carl F. Petry pointed out,17 for al-Sakhāwī as well as Ibn Taġrī Birdī, both of whom carefully noted the family ties of the individuals about whom they were writing the biographical notice; they used to add other details about the family’s members, as census officials would do some centuries later when moving from household to household.

13 Martel-Thoumian 1991: especially 244, 258 and 275, underscores the importance of the reign of al-Muʾayyad Shaykh (1412-1421) in that respect: he promoted three families, the al-Bārizī, al-Kuwayz, and Muzhir. 14 Earlier members of the Banū al-Jīʿān family appear in chronicles in 740/1339-1340 and 752/1351-1352, but the rise of the family dates from the 1380s or 1390s (Martel-Thoumian 1991: 295-297). 15 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 183. 16 Martel-Thoumian 1988-1992: 15 and n. 15, quoting Hafsi 1976-1977. 17 Petry 1981: 12, footnote: “All familial ties known to the compiler were reported. These included identification of children, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, wives, uncles, and other relatives. Details about the occupations of fathers, grandfathers, and uncles (both paternal and maternal) were often included, as were the names of women’s husbands and male relatives. Women were likely to be included if they had important spouses who belonged to major families.”

Fam il ie s o f C a i r e n e C i vi l Se rvan t s, fro m M amlu k to Ot to man Ti me s

Thus, we are able to assert that the term ‘family name’ was a concept of the time. From the small number of names transmitted by narrative sources, we can try to sketch a typology of these civil servants’ family names. Most of them were common and seemed to use the ordinary ways by which commoners were identified: personal names like Naṣrallāh or al-Hayṣam, nicknames like al-Kuwayz or al-Ṣughayyir, sometimes occupations like Ibn al-Imām or al-Ṣayrafī. Some families had local nisbas as patrilineal names, like al-Bārizī — a family of ʿulamāʾ18 — or al-Sharābishī. A few derived their name from the function of a prestigious ancestor, as did the Banī Kātib Jakam.19 These three types of names may be found also within ʿulamāʾ families, but with a different distribution: local nisbas were the majority there. A specific feature was the transformation of the family name when a member obtained a higher position than anything the family had ever reached before. For instance, members of the Kātib Jakam family, known from Barqūq’s reign, were nāẓir al-khāṣṣ (controller of the bureau of privy funds) for three generations from 14251458; then three members from the third and fourth generation were nāẓir al-jaysh (controller of the army) from 1452-1458, then 1466-1517, so that their descendants were identified as Ibn Nāẓir al-Khāṣṣ Yūsuf, then as Ibn Kamāl al-Dīn nāẓir al-juyūsh al-manṣūra kāna (former controller of the victorious armies) (in 1554):20 the last nāẓir al-khāṣṣ and first nāẓir al-jaysh of the family was Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf (m. 1458), the second nāẓir al-jaysh his son Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad (m. 1485).21 The original name of the family had been borrowed from the emir to whom they owed their fortune, in a typical patronage case;22 however, his prestige was overcast by Yūsuf Ibn Kātib Jakam, who, according to all the chroniclers, was one of the main characters of his time.23 Such was his prestige, in fact, that a related nasab appears in a deed dated 1585, this time derived from an unnamed brother: Ibn Akhī al-Jamālī Yūsuf naqīb

18 Simplified genealogical trees of the al-Bārizī in Wiet 1932: 12 no. 82, starting with Ibrāhīm (1184-1271), Shafii qāḍī of Hama. 19 The function of kātib was used in other family names, such as the Banū Kātib al-Manākh (« the sons of the secretary of the stables ») who were of Coptic ascent: Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 827/1423), nāẓir dīwān al-mufrad (controller of the special bureau) then wazīr; then his son Karīm al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Karīm (d. 852/1448) was wazīr, ustādār, and even kātib al-sirr (secretary of the privy) during three months in 1432: Wiet 1923: 26-27 no. XXI; Wiet 1932: 203 no. 1409, and 212 no. 1461; Martel-Thoumian 1991: 105-108. Offices (dīwān) of the emirs were an incubator of talent for the central administration, as underlined by Martel-Thoumian (Ibid.: 131-132). 20 QS 1 p. 22, 22 Rajab 961/June 23, 1554: marriage of Yāqūt, freeman of a freewoman of al-marḥūm al-janāb al-ʿālī al-Ṣārimī Ibrahīm b. al-marḥūm al-janāb al-ʿālī al-Badrī Badr al-Dīn b. al-marḥūm al-Kamālī Kamāl al-Dīn nāẓir al-juyūsh al-manṣūra kāna. The bride was another of his patron’s freewomen. 21 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 282-294, monography of the family. See also the comprehensive list of nuẓẓār al-jaysh in Ibid., Annexe 3: 455-458. Ibn Iyās (219/230-4,5) names al-maqarr al-Shihābī [Shihāb al-Dīn: 101/109-21, 22] Aḥmad nāẓir al-jaysh Ibn Nāẓir al-Khāṣṣ Yūsuf, deported to Istanbul on 22 Jumādā I 923/ June 12, 1517. — References to Ibn Iyās’ Badā’iʿ al-zuhūr in this way: pages of the French translation by Wiet / page, then lines of the edition by Muṣṭafā. 22 For patronage relationships within the civil servant milieu, see Martel-Thoumian 1991: 79, 84-87. 23 For the latter’s career and personal prestige, see Martel-Thoumian 1991: 285-286, 288-290. His waqf foundation may also be key to his posthumous notoriety, Ibid.: 290, 293.

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al-juyūsh bi-Miṣr (adjutant of the armies in Egypt).24 As the only known brother of Yūsuf, Saʿd al-Dīn Ibrāhīm (nāẓir al-khāṣṣ 1429-1437) was still an Ibn Kātib Jakam, this collateral lineage must have come from an unknown third brother, not mentioned either because he died young or lived an obscure life; his descendants do not seem to have belonged to the civil servant milieu.25 These examples show the relative ease with which new patronyms could appear.

III. Family Names: A Special Characteristic of the Elite? Here we are at risk for redundancy. The question is whether the use of family names was a social distinction, a privilege of the upper class of civil servants, or was widespread among their lower ranks as well. In the first case, belonging to a familywith-a-name would have remained a recognized privilege even if the members of new generations did not hold their father’s eminent positions anymore:26 bearing a family name testified to the ancestor’s prestige. In the second case, the criterion of distinction would have been the belonging to a well-known, distinguished family, not the common and valueless fact of having a family name. Both instances might have shaped patterns of snobbery among this narrow milieu, as well as around it. However, the issue matters very much to us because in the first case we would be able to notice only upper-rank civil servant families in the sixteenth century sijillāt, as in the Circassian chronicles and biographies, the other civil servants remaining in obscurity; whereas in the second assumption, all the descendants of civil servant families would appear in the records. The last chronicler of Mamluk Egypt, Ibn Iyās, might provide us some help here. He used to begin the chronicle of a year with the list of the twenty or so main officials, in hierarchical order. His work shows a great proximity, even sometimes intimacy, with some of the great civil servants of his time: he was very well acquainted with

24 QS 14, p. 226 no. 541, 25 Rabīʿ II 993 / 26 April 1585. Family names in Ibn Bint… or Ibn Akhī… were not unknown. The 1585 deed concerns a kitāb waqf dated 18 Shawwāl 861/8 September 1457. The first nāẓir of the waqf after the death of its founder was al-Shihābī Aḥmad b. Taġrī Birdī al-shahīr nasabuhu al-karīm bi-Ibn Akhī al-Jamālī Yūsuf naqīb al-juyūsh bi-Miṣr kāna. On 4 Rabīʿ II 925/April 5, 1519 he made his grandson al-majlis al-Shihābī Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Shihābī Aḥmad his successor. The latter comes to the court in 1585 in order to testify that he chose as his own successor at the naẓar of the waqf a ʿālim from the al-ʿIbādī (or al-ʿAyādī?) family, a distinguished teacher and secretary for the accounting of the Imperial waqfs in Egypt (min aʿyān al-sāda al-mudarrisīn wa-kātib muḥāsabat al-awqāf al-sulṭāniyya bi-l-diyār al-miṣriyya). The deed does not specify whether there were family links between the founder of the waqf — a khātūn of Turkish name — , the first nāẓir, and this ʿālim. 25 Genealogical tree of the Banū Kātib Jakam in Martel-Thoumian 1991: 282. The name of the first nāẓir as provided in the 1585 deed, Aḥmad b. Taġrī Birdī, is intriguing because civil servants never gave Turkish names to their scions. Four generations are identified in the 1585 deed; however, only the last one, al-Shihābī Aḥmad, bears a title, in this case al-majlis: a fact that may indicate that all the heads of this branch were well-off enough to live without embracing a career, either civilian, religious or military, nor any other profession. 26 Observation made by Martel-Thoumian 2001a: 284-285.

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this milieu and its internal intrigues. Besides, when the Ottoman sultan Selim exiled to Istanbul hundreds of Cairene civilians in the summer of 1517, then another, smaller group the year after, Ibn Iyās took the trouble to mention by name 86 mubāshirūn, i.e. civil servants. Of these 86, 72 appear only there, most of whom were of a lower rank than those previously mentioned in his chronicle. He thus provides an unprecedented insight into this small world. Eighty-six individuals out of an unknown total number of some hundreds is a very valuable proportion.27 Only one Coptic civil servant is named, and we know from other passages of his chronicle that this servant had an important position: the absence of Copts from Ibn Iyās’ chronicle seems to have been wilful and to reflect his personal prejudice, not the actual proportion of Copts within the administration at the very end of the Mamluk regime. Ibn Iyās names Muslim civil servants in various ways. Some new family names appear, for instance Badr al-Dīn Muhammad Ibn Khāzuqa, mubāshir al-amir ʿAllān al-dawādār, employee of the secretary of the imperial court ʿAllān (388/403-7); other civil servants are only known by their ism and their father’s ism, others only by their ism (e.g. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, mubāshir amīr ākhūr kabīr, employee of the great constable, 219/230-24; Abū al-Saʿādāt, with no mention of his function, 219/230-18), or more surprisingly, by their family name without any ism (like al-ʿIbādī, with no specified function, 219/231-1) and some even are referred to only by their position (al-ʿIbādī’s collaborator, rafīquhu, Ibid.). Those who belonged to a well-known family but did not occupy prominent positions are sometimes named by their family name only, e.g. Ibn al-Hayṣam (219/230-22), who becomes Badr al-Dīn Ibn al-Hayṣam when Ibn Iyās relates his and others’ coming back from Istanbul (388/403-9). The use or absence of laqabs in al-Dīn, redundant with the ism, like Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad, is parallel to that of family names. In other words, most of the lower-ranked civil servants are identified by Ibn Iyās by the same ways of identification that were used with commoners. Ibn Iyās’ lists seem to corroborate the assumption that the use of family names within this milieu was confined to its upper ranks. Were these family names conceived and perceived as a privilege? Did they even have a function connected with high positions? The sixteenth century sijillāt allow us to give a clear answer to these assumptions. Here all the civil servants, and descendants of Mamluk civil servants, claim a nasab, a family name, the great majority of which are already known either from Circassian chronicles and dictionaries or from Ibn Iyās’ lists of exiles. The mention of a family name is systematic; it is accompanied by titles and eulogies, the length of which tends to increase as we move forward in the century. For instance, in a sijill from 1584 appears a fakhr al-kuttāb al-aqāfil ʿumdat al-akābir wa-l-amāthil Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd

27 Al-Qalqashandī in Ṣubh al-aʿshā: I, 138, a work completed in 1412, mentions 20 kuttāb al-dast (secretaries of the royal hand) and 130 kuttāb al-darj (secretaries in the bureau of documents) in the dīwān al-inshāʾ alone. Martel-Thoumian (1991: 119-121) considers the latter number to be excessive, and remains careful about the total number of civil servants in Mamluk Cairo.

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al-Ra’ūf b. al-marḥūm al-janāb al-ʿālī Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf al-ʿIbādī,28 from a family of which Ibn Iyās, as we just saw, thought so little that he did not bother to note the ism of the member who was exiled to Istanbul in 1517. Ibn Iyās might have omitted mentioning the family name of second-rank civil servants because he did not see its necessity; obviously he thought that his readers would not bother to know more about the most obscure of them than their ism or another significant element, as we usually do when designating someone vaguely, from a distance. For instance, a Shams al-Dīn Muhammed b. Fakhr al-Dīn (219/230-9,10) becomes some pages later a member of a family named Ibn al-ʿAfīf (324/336-13,14). Can we say more about the extent of the use of family names? This leads us to a methodological caveat. We must be aware of the difference between identification in court or in any other source, and self-identification. We need other sources to dive into anthropological realities. I recently presented a study of family names in the Egyptian Oases of Dakhla and Kharga in the Ottoman and modern time.29 Whatever the impression we may gain from written sources that focus mostly on the most affluent and/or literate families, anthropological surveys have shown that nowadays, in all rural Egypt, people are able to answer the question “To what family do you belong?”, name their family, and specify at least five generations, often many more; whereas the current legislation on personal identity in Egypt excludes family names almost completely. Considering the depth of genealogical consciousness, we may assume that current family names in rural Egypt are rooted at least in the end of the Ottoman era stricto sensu, i.e. the eighteenth century. It seems also unlikely that urban commoners, who were mostly of rural origin, had a different way of self-identification. Thus, we must assume that, at least at the end of the Ottoman era, in Egypt almost everyone from every rank in rural and urban society had a family consciousness and used a family name; it is the counter-assumption that needs proof. However, can we extend this assumption to the beginning of the Ottoman era? After the Ottoman conquest the culture of family names that had flourished among civilians in the Mamluk period met with an opposite model, the ‘Turkish name’, which was characterized by its shortness.30 In the Ottoman Court records civil servants from the Turkish speaking regions of the empire, or of devshirme origin, are distinguished by the title Çelebi and do not have a family name. The same applies to the military: during the Mamluk period, the military had identified themselves by referring to their patron, either by way of the preposition min or by a nisba after their ism; whereas Ottoman soldiers were only known as ibn ʿAbd Allāh if they had been enslaved then freed, or by their father’s ism if their father had been a soldier himself, or by another identifier such as a place name, a rank, or some nickname appended to their ism. Thus, the mere process of identification conveyed new meanings after the Ottoman conquest: for those who were prone to use a family name it conveyed a distinctive sense of ancestry. It was part of a larger picture of socuial distinction. 28 BA 49: 97 no. 520, 24 Jumādā II 992/3 July 1584. 29 Michel 2017. 30 Bouquet 2014.

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IV. Continuity in a Time of Constraint Social identities are always complex, because they combine various elements of distinction in a complex and broad landscape. What was so distinctive for the fifteenth century civil servants, and what remained of it a century later? Let us note first that historians and biographers of the Circassian period, when considering the whole elite, viewed civil servants as a small minority, but certainly a significant one. Some of them happened to play a role in the larger political drama they wished to write. However, most of the centre stage was taken by the military and religious officials, as well as some prominent tradesmen, and the families and descendants of sultans and caliphs. Bernadette Martel-Thoumian compared five major chronicles from the years 801-810/1398-1408 in that respect: civil servants represented from 4 to 7% of the total of individuals mentioned, whereas the military represented between 11 and 47% and the religious scholars between 45 and 67%.31 Masters of the narrative genres assigned varying importance to the courtly intrigues between officials as well as to the religious milieu, whereas they granted upper-rank civil servants a constant position, showing them always present, always few. Biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk period, as well as obituaries inserted at the end of a year in the annalistic chronicles,32 used to note more or less carefully the résumé of civil and military officials: the offices they worked in, the successive steps they took within these offices, sometimes their connections with elders. They assumed that the reader had a good command of the administrative landscape, and suggested that occupation was the primary concern and source of social status for state servants. Things changed with the Ottoman conquest. No biographical dictionary was written in Egypt during the first century after the conquest, and when the genre reappears, it concerns mainly ʿulamā’ and gives but a marginal place to civil servants. This is not to say that the culture of biographical dictionaries in the shape of résumés had vanished: on the contrary, it flourished, but was relocated to Istanbul, deeply rooted in the sense of hierarchy that was being built in the civilian as well as the religious state bodies. Therefore, as most Egyptian civil servants were disconnected from an imperial career, they were lost. A major tool of self-recognition faded. One of the most significant aspects of this loss of prestige was the disappearance of a genre that flourished during the Mamluk period: the chancery treatises, of which al-Qalqashandī’s (1355-1418) Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā is the most famous, but not the only one. However, the culture of civilian bureaus did not vanish: some of these treatises were still in circulation and new copies were produced. An anonymous manuscript entitled Kitāb malḥāt al-ādāb fī ṣināʿāt al-kitāb, copied in 979/1571-1572, now at the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris, is a kind of compendium of theoretical and practical

31 Martel-Thoumian 1999: 126-128, Tables 1-5. 32 Martel-Thoumian 1999: 129, underlines the similarity between the biographical material in obituaries and biographical dictionaries.

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knowledge deemed necessary to a Cairene civil servant, most of it consisting of extracts from earlier treatises.33 When civil servants appear in the sixteenth century court records, their names are duly recorded, whereas their actual position is often alluded to in a concise and somewhat vague way. This may be explained by two reasons. First, a lack of expected interest in the details of the administrative apparatus; and second, a change that is likely to have occurred after some time in the Cairene offices: transformation and simplification. Most of the Circassian dīwāns disappeared, except for the dīwān al-aḥbās or al-rizaq (i.e. the bureau in charge of the rizāq iḥbāsiyya), which is still mentioned. Because the regime of iqṭāʿ had been suppressed by the Ottomans, so were the dīwān al-khāṣṣ (bureau of privy funds) and dīwān al-mufrad (special bureau). Even the dīwān al-jaysh reappeared merged with the aḥbās, in a dīwān al-jaysh wa-laḥbās.34 A major change was the disappearance of the Chancery dīwān al-inshāʾ, which employed the greatest number of employees in the Mamluk period. The total number of civil servants is likely to have diminished drastically. Thus, for these civil servants, finding a respectable occupation for one’s sons may have become far harder after the Ottoman conquest. Kamāl al-Dīn al-ʿĀyiq, an employee (mubāshir) of the great constable (amīr ākhūr kabīr) at the very end of the Mamluk regime, was deemed by Ibn Iyās distinguished enough despite his lower rank to be mentioned among the exiles of 1517, then among the participants of a parade behind the emir Jānim al-Ḥamzāwī in 1522; fifty-three years later, however, his son is but a weigher in the imperial workshop in Cairo (qabbānī bi-l-warsha al-sulṭāniyya).35 This may also explain why no new family name appears during the sixteenth century: there was no room for homines novi anymore. Paradoxically, the new situation ensured the perpetuation of at least a few of the older families. The question here is whether these changes also affected their social status.

V. Marriage among Sixteenth Century Families of Civil Servants The best key to this issue is the study of marriages. The Ottomans introduced in Egypt a clear-cut distinction between the ʿaskar (Turkish: asker), i.e. state servants (military, administrative or religious), and commoners (Turkish: reaya). From the

33 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 23-24. 34 Mentioned for instance in QS 9: 126 no. 241, 11 Rajab 982/27 October 1574; named dīwān al-juyūsh wa-l-aḥbās bi-l-dīwān al-ʿālī in the same register, p. 135 no. 264, 23 Rajab 982/8 November 1574. 35 QS 9: 542 no. 1129, 18 Shawwāl 983/20 January 1576; QS 9: 555 no. 1164, 13 Dhū al-qaʿda 983/13 February 1576; QS 9: 576 no. 1212, 6 Dhū al-ḥijja 983/7 March 1576. The three deeds testify that he chose as executor (waṣī mukhtār) for his two minor sons a secretary of the Treasure (kātib bi-l-khizāna al-ʿāmira). We understand from the third text that Yūsuf Ibn al-ʿĀyiq married a sister of the latter. The deceased is named in the deeds al-marḥūm al-Jamālī Yūsuf b. al-marḥūm al-qāḍī Kamāl al-Dīn al-shahīr bi-l-ʿĀyiq wāliduhu. As a mere weigher (qabbānī) he could not pretend to bear a title, even al-qaḍāʾī, which was frequently affixed to the name of civil servants; but his marriage, then his choice for an executor both underline the fact that he did not give up his social ambitions.

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mid-sixteenth century, two courts were in charge of the inheritance cases related to these two categories: the qisma ʿaskariyya for the ʿaskar and the qisma ʿarabiyya for the reaya. At first all marriage contracts within the ʿaskar seem to have been recorded in the sijillāt of the qisma ʿaskariyya. I collected the first 111 marriages in register 1, which begins in 1554, in order to get an idea of who married whom and of the amount of the dowry; then I compared them with marriage contracts of civil servants scattered among the court records of my sample. It must be noted that civil servants were only a very small part of the total of ʿaskar, which in the sixteenth century may be estimated around 8,000 individuals, wives and children excluded. All the information we can extract from these court records lead towards the same idea, i.e. continuity with the Circassian period. B. Martel-Thoumian studied 83 marriages among the milieu, of which 78 document the origin of both spouses: 57 of them, or 73%, were endogamic, a civil servant marrying the daughter of another one; 14 were with members of the Mamluk military elite, and 7 belonged to the religious elite, including the Abbasid caliphal family.36 My sample from the sixteenth century is far more reduced, but leads to the same result: a majority of marriages happened within the circle of civil servants, a minority with the military elite. Ibn Iyās, when relating the time of the first Ottoman governor, Khāyrbak (15171522), frequently contrasts Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn al-Jīʿān, paragon of professional consciousness and social distinction, with the Ibn al-ʿAwaḍ brothers, Shams al-Dīn, Fakhr al-Dīn and Sharaf al-Dīn, a family of rural origin, whose rise during the reign of al-Ghūrī (1501-1517) had been abruptly interrupted in 1514, then resumed promptly;37 the chronicler provides them a special place among the villains of Khārbak’s entourage. Both families were apparently able to set aside these painful memories, since they appear allied together half a century later: in 1575 Sayyidat al-Ruwaysā, the daughter of al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-Tājī Tāj al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn al-Jīʿān al-kātib bi-l-dīwān al-ʿālī (secretary in the exalted Government [in Cairo]) is mentioned as the wife of al-majlis al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-Shamsī Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-ʿAfīfī ʿAfīf al-Dīn Ibn ʿAwaḍ al-kātib bi-bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr bi-diyār Miṣr (secretary in the prosperous Treasure of the Egyptian country). Another deed concerning the daughter-in-law of the same ʿAfīf al-Dīn shows the latter’s genealogy: he was the son of Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn al-ʿAwaḍ, one of the three brothers Ibn Iyās’ was so eager to vilify. The mother of the same Sayyidat al-Ruwaysā was the daughter of the late emir Muṣṭafā, who was governor (kāshif) of the province of Sharqiyya, and of Aṣīla bint Ṭūmān Bāy, maybe the daughter of one of the two late Circassian sultans (r. 1501 or r. 1516-1517); she lived in the posh district of al-Azbakiyya.38 Two examples from the 1554 marriages may illustrate the second case: marriages with the military. The daughter of a secretary of the Divan and member of the

36 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 365-372. 37 Martel-Thoumian 1991: 148-149, 352. The father, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn al-ʿAwaḍ, came from a village in Lower Egypt, was employed in the dīwān of some emirs, then in the dhakhīra. 38 QS 9: 346 no. 700, 7 Ṣafar 983/18 May 1575; QS 9: 92 no. 163, 4 Jumādā II 983/21 September 1575.

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Ibn Bahrām family, identified as al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī39 al-Sharafī Sharaf al-Dīn b. al-Shihābī Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Shams al-Dīn Muhammad al-shahīr bi-Ibn Bahrām al-kātib bi-l-dīwān al-sharīf (secretary in the noble government [in Cairo]) married a Circassian, al-majlis al-ʿālī al-Nāṣirī Muḥammad b. al-Sharafī Yūnus b. al-Sayfī Bulāt al-Jarkasī al-shahīr bi-jaddihi, or in other words, named Ibn Bulāṭ.40 Some days later the daughter of a Turkish secretary at the Cairo Dīwān married a sancakbeyi of Egypt, Nesim Bey, son of al-janāb al-ʿālī Taġrī Birdī, that is to say the scion of a Mamluk from the ancient regime:41 among those who were called awlād al-nās before 1517, at least some did not shy away from making alliances with the new class of civil servants coming from the centre of the empire, maybe in the hope of carving out an imperial career. With the amounts of dowries, Ottoman court records give us a kind of information Mamluk sources very seldom provide. These amounts were sometimes surprisingly high, putting civil servants at the same rank as the most affluent military or religious men. The 111 first marriages registered in the qisma ʿaskariyya record from May 24 to August 28, 1554 show an average dowry amounting to 27.8 dīnārs; the eleven higher ones, ranging from 50 to 400 dīnārs with an average of 124 dīnārs, amount to 44 percent of the total. Two civil servants appear here: the daughter of a ʿAṭā Allāh b. Ḥalīm Çelebi, kātib bi-l-dīwān al-sharīf, marries Nesim Bey b. Taġrī Birdī, a sancakbeyi, for 400 dīnārs, by far the highest amount in this sample; a daughter of the Ibn Bahrām family, as seen above, marries the scion of a Circassian family for 50 dīnārs.42 Other marriages recorded in the sijillāt show amounts systematically higher than the average of the ʿaskar dowries, and similar to those of the descendants of Mamluk officials, or even of sultans and caliphs. Only Ottoman high officials display higher amounts.43 Most freemen and freewomen of ʿaskar marry for 3 to 20 dīnārs, and the majority of rank and file soldiers between 10 and 50 dīnārs. As the amount of dowry did not reflect in a mathematical way the actual wealth of the husband, but more likely the level of his and his family’s social claims, we may infer that civil servants considered themselves as sharing the same rank as the 39 The epithet al-qaḍāʾī may have pointed to the fact that Sharaf al-Dīn’s father bore the title al-qāḍī, which was usual for high-ranking civil-servants in the Circassian period: identifications such as al-qaḍāʾī X b. al-qāḍi Y are common in the sijillāt. This assumption is likely, but not certain. However, the laqabs with al-Dīn born by the men within three generations certify their honorable position. 40 QS 1: 22, 23 Rajab 961/24 June 1554. The expression al-shahīr bi-jaddihi “known from [the name of] his grandfather/ancestor” referred to a patronym that consisted of Ibn followed by the name of the ancestor. 41 QS 1: 33, 11 Shaʿbān 961/12 July 1554. 42 See above n. 41 and 40. 43 The two highest dowries recorded in QS 1 are: 600 dīnārs for Nasuh Bey, nāẓir of the waqfs of al-Azhar, who marries a granddaughter of the famous Halveti (Khalwatī) saint İbrahim Gülşeni (d. 1534); the same amount is displayed by a former lieutenant (kethüda) of a sancakbeyi in Egypt and Hama, who marries the daughter of his former Bey. QS 1: 375 no. 1405, 9 Dhū al-qaʿda 963 /14 September 1556, and QS 1: 386 no. 1439, 29 Dhū al-qaʿda/4 October. Sayyidat al-Ḥulw, daughter of the caliph al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh (r. 1507-1516), marries a merchant (tājir) for 7,000 niṣf fiḍḍa i.e. 171 dīnārs, QS 1: 18, 20 Rajab 961/21 June 1554.

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other components of the ʿaskar. Another indication of their social claims is their elaborate way of identifying themselves in court documents. Their identification was not as lengthy as that of great ʿulamāʾ, but it was refined and very similar to that of the scions of the Mamluk military elite. This refinement extended to their freemen and women: a sure indication that their claim of prestige extended to their entire household — as possessing a proper household seemed to have been an essential prerequisite for belonging to the upper class. As a matter of fact, the range of alliances was not always restricted to the civil servants and the military. A deed from 157444 sheds some light on the fate of the Banū Abī al-Wafā, who owed their fortune to the favour of Khāybak, governor of Aleppo during the reign of al-Ghūrī, then first Ottoman governor of Egypt.45 A member of this family named Jamāl al-Dīn declared a mutual agreement (taṣāduq) with the widow of his paternal grandfather and four of his grandfather’s daughters, i.e. his paternal aunts, all of them grown-up (al-marʾa), and three of them already married. He is identified as al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-jamālī Jamāl al-Dīn b. al-marḥūm al-qāḍī ʿAbd al-Barr b. al-marḥūm al-qāḍī Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Abī al-Wafā al-muwaqqiʿ huwa wa-wāliduhu wa-jadduhu bi-l-dīwān al-ʿālī aʿazza Allāh taʿālā janābahu wa-raḥima salafahu al-karīm: three generations of muwaqqiʿs, an intermediate rank of civil servants between mere scribes and officials, are given the same titles and eulogies as the upper rank, especially the ubiquitous al-janāb and the more specific al-qāḍī. Saʿd al-Mulūk, the grandfather’s widow, was the daughter of an al-Zaynī Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Ṣirrī (?): this rather indistinct name may point out to some obscure military, i.e. Mamluk, origin. One of the late Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad’s daughters, Fāṭima, is married to the son of another member of the Banū Abī al-Wafā family, al-qāḍī Sharaf al-Dīn (no family link specified). This Sharaf al-Dīn, now deceased, was also a muwaqqiʿ; his son al-Zaynī ʿUthmān, however, appears with the title al-khawājā, which points to his being engaged in trade. Another daughter of the late Shihāb al-Dīn, ʿĀʾisha, was the wife of an al-Bārizī, apparently a civil servant and not an ʿālim as were many members of this ancient and very prestigious family, since he is identified as al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-Jamālī Jamāl al-Dīn b. al-janāb al-ʿālī al-qaḍāʾī al-Shamsī Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Bārizī aʿazza Allāh taʿālā janābahumā. As to Zulaykhā, the last daughter of Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad to be mentioned in the deed, she was married to the son of an ʿālim, the Hanafi mufti Nūr al-Dīn Abī al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ṭūrī. To find suitable husbands for her four daughters was probably Saʿd al-Mulūk’s main endeavor, and in a kind of Jane Austen way she had to choose from the numerous world of second-rank potential son-in-laws, be they from family, office, religion or even trade.

44 QS 9: 30 no. 69, 9 Rabīʿ I 982 /29 June 1574. 45 Ibn Iyās, 408/424-17 to 20. The first of the family was clerk (muwaqqiʿ) of Khāyrbak and followed him to Cairo.

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VI. Conclusion In Cairo, during the Circassian period (1382-1517) familial transmission was frequent among high civil servants. It secured the material fate as well as the social status of a handful of prominent families, whose name was duly recorded by chroniclers and biographers. Unfortunately, these sources tell us little or nothing about lower rank civil servants. The Ottoman conquest in 1517 shook this narrow milieu harshly. Administration was reorganized and simplified, the number of positions drastically reduced. The sources available for the historian change as well. From now on, Ottoman court records shed light on civil servants from all ranks. They show that, till the last decades of the sixteenth century most of the positions in the civilian administration remained in the hands of descendants of either high or low-rank civil servants from the Circassian period; even low-rank ones cultivated the memory of their ancestors through a family name that was duly transmitted to their sons, and even attached to the identities of their freemen and women. During most of the sixteenth century, an age of restraint for the scions of these ancient regime families, the whole milieu of civil servants contrived to preserve its cohesiveness. The similarity of behaviour between civil servants and descendants of the Mamluk military elite in sixteenth century Cairo is striking. The latter, called awlād al-nās in the fifteenth century, had developed a strong sense of family prestige in order to counterbalance the fact that most official positions were forbidden to them. They had tried to preserve a high status by managing their family wealth, marrying among them and within the other components of the élite, and acquiring a high cultural status. Their position became less comfortable after the Ottoman conquest because the proper Mamluk class itself, which was the source of their prestige, lost all recognition. As descendants of the awlād al-nās — the expression itself vanished after 1517 — they had a harder time than other categories of the bygone elite, like the civil servants. In the sixteenth century, whereas civil servants still had access in a restricted way to the same kind of positions as their grandfathers, and probably to a similar level of income, they clung more than ever to the prestige of their family and to its Mamluk-era roots. They shared the same sense of nobility as awlād al-nās had developed and were still nurturing: a fact that attests the continuity of a consciousness, at least till the last decades of the sixteenth century, in a city that was slowly transforming itself into a museum of the glorious past.

Bibliographical References 1a. Dār al-Wathāʾiq al-qawmiyya, National Archives, Cairo BA = al-Bāb al-ʿĀlī registers QS = al-Qisma al-ʿAskariyya registers

Fam il ie s o f C a i r e n e C i vi l Se rvan t s, fro m M amlu k to Ot to man Ti me s

1b. Primary Sources Abū Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-mi’a al-thāmina, 4 volumes, Hyderabad: 1348-1350/1929-1931. Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī wa-l-mustawfī baʿda al-Wāfī, Cairo: 1956–. al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw’ al-lāmiʿ fī aʿyān al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 vols., Cairo: 1353/1934. al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-l-wafāyāt, 8 vols., Istanbul: 1949, 1953; Damascus: 1959; Wiesbaden: 1962-1974. Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr fī waqāʾiʿ al-duhūr, (ed.) Mohamed Mostafa, Die Chronik des Ibn Ijās, V, A.H. 922-928/A.D. 1516-1522, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1961 [Bibliotheca Islamica]; trad. Gaston Wiet, Journal d’un bourgeois du Caire. Chronique d’Ibn Iyās, t. II, Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1960 [Bibliothèque générale de l’École pratique des hautes études – VIe section]. 2.

Secondary Literature

Bauer, Thomas, “Literarische Anthologien der Mamlūkenzeit,” in Conermann, Stephan, and Pistor-Hatam, Anja (eds), Die Mamluken: Studien zu ihrer Geschichte und Kultur, Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 2003: 71-122. Bouquet, Olivier, Les noblesses du nom. Essai d’anthropologie ottomane, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Escovitz, J., “Vocational Patterns of the Scribes of the Mamluk Chancery,” Arabica 23 (1976): 42-62. Es-Seyyid Mahmud, Seyyid Muhammed, XVI. Asırda Mısır Eyâleti, İstanbul, Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1990 [Marmara Üniversitesi Yayınları, 483 – Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 17]; Arabic translation, Miṣr fī al-ʿaṣr al-ʿuthmānī fī al-qarn 16. Dirāsa wathā’iqiyya fī al-nuẓum al-idāriyya wa-l-ʿaskariyya wa-l-māliyya wa-l-qaḍā’iyya, Cairo: Madbūlī, 1418/1997 [Ṣafaḥāt min tārīkh Miṣr, 38]. Guo, Li, “Al-Biqāʿī’s Chronicle: A Fifteenth Century Learned Man’s Reflection on his Time and World,” in Kennedy, Hugh (ed.), The Historiography of Islamic Egypt (c. 950-1800), Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2001: 121-148 [The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1453, 31]. Hafsi, I., “Recherches sur le genre ‘Ṭabaqāt’ dans la littérature arabe,” Arabica 23 (1976): 227-265; 24 (1977): 1-43 and 150-186. Hamza, Hani, “Some Aspects of the Economic and Social Life of Ibn Taghībirdī Based on an Examination of His Waqfīyah,” Mamlūk Studies Review 12/1 (2008): 139-172. Hanna, Nelly, “The Chronicles of Ottoman Egypt: History or Entertainment?,” in Kennedy, Hugh (ed.), The Historiography of Islamic Egypt (c. 950-1800), Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2001: 121-148 [The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400-1453, 31]. Little, Donald P., An Introduction to Mamlūk Historiography: An Analysis of Arabic Annalistic and Biographical Sources for the Reign of al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalā’ūn, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1970 [Freiburger Islamstudien, Band 2].

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Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, “Le dictionnaire biographique: un outil historique. Étude réalisée à partir de l’ouvrage de Saḫāwī: Aḍ-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ fī aʿyān al-qarn at-tāsiʿ,” Cahiers d’onomastique arabe 6 (1988-1992): 9-38. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, Les civils et l’administration dans l’État militaire mamlūk: ixexve siècle, Damas: Institut français de Damas, 1991. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, “Les notices biographiques dans les Badā’iʿ al-zuhūr fī waqā’iʿ al-duhūr d’Ibn Iyās (années 801-810/1398-1408),” Annales islamologiques 33 (1999): 121-139. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, “Les élites urbaines sous les Mamlouks circassiens: quelques éléments de réflexion,” in Vermeulen, Ugo, and Van Steenberger, Jo (eds), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III. Proceedings of the 6th, 7th and 8th International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1997, 1998 and 1999, Leuven: Peeters, 2001a: 271-308 [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 102]. Martel-Thoumian, Bernadette, “Muḥibb ad-Dīn Salāma b. Yūsuf al-’Aslamī, un secrétaire à Damas sous les derniers sultans mamlouks,” in Vermeulen, Ugo, and Van Steenberger, Jo (eds), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras III. Proceedings of the 6th, 7th and 8th International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1997, 1998 and 1999, Leuven: Peeters, 2001b: 219-269 [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 102]. Massoud, Sami G., The Chronicles and Annalistic Sources of the Early Mamluk Circassian Period, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007 [Islamic History and Civilization, 67]. Michel, Nicolas, “Noms de famille dans les oasis d’Égypte à l’époque ottomane,” in “Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East,” Special issue of Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017): 183-199. Perho, Irmeli, “Climbing the Ladder: Social Mobility in the Mamluk Period,” Mamlūk Studies Review 15 (2011): 19-35. Petry, Carl F., “Geographic Origins of Dîwân Officials in Cairo During the Fifteenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 21 (1978): 165-184. Petry, Carl F., The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1981 [Princeton Studies on the Near East]. Popper, William, “Sakhāwī’s Criticism of Ibn Taghrī-Birdī,” in Studi orientalistici in onore di Georgio Levi Della Vida, Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1956: vol. II, 371-389 [Publicazioni dell’Istituto per l’Oriente, 52]. Weintritt, Ottfried, Arabische Geschichtsschreibung in den arabischen Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches (16.-18. Jahrhundert), Hamburg: E-B Verlag, 2008. Wiet, Gaston, “Les secrétaires de la chancellerie (Kuttâb-el-Sirr) en Égypte sous les Mamlouks Circassiens (784-922/1382-1517),” in Mélanges René Basset, Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1923: 1-44 [Publications de l’Institut des Hautes-Études marocaines]. Wiet, Gaston, Les biographies du Manhal Safi, Cairo: Imprimerie de l’institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1932 [Mémoires présentés à l’Institut d’Égypte, 19]. Winter, Michael, Egyptian Society Under Ottoman Rule 1517-1798, London, New York: Routledge, 1992.

Marriage Alliances and Political Strategies

Albrecht Fuess

Ṣihr and Muṣāhara in Mamluk Royal Relations Transmitting Power and Enlarging Networks Through In-Law Ties in Pre-Modern Egypt

Introduction On Thursday the 7th Shaʿbān 906/26 February 1501, the princess (khawand) al-Khaṣṣbakiyya, the wife of (sultan) al-ʿĀdil Ṭūmānbāy mounted the citadel. She had left her house near the Sunqur Bridge in a litter with golden embroideries. In front of her were marching the head of the guards, the chamberlains, and her special guards in their uniforms (…) 200 ladies, wives of emirs and nobles accompanied the procession. Inside the citadel the way on which the mules carried the litter was laid out with silk carpets and gold and silver pieces were thrown unto the princess while the custodian of the harem carried the parasol with the bird above her head until she sat down on the throne in the hall of columns. It represented a remarkable festivity at the citadel which lasted for three days. The procession through the city following Ṣalība street had been splendid. The presents from the sultan had been carried in boxes in front of her, fine robes, a basin, sparkling chandeliers and a gold embroidered tent. Never had such a procession happened for a princess before.1 Apparently, the royal nuptials represented a great festivity for the bride Fāṭima bint ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Khaṣṣbak. She presented a good catch and came from a very influential and affluent family. What might seem odd was the fact that she had made the same procession more than 30 years previously when she had joined her first royal husband Sultan Qāytbāy on the citadel in 1468. When she married Sultan al-ʿĀdil Ṭūmānbāy in 1501, she was already around sixty years old, and her first husband had died some five years earlier. So, what could be the importance of such a royal marriage? Why did Mamluk sultans marry widows of their predecessors? Stories and anecdotes, such as the one above, trigger the question of the importance and the function of marriages for Mamluk sultans in the fifteenth century.

1 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1963: III, 472-473; Wiet 1945: 512 (translation by the author). Albrecht Fuess  •  Philipps-Universität Marburg Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 155-169 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122934

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The Mamluk sultans of that period were aware that their offspring would not rule for very long after their death; therefore, having sons was not the main purpose of Mamluk marriages. Moreover, rulers did not need to marry for reasons of sexual desire because they could legally enjoy relationships with slave girls. If it was not for reasons of offspring or sex, why should sultans marry at all? These royal marriages were concluded, so it seems, in order to transmit power and enlarge personal networks. The bride-to-be possessed an agency which she would bring into the marriage apart from prestige and money. The remarkable aspect here is that sultans always tended to create marriage bonds with the old sultan. In almost all of the cases, these marriages were concluded after the death of the old sultan. Many royal widows or former sultanic slave girls were wed in that way to new sultans. By marrying a sultan’s widow, new sultans became heirs apparent of the former sultan and a family member of the old sultan’s household. Apparently, the claim to power was strengthened and needed to be underlined by this family transmission through marriage. The fact that the majority of new sultans married a female relative after the death of the old sultan points to the assumption that these royal marriages were the conclusion of a successful power struggle and not an actual part of the process, i.e. who won the sultans’ throne got the royal bride. However, the whole process of a female line of power transmission in the Mamluk sultanate made me rethink the concept of family and family ties in pre-modern Islamic societies, especially how families are formed, and re-formed, through marriage. In medieval Western societies as well, marrying created a very special bond. According to Roman law, which extensively influenced pre-modern religious law, the marriage of two people created a relation which transformed the wife, the son-in-law and their families into parts of a new integral family. As Nikolaus Knopp puts it, marriage created a “unity of flesh and blood.”2 Or as we read in the Gospel of Mark (Mk 10:8) “and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.” Therefore, in-law relationships were perceived as equal to consanguinity.3 The mixing of body fluids constituted the act of unity. This unity was not to be broken, incest laws were therefore applied on both sides of the marriage. Since the fourth Lateran council in 1215 it was forbidden for a relative to marry or have intercourse with any relative on the side of the husband or the wife up to the fourth degree, i.e. that meant interdiction for marriages for people who were related to the wife or husband by having the same great-great-grand parents.4 Any relation within this group was perceived as incest. And although there was a development to bring down the degree of incest from the fourth to the second degree from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century,5 Prussian law still punished incest for relations within the family



2 3 4 5

Lanzinger 2015: 72; Knopp, 1854: 152, 202. Lanzinger 2015: 72. Lanzinger 2015: 43. von Braun 2018: 260.

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of a marriage partner as well as having relations to someone of the in-law side up to the end of the eigteenth century.6 Once a marriage was concluded in Christianity, it became almost impossible to dissolve it because the Roman Catholic Church declared it a sacrament (Mk 10:9 “What God has joined together, let no one separate”). It was only through the influence of Protestantism starting with the sixteenth century that divorce started to be less restricted.7 Still, as ideally marriage per se could not be ended until death parted the husband and wife, marriage was perceived as creating everlasting bonds between everybody involved. On the Muslim medieval side, a similar concept was acknowledged that marriage created new and strong family bonds, but it never received recognition as a sacred institution. Marriages should not, but could fail. Therefore, marriage procedures became part of legal norms deducted from the scripture. Marriage represents a legal contract which is binding for the bride and the groom. At the same time, it creates a larger network between the extended families of the two partners involved. A sexual relationship between members on both sides was perceived as illicit. Although a man was allowed more than one wife, additional wives were not supposed to be related to the first one. Many commentators have interpreted the following Quran verse from the sūrat al-furqān (25:54) as forbidding sexual relations within the extended family:8 “It is He Who, from water, created man, conferring on him kinship, of blood (nasab)9 and of marriage (ṣihr).10 Your Lord is Ever-Powerful.”11 The in-law relationship (ṣihr) therefore provides a vital element to explain mechanisms for the functioning of early modern Middle Eastern societies. However, while we know the theoretical outline of ṣihr through legal works, we lack studies about how ṣihr was actually integrated into the daily life of pre-modern family structures. This essay will therefore try to present a larger picture of in-law relationships in Mamluk Egypt as means of power transition through female marriage lineage.

I.

The Concept of ṣihr and muṣāhara

Besides the religious connotation, creating ṣihr (which means literally melting together or rapprochement) through marriage played an important role in the socio-political context in order to create alliances. Just like the Austrian Hapsburgs in early modern times who were to act according to a famous saying,”Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube” (Let others wage war: thou, happy Austria, marry),12 Arabs were according to 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Lanzinger 2015: 44 von Braun, 2018: 260. van Gelder 2005: 99. Insertion by the author. Insertion by the author. The Qur’an (tr. Khalidi 2008): 293. Klecker 1997: 30-44.

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al-Māwardī (d. 1058) quite good at marrying: “The Arabs always drew in strangers and reconciled enemies through marriage relationships (muṣāhara), so that people’s aversion would turn into familiarity and an enemy could become an ally. A relation by marriage (ṣihr) could develop into intimacy between two tribes, or an alliance between two clans.”13 Ṣihr relations were therefore deep and had legal consequences in Islam because they came with mutual inheritance rights and increased the number of women whom the husband was forbidden to marry from now on if he wanted to take on an additional wife. For most jurists, after the wedding these women were the following: the mother of the wife, the daughters of the wife from previous marriages, the sisters of the wife, her aunts on both sides, the daughters of her brothers and the daughters of her sisters.14 They were now family to him as were his father-in-law and his motherin-law, who were designated ḥamū or ḥamā, which literally has the connotation of someone offering mutual protection. However, once marriages ended in divorce, the legal bond was broken and the direct family ties with them. The only trace of the former bond was found in the existence of common children. It was different if marriages ended through the death of the partner. In that case, families seem to have stayed on good terms with each other although legal rules, like marriage prohibition, were no longer binding. Therefore, as will be seen in the following, it was apparently important to marry a widow of the former sultan or another direct relative as his divorcee would not have created the necessary link for a successful transmission of power.

II. Ṣihr and muṣāhara in Mamluk Royal Relations Royal marriages, so it seems, were concluded to transmit royalty. The main goal of these ṣihr relations was usually not to create offspring because sons of sultans would take the place of their fathers only as mere placeholders during a short transition period. The main reasons for Mamluks of the first generation were to strengthen their ties with the households of other Mamluks or the local elite.15 Apparently, the issue of offspring became more important for Mamluks of the second generation, when sons of Mamluks were slowly merging into the Arab Cairene upper class. Ibn Iyās tells in 1503 that his own father, a Mamluk of the second generation, had fathered 25 children without counting the miscarriages by his wives and slave girls during his 84 years on earth.16 If we compare that to one of the most active sultans when it comes to fathering children, i.e. Barqūq (r. 1382-1389 and 1390-1399) around hundred years earlier, we hear of only six children.17 This might have to do with the fact that first

13 Al-Māwardī, Adab al-dunyā wa-l-dīn, here cited after: van Gelder 2005: 27. 14 Benkheira et al. 2013: 81. 15 Frenkel 2011: 243. 16 Ibn Iyās 1960: IV, 47; Frenkel 2011: 244. 17 Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm 1956: XII, 81; Ibn Taghrībirdī, History 1954: I, 159; Frenkel 2011: 243.

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generation Mamluks were quite busy working on their careers. Moreover, they were only allowed to marry later in their career. In contrast, second generation Mamluks could marry earlier in life. Perhaps the scarcity of royal children was also due — so my personal assumption — that building networks through children seemed to be less important and promised less success to Mamluks. They preferred to network among their own peers through marrying daughters, widows or former slave girls of former sultans or other high-ranking emirs of the elder generation.18 In fact it had something to do with the fact that in terms of military elite, the new imported Mamluks were the heirs of the old guard and not the actual male offspring. However, in creating these networks, young emirs became members of the family of these influential Mamluks through ṣihr. Or as Jo van Steenbergen and Kristof D’Hulster call it, looking at the marriage strategies of “sultans to be” between the beginning of the reign of Barqūq (r. 1382-1389 and 1390-1399) and the end of the reign of Khushqadam (1461-1467), they increased their “social capital”.19 Recently, Koby Yosef came to similar results using examples of the early Mamluk era in an article on kinship terminology during the Mamluk sultanate: “Like consanguineal kinship, affinal kinship entailed inheritance rights and restrictions on marriage. In fact, in-laws were considered family members; thus, when al-Ẓāhir Baybars (d. 676/1277) married his son to al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn’s (d. 689/1290) daughter, it is said that he made Qalāwūn an in-law and a relative (jaʿalahu nasaban wa-ṣihran); and at times it is said that a marriage created an in-law relationship (ṣahāra) and family relationship (nisba) at the same time. It is reported that after the death of al-Ẓāhir Baybars, his in-law al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn treated Baybars’ orphans like his own children (nazzalahumā manzilat awlādihi).”20 In such a way, the consanguineal and affinal family merged into one. A father-inlaw could be called “father” and was perceived as one. Quṭlūbughā Ḥājjī al-Bānaqūsī al-Turkmānī al-Ḥalabī (d. 837/1433), who was the father-in-law of the sultan al-Ẓāhir Ṭatar (d. 824/1421) and the maternal grandfather of Fāṭima bint al-Ẓāhir Ṭatar, the wife of Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbāy (d. 841/1438) obtained by contemporaries the nickname “the father of the sultan” (abū al-sulṭān) because he had even married into two sultanic households.21 Other very influential father-in-laws include the famous Damascene governor Tankīz, father-in-law of Sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (d. 1341), who was apparently addressed “my uncle” by the sultan’s daughters.22 Another case of how family was created through marriage can be seen in the case of Sultan al-Ẓāhir Khushqadam (r. 1461-1467). He brought up and raised Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-ʿAynī (d. 908/1503) and treated him as his son, although there was no direct blood relation. Al-ʿAynī had been the son of Khushqadam’s stepdaughter Baykhūn,

18 For a discussion of marriage patterns of Mamluks, see: ʿAbd al-Nabī: 2008, 29-31; Frenkel 2011: 244-245. 19 Van Steenbergen and D’Hulster 2013. 20 Yosef 2017: 22. 21 Ibn Ḥajar 1974: VII, 464; Yosef 2017: 23. 22 ʿAbd al-Nabī 2008: 33-34; Yosef 2017: 67.

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whom her mother Shukurbāy had brought into the marriage. After al-ʿAynī’s father, Zayn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn al-ʿAynī, died, al-Ẓāhir Khushqadam let his step grandson live in the citadel and raised him as a royal prince.23

III. Khushdashiyya as concept of network building in the Mamluk period How did marital ties composed through ṣihr relations compare to other forms of social networking among Mamluks, especially the concept of military comradeship (khushdashiyya)? The transmission of power from one sultan to the next in the Circassian period (1382-1517) has mainly been explained in the secondary literature as a result of the khushdashiyya concept. The reasoning was the following: It was the ties concluded with one’s brothers in arms which ensured that a claim to the throne could be successful. Of course, on the one hand such a claim to power was based on merits and assertiveness, but on the other hand, it depended on the support of the mighty peers of a Mamluk soldier.24 Parts of the processes behind the decisions of making a sultan in the fifteenth century are very well described by Henning Sievert in his “Der Herrscherwechsel im Mamlukensultanat”. According to Sievert, the following three elements were important for the legitimacy of a Mamluk sultan: first of all, the official recognition through the Abbasid puppet caliph of Cairo, second, the Islamic legitimacy as Muslim warrior and keeper of the holy cities Mecca and Medina and third, the legitimacy as an army king (“Heerkönigslegitimation”), which was expressed through the “election of the most successful” (“Wahl des Erfolgreichsten”) by his peers.25 Scholars such as David Ayalon and Peter Malcolm Holt argued that the main task in becoming a sultan lay in his successful networking among his peers, and therefore did not include the female side in their power equations. The khushdāshiyya (military comradeship), i.e. the network of Mamluks which was created either by being purchased by the same master or by being brought up and trained together in the same barracks proved to be very intriguing for modern scholarship. It was the key element of Mamluk networking and was responsible for success or failure. One of the attractive features of the khushdāshiyya in the Mamluk Empire for Western scholarship was that unlike other entities of the medieval period, it relied to a great extent on the important role of merits and accomplishments and apparently not on dynastic links. In his writings, David Ayalon created the notion of the “one generation nobility” and described the “Mamluk family” as being entirely created through a relationship of slavery and patronship.26 By doing so, he described of course important aspects of

23 24 25 26

al-Sakhāwī 1975: XII, 161-162, and I, 345; Yosef 2017: 24. Haarmann 2001: 229. Sievert 2013: 81. For manifold references from Ayalon works, see: Yosef 2017: 17.

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Fig. 1. Khushdāshiyya links of Mamluk sultans, 1382-1517 (Source: Holt 81997: 231).

the Mamluk military system, but he downplayed and ignored blood and marital ties which, as will be shown, likewise played an important role in the Mamluk households. The usual scientific approach ignored the Mamluk royal ladies. The map of Mamluk succession (Figure 1) from the book by Peter Malcolm Holt, first published in 1986, for example describes succession only in terms of father-son or master-mamluk relation. Only men are shown in the diagram. In recent years, this fixation on the khushdāshiyya has been challenged by Koby Yosef though “some scholars have argued that the concept of khushdāshiyya; i.e., the horizontal bond of loyalty between the mamlūks of one master, was at most a “moral ideal, which never actually managed to defeat individual interests” rather than “a historical reality”.27 The khushdāshiyya played a vital role during Mamluk history, although these networks did not ensure that a comrade would never turn against you, as cases of “inner khushdāshiyya” fighting abound in Mamluk sources. Still, it is not the only element that explains modes of power transition although it has been over-emphasized in recent studies.

IV. Ṣihr as Concept of Power Transmission (1382-1468) As depicted above, ṣihr networks are relevant to understand family ties in the Mamluk era. If we show the relations through marriages between sultans, we are able to detect linear transmission processes.

27 Yosef 2017: 17.

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Fig. 2. Ṣihr transmission among the Mamluks, 1382-1468 (© Albrecht Fuess).

As can be perceived in Figure 2, there is not a single transition process from one sultan to the next that does not include a marital tie to the former through a ṣihr or muṣāhara relationship. Starting with Sultan Barqūq on the upper left and then following the arrows downward, it is remarkable that usually daughters and widows of former sultans create the family bonds to the predecessor.28 Sultan al-Muʾyyad Shaykh created a ṣihr bond with Sultan Barqūq by marrying his daughter Zaynab in 1412 after having led a successful rebellion against Sultan Faraj (r. 1399-1405 and 1405-1412), the son of his former patron Barqūq. When Sultan al-Muʾayyad Shaykh married Zaynab, al-Sakhāwī stated that through her marriage with al Muʾayyad, she became “a sultan’s daughter, a sultan’s sister and a sultan’s wife”.29 When al-Muʾayyad Shaykh passed away in 1421, his son was appointed sultan for a short while until the grand emir Ṭaṭar took power and legitimized this move by marrying Saʿādāt bint Amīr Ṣarghitmish, a widow of al-Muʾayyad Shaykh. However, Sultan Ṭaṭar died shortly afterwards.30 Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbāy (r. 1422-1438) married Sultan Ṭaṭar’s daughter by the name of Fāṭima after he had succeeded in the subsequent power struggle. Before the wedding ceremony took place, however, he had to get rid of her old husband, emir

28 Figure 2 and the subsequent Figure 3 are very reduced illustrations of the royal family ties in question. For further information, see Fuess 2017. 29 al-Sakhāwī 1975: XII 40; Van Steenbergen; D’Hulster 2013: 68. 30 Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm 1972: XIV, 206; Ibn Taghrībirdī, History of Egypt 1957: III, 150.

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Yashbak Jakamī, who was sent to prison in Alexandria and was compelled to divorce his wife so that she could wed the new sultan.31 The ṣihr link from Barsbāy to his successor al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (r. 1438-1453) was presented by Shahzāda bint Ibn Uthmān, a royal Ottoman princess who had escaped persecution by her uncle Sultan Murad II (r. 1421-1451) in 1429. In Cairo she first married al-Ashraf Barsbāy. After his burial, as royal widow she went on to marry the next sultan, i.e. Jaqmaq. Sultan Īnāl’s (r. 1453-1461) link to Jaqmaq was somewhat more complicated but still in the wider ṣihr concept because he married his son al-Muʾayyad Ahmad to the widow of Jaqmaq by name of Bint Ḥamza Bak bint Nāṣir al-Dīn bint Dhū al-Qadir. When Sultan Khushqadam (r. 1461-1467) ascended the throne in 1461, he surprisingly did not marry a female relative of Īnāl. Still, Khushqadam respected the fact that he apparently needed a ṣihr relationship to a former sultan. Fortunately for him, he was already married to Shukurbāy, a former slave girl of Sultan Faraj (r. 1399-1405, 1405-1412). With this relationship, he was even directly related to the famous Barqūq, thereby bypassing all subsequent sultans. It becomes clear though that even the concubine of a former sultan was able to transmit ṣihr.

V. Ṣihr as Concept of Power Transmission (1468-1517) With the reign of Sultan Qāytbāy we can discern a change in the pattern of ṣihr transmission. From 1468 until the fall of the Mamluk Empire, we can trace the end of linear female power transmission. In contrast to the practice of the first half of the fifteenth century, we can detect two ṣihr clusters: one around Qāytbāy’s official wife Fāṭima bint ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Khaṣṣbak and one around his slave girl Aṣalbāy the Circassian. However, within these two factions there were internal rifts as well, but apparently it was important for every new sultan up to 1517 to be related to Sultan Qāytbāy through relationships going back to these two royal ladies. When Khushqadam passed away, we witness the return of the Khaṣṣbakī family as hoard of royal brides. Sultan Īnāl’s widow Zaynab had managed to withstand the pressure of Khushqadam, who wanted her to give him her belongings. Thereby she was certainly helped by her own special network and by her sisters’ husband, the powerful Emir Qāytbāy, who became sultan in 1468.32 Qāytbāy himself had his royal ties on the female side through his wife Fāṭima bint ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Khaṣṣbak. As already described, Fāṭima’s sister Zaynab had

31 Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm 1972: XIV, 215-20; Ibn Taghrībirdī, History of Egypt 1957: III, 157-161. 32 Little is known about the source of wealth of this family. Carl Petry reconstructs Fāṭima’s ancestry to Sayf al-dīn Khaṣṣbak al-Nāṣirī (d. 1333) and describes the prominent notable Ghars al-Dīn Khalīl ibn Shahīn al-Shaykhī (d. 1410) as Fāṭima’s paternal grandfather. According to Petry, Fāṭima amassed her large fortune mostly herself through ingeneous financial activities as her surviving waqf documents demonstrate; see Petry 2004. Ibn Iyās describes her father ʿAlā al-dīn ʿAlī Khaṣṣbak al-Nāṣirī as very pious and on of the best of the awlād al-nās. The sultan apparently mourned for his distinguished father-in-law (ṣihr), Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 302; Wiet 1945: 341.

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Fig. 3. Ṣihr transmission among the Mamluks, 1468-1517 (© Albrecht Fuess).

been married to Sulṭān Īnāl, therefore Qāytbāy apparently already enjoyed a solid ṣihr line to royal sultanhood. Perhaps he did not want to be related personally to his immediate predecessor Khushqadam (r. 1461-1467), as Khushqadam had put hard pressure on the wealthy Khaṣṣbakī sisters during his reign in order to obtain their wealth.33 Fāṭima was to remain Qāytbāy’s only official wife during his reign, which is usually perceived as the last heyday of Mamluk power and a real period of stability. For about thirty years she was the first lady, although she had an important female rival in Qāytbāy’s concubine Aṣalbāy the Circassian, the mother of his son and immediate successor al-Nāṣir Muḥammad II ibn Qāytbāy (r. 1496-1498). After Qāytbāy’s death in 1496 the the balance of power favoured Aṣalbāy as mother of the new sultan and sister of the powerful amir Qānṣūh (not to be confounded with the later Sulṭān Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī). The finances of the Khaṣṣbakiyya family branch were therefore again in danger. According to Ibn Iyās, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad helped Fāṭima, the widow of his father, against Mamluks who wanted to either loot her belongings or demanded money in cash to pay them off.34 Still, she had to pay for such favours. Her second sister, the wife of the Great Dawādār Aqbirdī apparently suffered similar incidents, as Aqbirdī had lost the power struggle against al-Nāṣir Muḥammad and had to flee to Syria, where he finally died in 1499 after having just regained power as governor of Tripoli.35

33 Reinfandt 2003: 45-46. 34 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 64; Wiet 1945: 467. 35 Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 420.; Wiet 1945: 460; Ibn al-Ḥimṣī 1999: II, 78.

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The period between the death of Qāytbāy and the ascension to power by Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī (r. 1501-1516) were turbulent years of constant fighting and overthrows. Therefore, it was important to rely on powerful networks and look out for whom to marry. The Khaṣṣbakiyya branch owned such a network, but Aṣalbāy as former slave did not; she had to rely on her immediate entourage, i.e. her son and her brother. But although she appears in the sources as an energetic actor, she had to deal with the big male egos of her family. In 1498 rumours spread of a fall out between the young sultan and his uncle Qānṣūh.36 In order to calm the tension, the sultan’s mother Aṣalbāy had them both summoned to the citadel in February 1498 in order to swear in her presence on the Quran copy of the third Caliph ʿUthman (r. 644-656) that they would not fight each other. But this oath turned out to be meaningless.37 However, she would have needed every support possible as high-ranking officers were highly critical of the role she played in governmental affairs. Ibn Iyās depicts Kurtbāy al-Aḥmar, the viceroy of Damascus, crying out in the council hall of Damascus “We are governed by a boy and a woman.”38 In September 1498 the sources then even tell of a serious dispute between al-Nāṣir Muḥammad II and his mother about his marriage to the Circassian lady Miṣirbāy, the widow of another Kurtbāy, former governor of Gaza.39 Aṣalbāy apparently had other plans or a negative presentiment, which proved to be true as her son was killed less than two months later. The conspirators had managed to bring his uncle Qānṣūh on their side by promising him that he would become the new sultan. He claimed his prize and was installed as the new ruler under the regal title of Sultan al-Ẓāhir Qānṣūh (r. 1498-1500). Afterwards, he immediately married Miṣirbāy, the widow of his nephew, to strengthen his claim and ensure his ṣihr connection.40 Still, his new in-law lineage was not very helpful since he was ousted in 1500. This time his sister Aṣalbāy married (or had to marry) his short-lived successor Sultan Jān Bulāṭ (r. 1500-1501), either to secure her own position and/or to grant him the royal prestige and the link to Qāytbāy. However, Sultan Jān Bulāṭ only lasted several months, and we hear less of Aṣalbāy after that date. However, it still seems that her influence presented an obstacle for rulers. When she went on pilgrimage in 1508, Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī made her stay in Mecca in exile, where she died a year later.41 Once Aṣalbāy and Sultan Jān Bulāṭ left the scene, Fāṭima bint ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Khaṣṣbak, the wife of Qāytbāy, made her aforementioned spectacular come-back and went up to the citadel to marry Sultan

36 Ibn Ṭūlūn 1962: I, 197. 37 Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 387; Wiet 1945: 428. 38 Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 406; Wiet 1945: 448. 39 Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 399; Wiet 1945: 441. 40 Ibn Iyās, Badā’iʿ 1964: III, 401, 404, 426; Wiet 1945: 444, 446, 466. 41 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 131, 159.

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al-ʿĀdil Ṭūmānbāy (r. 1501) when she was well into her sixties, either to seek personal protection in unsteady times or to grant legitimacy to a new ruler, or probably both.42 There are clear hints that the two royal ladies Fāṭima and Aṣalbāy were quite important and formed own hostile factions. Ibn Iyās recalls that supporters of Aṣalbāy rubbed themselves in the blood of Sulṭān al-ʿĀdil when his corpse was transported around town. They were full of joy because the crimes against the relatives of the princess were revenged.43 The next Mamluk sultan apparently tried to break with all of this. Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī had no immediate marriage link to one of the sides when he ascended to the throne in 1501. Very little is known so far about his marriages. The only known fact is that, in 1505, four years after his ascension to the throne, he felt it apparently safe enough for his personal harem to come up to the citadel from the Bayn al-Qaṣrayn quarter in the middle of the town. Moreover, his wife is only known by her kunya “Umm Muḥammad”.44 His ṣihr connection to the side of the Khaṣṣbakiyya family was then concluded one year later in 1506 when his right hand, nephew and successor Tumānbāy was married to the niece of the two sultanic royal Khaṣṣbakī women. Unfortunately, we do not know her name and the name of her mother, the third Khaṣṣbakī sister, who had been married to Aqbardī the Dawādār.45 Therefore, we can assume an ongoing strong influence of the female Khaṣṣbakī faction in Mamluk politics up to 1517. Still, 1517 did not witness the end of the tale of Mamluk royal widows as royal brides. After the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, Khāʾir Bek, the Mamluk governor of Aleppo who had defected to the Ottomans, was rewarded with the Ottoman governorship of Egypt. Apparently for reasons of legitimacy, he married Miṣirbāy the Circassian, widow of the sultans al-Nāṣir Muḥammad II and al-Ẓāhir Qānṣūh. Therefore, she was brought up to the citadel by a procession as royal wife for the third time in her life.46 Still, there was no happy end for Miṣirbāy. According to Ibn Iyās, her husband Khāʾir Bek once beat her up so badly that she almost died. Then he made her descend from the citadel, and she then lived in downtown Cairo, where she died in the autumn of 1522.47 Apparently royal widows were not of use anymore in the Ottoman system.

42 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1964: III, 472-473; Wiet 1945: 512. 43 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 11. Fāṭima bint ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Khaṣṣbak finally died in 909/1504 after she fell ill, see Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 64. 44 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 81, 409. It was the usual custom that Mamluk Emirs lived with their families in Fatimid Cairo or nearby. Once a sultan was enthroned he moved to the citadel and brought his family with him shortly thereafter. The harem of the predecessor moved back to the original house of the family underneath the citadel. 45 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1960: IV, 99, 107. 46 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1961: V, 211. 47 Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ 1961: V, 439, 483.

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Conclusion Current scholarship about medieval and early modern family structures in the Middle East should receive further scholarly attention. It has great potential since historiographical and biographical sources to a certain extent mention women. Moreover, the aspect of an enlarged family that is constituted by marriage leads to a new understanding about the family issue in the Islamic world in general. In the next steps, other aspects of family network links like the one among milk siblings or former master-slave relationships should also be taken into consideration. Looking at the case studies of Mamluk royal families in the fifteenth century, one can see that legitimization through marriage or female lineage was very important. No Mamluk sultan of the fifteenth century would dare ignore it. Of the thirteen sultans who actually transmitted legitimacy to another sultan from 1382 to 1517, only two mothers passed on legitimacy to their sons. In three cases the link was constituted by sultans’ daughters or royal sisters. The highest number with five cases is represented by sultans’ widows who re-marry a successor and also two former slave concubines who transmitted legitimacy to following sultans. The main function of these marriages was to underline legitimacy and a claim to the throne. The question of offspring was completely irrelevant here. The number of children coming out of these relations was too small, and the sons of the Mamluk sultans did not succeed in holding on to the throne anyway. Marriage was more about providing legitimacy, lineage and wealth instead. What needs further elaboration though and promises good research results would be to find out how the sultans and their wives actually met, if they did at all. When was he in contact with the members of his harem? What rules did he or she have to follow? In a rare story about the Mamluk harem, the Mamluk author and high-ranking emir al-Ẓāhirī (d. 1468) writes about the differentiation about whom a Mamluk sultan should bed or wed. His counsel reads as follows: “It does not matter if the sultan marries a free woman or chooses concubines among his slaves, the wisest thing to do for him is to admit only virgins to his bed and to forbid elderly women to enter their apartments [of the virgins], even if they have a good reputation. It does not suffice that he himself knows that he has the best intentions, but his conduct also has to appear impeccable as men can only judge the appearances.”48 So even if we try to ignore this Mamluk’s author’s shown misogyny, we should be aware that marriage had additional functions in a Mamluk royal context which might have been more important than enjoying sexual relations or having children — it was about bonding. The royal women were those who created these bonds vis-a-vis the predecessors, either as direct relatives like mothers, daughters, sisters or even more often as widows or slave girls of former sultans. Asalbāy was a slave girl, a wife, a mother and a sister of four different sultans. Still, what is unclear is how active the women were in the processes and how and by whom these marriages were concluded. Who decided 48 Al-Ẓāhirī 1894: 62; Venture de Paradis 1950: 93.

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on the marriages? Was it the council of emirs or the new sultans themselves? What about legal questions concerning the dowry? Who was legally responsible for actually signing the contract for the women? We are unfortunately still in the dark about a lot of details, but at least we can say that marriage and women played a decisive role in transmitting royal power and creating new families. I do not think that we can still leave women out of the picture as Peter Holt did in his diagram (Figure 1). Still, we should not fall into the trap of overemphasizing their role either, as long as we do not have more evidence from the sources. So far I have to leave it as such: ṣihr relations constituted an important element of Mamluk royal households, and they deserve much further research.

Bibliographical References 1.

Primary Sources

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, Inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-anbāʾ al-ʿumr, (ed.) Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʿīd Khān, 9 vols., Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif alʿUthmāniyya, 1387-1396/1967-1976. Ibn al-Ḥimṣī, Ḥawādith al-zamān wa-wafīyāt al-shuyūkh wa-l-aqrān, (ed.) ʿUmar ʿAbd alSalām Tadmurī, 3 vols., Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, 1999. Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-ẓuhūr fī waqāʾiʿ al-duhūr, (ed.) Mohamed Mostafa, 5 vols., Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1960-1975. Partial French translation in: Gaston Wiet, Histoire des Mamlouks Circassiens, Tome II [sic], Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1945. Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-ẓāhira fī mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, (ed.) Muḥammad Fuhaym Shaltūt, 16 vols., Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1348-1392/1929-1972. English translation: Ibn Taghrībirdī, History of Egypt 1382-1469, (tr.) William Popper, 7 vols., Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954-1960. Ibn Ṭūlūn, Mufākahat al-khillān fī ḥawādith al-zamān, (ed.) Mohamed Mostafa, 2 vols., Cairo: Dār al-ta’līf wa-l-tarjama, 1962-1964. The Qur’an. A New Translation by Tarif Khalidi, London: Penguin, 2008. al-Sakhāwī, Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 vols., Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt, c. 1975. al-Ẓāhirī, Ibn-Shāhīn, Zubdat kashf al-mamālik, (ed.) P. Ravaisse, Paris: Imprimerie nationale 1894. French translation: La Zubda Kachf al-Mamālik de Khalil az-Zāhirī, Traduction inédite de Venture de Paradis, ed. by Jean Gaulmier, Beyrouth: Institut français de Damas, 1950. 2.

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Islamologiques 42 (2008): 25-47. Benkheira, Mohammed Hocine, Giladi, Avner, Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine, and Sublet, Jacqueline, La famille en Islam d’après les sources arabes, Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2013.

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Braun, Christina von, Blutsbande. Verwandtschaft als Kulturgeschichte, Berlin: Aufbau, 2018. Frenkel, Yehoshua, “Marriage and Family in Mamluk Palaces”, in Morgenstern, Matthias, Boudignon, Christian and Tietz, Christiane, (eds.), Männlich und weiblich schuf Er sie. Studien zur Genderkonstruktion und zum Eherecht in den Mittelmeerreligionen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011: 239-248. Fuess, Albrecht, “Legitimacy Through Female Lineage? The Role of in-Laws (aṣhār) in the Royal Mamluk Households of the Fifteenth Century”, Eurasian Studies 15 (2017): 200-221. Gelder, Geert Jan van, Close Relationships: Incest and Inbreeding in Classical Arabic Literature, London: I. B. Tauris, 2005. Haarmann, Ulrich, “Der arabische Osten im späten Mittelalter 1250-1517”, in Haarmann, Ulrich, (ed.), Geschichte der arabischen Welt, München: C. H. Beck, 2001. Holt, Peter M., The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517, London: Longman, 8 1997. Johnson, Kathryn, “Royal Pilgrims: Mamlūk Accounts of the Pilgrimage to Mecca of the Khawand al-Kubrā (Senior Wife of the Sultan)”, Studia Islamica 91 (2000): 107-132. Klecker, Elisabeth, “Bella gerant alii. Tu, felix Austria, nube! Eine Spurensuche”, Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur 41 (1997): 30-44. Knopp, Nikolaus, Vollständiges katholisches Eherecht. Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die practische Seelsorge, Regensburg: Manz, 21854. Lanzinger, Margareth, Verwaltete Verwandtschaft. Eheverbot, kirchliche und staatliche Dispenspraxis im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, Wien: Böhlau, 2015. Petry, Carl, “The Estate of al-Khuwand Fāṭima al-Khaṣṣbakiyya: Royal Spouse, Autonomous Investor”, in Winter, Michael and Levanoni, Amalia (eds.), The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society, Leiden: Brill, 2004: 277-294. Reinfandt, Lucian, Mamlukische Sultansstiftungen des 9./15. Jahrhunderts. Nach den Urkunden der Stifter al-Ašraf Īnāl und al-Mu’ayyad Aḥmad ibn Īnāl, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2003. Sievert, Henning, Der Herrscherwechsel im Mamlukensultanat. Historische und historiographische Untersuchungen zu Abū Ḥāmid al-Qudsī und Ibn Taġrībirdī, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2003. Steenbergen, Jo van, and D’Hulster, Kristof, “Family Matters: The ‘Family-in-Law’ Impulse”, Annales Islamologiques 47 (2013): 61-82. Yosef, Koby, “Usages of Kinship Terminology During the Mamluk Sultanate and the Notion of the ‘Mamlūk Family’”, in Ben-Bassat, Yuval (ed.), Developing Perspectives in Mamluk History: Essays in Honor of Amalia Levanoni, Leiden: Brill, 2017: 16-75.

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Juliette Dumas

L’histoire du pacha exemplaire marié à une sultane extravagante Genre, politique et récit intime à la cour ottomane au xviie siècle

Parmi les auteurs ottomans, Evliya Çelebi jouit d’une renommée toute particulière. Sa célébrité, il la doit à la formidable relation de ses voyages (certains réels, d’autres plus douteux) dans l’Empire et au-delà, le Seyahatname. La richesse de cette œuvre lui a valu de retenir l’attention des historiens, qui y trouvent des anecdotes à foison. Il faut reconnaître que cet ouvrage a bien des atouts : du Caucase à l’Égypte, de la Transylvanie au Yémen, l’auteur dresse un vaste panorama de l’Empire dans les années centrales du xviie siècle ; il se risque même au-delà des frontières ottomanes, en territoire infidèle (Vienne notamment). Descriptions précises, anecdotes comiques, rencontres fabuleuses, intrigues de pouvoir : la relation a tout d’un best-seller. Ce n’est pas une chronique de règne, qui dresserait de façon consciencieuse et laborieuse la suite des événements marquants survenus sous le règne d’un (ou plusieurs) sultan(s) ; ce n’est pas non plus un traité politique, qui prétendrait aviser le sultan des problèmes de l’Empire et lui suggérer des solutions (parfois peu crédibles) ; il n’appartient pas plus au genre des écrits religieux, ni même à la poésie. Le récit de voyage d’Evliya Çelebi n’appartient, en fait, à aucun des grands genres pratiqués à cette époque. Ce caractère atypique lui offre une grande liberté stylistique : il peut bien écrire ce qu’il veut, alterner passages d’un grand réalisme et aventures fantastiques, du moment qu’il parvient à captiver l’intérêt de son auditoire, ce à quoi les changements de registre contribuent. Il n’est pas question d’aborder ici l’intégralité de l’œuvre : des études existent déjà sur le sujet, régulièrement complétées par de nouveaux travaux1. Un passage en particulier a retenu mon attention, pour sa mise en scène d’une union princière,



1 Outre de nombreuses éditions, partielles ou totales (notamment l’édition intégrale, en dix tomes réunis en deux volumes : Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî 2011), il faut citer les travaux de Robert Dankoff, principal historien de cet auteur hors pair. Notamment Dankoff 2006. Juliette Dumas  •  Aix-Marseille Université / Institut de recherches et d’études sur le monde arabe et musulman, UMR 7310 Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 171-194 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122935

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sujet sur lequel j’ai déjà eu maintes fois l’occasion de travailler2 : la description des noces de Fatma Sultane3, fille d’Ahmed Ier (1603-1617), et de Melek Ahmed Pacha, protecteur et parent d’Evliya Çelebi. L’intrusion de cette figure féminine dans un récit qui en compte peu suffirait, en soi, à justifier une étude ; mais c’est surtout le caractère subversif du portrait qu’il dresse de la sultane, qui a suscité mon intérêt. Le contexte historico-littéraire de l’époque veut, en effet, que les femmes n’aient pas leur place dans les récits officiels ottomans – ou si peu, qu’il faut bien de la patience pour les y retrouver. Les reines mères eurent bien droit à quelques dérogations, dans la mesure où leur rôle de conseillères, voire de suppléantes du sultan, était largement admis4. Les princesses ottomanes, quant à elles, sont plus difficiles à débusquer dans la documentation historique ; rarement objets de discours, elles surgissent au détour d’un paragraphe, dans les méandres d’une histoire qui n’est pas la leur et à laquelle elles ne semblent contribuer que de façon indirecte, involontaire. Seul leur mariage est sujet à des mentions régulières dans la documentation officielle. Entendons-nous alors : il ne s’agit pas tant de parler d’elles, que d’indiquer un ingrédient qui contribua à l’élévation honorifique d’un agent de l’État – un pacha, dans la quasi majorité des cas. Il faut attendre l’extrême fin du xviie siècle et, surtout, le xviiie siècle, pour que les princesses ottomanes deviennent sujet d’histoire : on leur dédie alors des para­graphes entiers, qui ne s’écartent pourtant pas du moule restreint de l’exaltation dynastique5. Le caractère exceptionnel du passage d’Evliya Çelebi relatif au mariage de Fatma Sultane réside en premier lieu dans le fait qu’il lui est entièrement dédié : son nom figure même dans le titre donné au texte. Pourtant, le récit se montre subversif sur bien des points. Pour commencer, il dresse un portrait peu élogieux de la sultane, comme le laisse entendre le titre du passage : « Complainte de Melek à propos de Fatma Sultane, fille de Sultan Ahmed Han ». Critiquer une princesse n’est pas chose impossible ; cela s’est déjà vu. Mais de là à décrire une femme peu amène, imbue d’elle-même, exécrable et, pour couronner le tout, avare, il y a un pas que les auteurs plus officiels osent rarement. Pour critiquer un membre de la famille qui a été choisie par Dieu pour diriger l’Empire, il faut respecter quelques règles de bienséance et s’astreindre au régime du traité politique : l’individu n’est jamais attaqué intimement. Le second élément de subversion de ce passage est le plus inattendu : abrogeant toutes les règles de la bienséance littéraire, Evliya Çelebi fait entrer son auditeur dans l’intimité du couple princier. Avec lui, on pénètre dans le monde fermé et protégé du harem, dont on découvre l’envers du décor, l’intime. Plutôt que de se lancer





2 Dumas 2010b ; Dumas 2010c ; Dumas 2011a ; Dumas 2011b ; Dumas 2011c ; Dumas 2012b ; Dumas 2013a ; Dumas 2014. 3 J’utilise le terme de Sultane, version française féminine du titre Sultân qui, en turc ottoman, est employé aussi bien pour les hommes que pour les femmes ; toutefois, l’emplacement précis permet – s’il était nécessaire – de stipuler le sexe de son détenteur (le titre précède le nom des hommes, quand il succède le prénom d’une femme de la dynastie). De la sorte, le turc ottoman procède bien à une distinction de genre, qui me semble la mieux restituée en français, en respectant tout à la fois une féminisation du titre et sa postposition par rapport au prénom. 4 Peirce 1993. 5 Dumas 2013a : passim.

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dans une description fastidieuse des festivités de mariage, qu’il abrège au plus court, Evliya Çelebi dévoile les mystères conjugaux et raconte la nuit de noces de Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane. Ce n’est pas la première fois qu’il se livre à un tel exercice : déjà, au moment de raconter la mort de Kaya Sultane, première épouse de Melek Ahmed Pacha, s’était-il prêté au jeu d’un récit des plus intimistes, faisant entrer l’auditoire au cœur de la chambre de la princesse. La mise en miroir des morts respectives de Kaya Sultane et Melek Ahmed Pacha est une singularité importante, sur laquelle j’aurai l’occasion de revenir, tant elle relève d’une technique littéraire spécifique et volontaire de la part de l’auteur. La place de l’intime dans le récit d’Evliya Çelebi mérite toutefois quelques précisions, afin de mieux en cerner la portée. Le fait d’extraire un passage précis, de le discuter, au vu de quelques autres extraits, n’est pas sans créer des effets de lecture contre lesquels il est important de se prémunir. Force est de remarquer que cette intimité, limitée à quelques rares passages de la vie de Kaya Sultane et Melek Ahmed Pacha, survient de façon tardive : à partir du cinquième volume, pour le récit de la mort de Kaya Sultane (qui constitue, en fait, une seconde relation de cet événement, la première proscrivant strictement tout détail intimiste) ; au sixième volume, pour le présent récit. Entre temps, si l’on admet une lecture linéaire et ordonnée de l’ouvrage d’Evliya Çelebi, l’auditoire s’est largement familiarisé avec ces protagonistes et s’est habitué à les suivre, au plus près de leur vie quotidienne. Tout se passe comme s’il avait fallu cette connivence progressive pour assurer l’auteur de son droit à parler de ce qui ne se doit pas. En creux, cela souligne surtout la rareté de la place de cet intime, à l’aune de l’ensemble d’un récit touffu – tout juste quelques pages, dans un récit qui en compte plusieurs centaines. Evliya Çelebi n’a probablement jamais prétendu rédiger une histoire conventionnelle : son récit serait plus digne d’un roman d’aventure. Et de fait, le passage en question a tout d’une historiette romanesque et burlesque, jusque dans sa construction : au début, vient le décor, la situation initiale, qu’un élément déclencheur vient perturber, donnant naissance à une suite de péripéties qui se résolvent en un dénouement final libérateur. Le statut atypique des récits d’Evliya Çelebi, leurs changements de tonalité, rendent leur emploi délicat dans un cadre historique. Faut-il le traiter comme une source historique fiable (sans présumer pour autant d’inévitables partis pris d’écriture) ou y voir une œuvre littéraire ? Mais, pourquoi une œuvre littéraire serait-elle moins historique et moins fiable qu’une chronique ou un traité politique ? Rejetant cette frontière peu pertinente, certains travaux ont montré tout l’apport possible d’une étude historique d’œuvres littéraires6. L’inverse est, pourtant, beaucoup plus rare : la discipline historique se montre frileuse devant l’analyse littéraire de la documentation historique. Une réticence se fait jour, contre laquelle on aurait quelques motifs de s’insurger : sans même aller jusqu’à invoquer la proposition de Paul Veyne, pour lequel l’écriture de l’histoire répond à un exercice de mise en intrigue, à l’instar des procédés littéraires7 (celui-ci faisant référence à l’écriture contemporaine de l’histoire), il n’en demeure pas moins que les auteurs de



6 Parmi les exemples récents, pour la présente aire culturelle, citons notamment Garcin 2003 ; Garcin 2013. 7 Veyne 1996.

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chroniques ou de traités, de récits de voyage, en bref, de toute production écrite de nature non bureaucratique, entendaient bien faire œuvre littéraire et prenaient soin de bien écrire, au moins autant que de dire juste. Il en allait de leur réputation d’hommes de science (ʿalim) et, in fine, de leur rétribution – n’oublions pas que la grande majorité de ces productions répondait à des commandes, ou attendait une gratification après soumission à un mécène : il s’agit d’y flatter le(s) bienfaiteur(s), autant par le contenu que par le style. Au demeurant, dans la mesure où Evliya Çelebi lui-même se joue de cette frontière, il invite à le prendre au mot et, comme lui, à faire coïncider analyse historique et analyse littéraire, pour extraire de ce passage toute sa saveur et tout l’art de cet auteur – mais aussi, pour entendre son propos dans ce qu’il révèle des conditions maritales auprès des hautes élites ottomanes et les critiques qu’elles pouvaient susciter. La richesse de cet extrait offre deux approches divergentes. La première consisterait à confronter, dans une démarche historique assez traditionnelle, le contenu du texte avec d’autres sources disponibles, pour en extraire les apports historiques, en vue d’une meilleure appréhension des rapports conjugaux au sein des couples princiers ottomans. Ceci permettrait de révéler, en creux, les partis pris subjectifs de l’auteur. Hélas, pour des raisons d’économie de place, il a fallu abandonner cette approche, réservée à un autre article à venir, pour privilégier une démarche à la croisée entre analyse littéraire et philologique. Par un patient travail de reconstitution du contexte historique, associé à une analyse intensive des modes d’écriture, il s’agit de démontrer l’économie romanesque de cet extrait, qui répond moins à une volonté de dire vrai, que de construire une intrigue visant à héroïser son personnage principal, Melek Ahmed Pacha. Compte tenu de la place centrale que tient le récit dans la production de l’analyse, quand bien même le passage en question est bien connu des spécialistes, sa restitution s’impose - au demeurant, cet exercice permet de mettre à disposition du lectorat francophone un texte qui n’existe, à ce jour, qu’en ottoman, en turc ou en anglais. S’ensuit une analyse menée à partir, d’une part, de l’étude du rôle donné aux personnages dans ce texte, sans omettre de discuter la place des absents ; d’autre part, de l’étude de ses cadres spatiaux, qui éclairent les ambitions romanesques de l’auteur. Ceci permettra d’expliquer l’un des ingrédients les plus exceptionnels de cet extrait, à l’origine de son intérêt : l’intrusion dans les sphères privées de la vie intime. Au final, le détour par l’analyse du texte comme une oeuvre proprement littéraire permet de mieux en éclairer les objectifs, comme un rappel contre les usages trop sereins d’Evliya Çelebi comme témoin historique.

I.

Le récit8 Le samedi de la deuxième semaine du mois estimé de Şaban de l’année 1072 [1er avril 1662], il entra en cortège somptueux dans Islambol [Istanbul], la capitale



8 Le passage connaît déjà une traduction en anglais, dans Dankoff 1991. Il me semble, toutefois, que c’est la première fois qu’il est traduit en français – ce qui justifie de le fournir en entier. En outre, il a également donné lieu à un commentaire : cf. Dankoff 1993. Traduction personnelle, effectuée depuis le texte ottoman

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majestueuse [qui compte parmi] les cités antiques, la ville plaisante, c’est-à-dire la cité de Constantinople (que Dieu la protège contre tous les maux !). Notre seigneur le pacha se rendit auprès de Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pacha. Sitôt mis en présence, le grand vizir emmena le pacha devant le souverain fortuné. Durant cette rencontre, le fortuné souverain déclara : « Mon lala Melek, bienvenu ! Sois félicité pour ta guerre sainte en Transylvanie ! Vous m’avez acquis un beau trésor. Soyez-en remercié et que mon pain vous soit donné. » Après une multitude de prières de prospérité, il honora le pacha d’une robe d’honneur en fourrure et de dix bourses de petite monnaie. « Va, épouse ma tante Fatma Sultane et fais usage de ces dix bourses pour les dépenses des festivités », dit-il. Mon pacha fit sa révérence et sortit. Il alla voir et trouver tous ses compagnons ; ils s’embrassèrent et se prirent dans les bras mutuellement à envie, puis se dirent au revoir et [Melek Ahmed Pacha] retourna à son palais, où il fit les sacrifices [d’usage] et reçut les visites de chacun des dignitaires. Dix jours plus tard, la cérémonie nuptiale eut lieu d’après les coutumes du Prophète, le dixième jour du mois sacré de Ramadan [29 avril 1662]. Pendant le mois de Ramadan de l’année 1072 eut lieu l’annonce du mariage de notre Seigneur Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane, la fille de Sultan Ahmed Han. Lors de la nuit de noces, nous discutâmes vivement jusqu’au petit matin dans le palais de Fatma Sultane, [épouse] de Melek Ahmed Pacha, qui se trouve au niveau de la porte d’Ebu Ensari, jusqu’à l’heure de [la prière de] Şafi. Notre seigneur Melek Ahmed Pacha sortit alors plein de rage, toujours dans sa tenue d’origine. Ses yeux étaient arrondis par la colère. Quand ses proches serviteurs lui souhaitairent : « Félicitations pour tes noces ! », il répondit : « Je suis toujours en état de pureté (rituelle) de la prière de la nuit ». L’heure de Hanefi arriva : « Mon tapis de prière ! » réclama-t-il, et il accomplit la prière de l’aurore. Puis il ordonna au pauvre serviteur : « Mon Evliya, prépare ma barque des vendeurs de pastèque à quatre rangées de rames, je dois me rendre quelque part ». Ce pauvre serviteur que je suis répondit : « Mon sultan, l’ensemble des vizirs et des représentants de l’État, des oulémas, des imams, des cheikhs et descendants du Prophète, et tous les autres dignitaires vont venir manger le poça de noces. Où allez-vous ? – Oui, où vais-je ? dit-il, apporte le caïque tout de suite ». Il parlait avec irritation ; je fis aussitôt venir le caïque des vendeurs de pastèque depuis son port d’attache [jusqu’au ponton du palais de Fatma Sultane]. […] Le pacha de perfection convoqua son intendant et son Trésorier, ainsi que ses autres agents et donna ses instructions : « Entretenez mes frères les vizirs et tous les Seigneurs oulémas

édité dans Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî 2011 : 1, 6, 72-77. Cette édition reprend les textes édités en caractères latins, en 10 volumes, réalisés par les Yapı Kredi Yayınları. En ce qui concerne la traduction, la version en français ici proposée n’a pas prétention à corriger la traduction anglaise proposée par Dankoff ; le résultat s’écarte d’ailleurs très peu de cette dernière, si ce n’est quelques différences de formulations (sans réelle modification du sens général) et la restitution des changements répétés de personne (entre le « tu » et le « vous »), forcément invisibles en anglais, mais qui figurent bien en turc ottoman (je n’ai toutefois pas été capable de donner un sens à ce jeu).

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qui vont venir célébrer les noces ; montrez-leur toutes les marques de respect en accord avec les règles et les pratiques [protocolaires]. J’ai une tâche à effectuer. » Le silahdar, le çukadar, le mühürdar et le pauvre que je suis embarquâmes dans le caïque avec le pacha, qui ordonna : « Amenez-nous au Jardin de l’arsenal ». [Arrivée au Jardin de l’arsenal : Melek Ahmed Pacha récite de multiples prières et fournit des explications concernant les origines saintes du jardin] Complainte de Melek à propos de Fatma Sultane, fille de Sultan Ahmed Han : « Mon Evliya, que cela reste un secret. Les tortures que j’ai enduré de cette femme qui est la mienne pendant la nuit de noces jusqu’au matin ne se trouvent pas même chez les captifs de Malte. Que Dieu me pardonne, mais quelle femme immodeste, effrontée et extravagante ! Sitôt entré dans le harem en récitant un besmele, je l’ai vue installée à la place qui lui est dévolue. Maintenant que je suis son mari et que c’est notre toute première nuit, elle se doit d’avoir envers le malheureux que je suis un minimum de respect et d’honneur. Pas une fois, elle n’a remué d’un pouce ; elle est restée bien droite. Le pauvre que je suis s’est approché d’elle et, une fois que j’eus embrassé sa main, elle déclara : “Bienvenue pacha.” – “Avec plaisir. Dieu soit remercié de m’avoir permis de voir la beauté du sourire de ma sultane”, et, de la sorte, je proférais de multiples prières gracieuses, selon la manière coutumière des propos des derviches. À aucun moment, elle ne m’a invité à m’asseoir. Bien qu’elle soit une veuve totalement décrépite qui a connu douze maris, elle prenait des postures et agissait telle une fille chaste non déflorée. La première perle de mots [sortie de ses lèvres] fut la suivante : “Mon cher pacha, si tu veux t’entendre avec moi, que tu sois présent ou absent, en chemin vers tes offices, mes dépenses sont de 15 bourses par mois et chaque mois. J’ai aussi une dette de 100 bourses envers mon intendant, Kiremitçi Mustafa Aga : donne-lui son dû au petit matin. Je reçois encore chaque année [la charge] de bois de six bateaux de Marmara. Quant à mon Selman Beg, mon Ömer Beg, mon Mukbil Aga et mon intendant, [leur entretien] journalier respectif est de 100 boisseaux d’orge chacun, 10 mesures de café, 10 mesures de sucre raffiné et 10 mesures de cire d’abeille.” Elle déclamait ainsi ces dépenses comme si elle récitait un registre de comptes et me les jetait au visage sans interruption. Sont venus ensuite défiler devant moi, qui me tenais toujours debout, tel un simple squelette, son intendante, sa trésorière, ses compagnes et en tout plus de 300 femmes qui lui appartenaient ; [l’une après l’autre], elles venaient baiser la main du malheureux que je suis et se disposaient en rang. “Voilà, mon cher pacha, ce sont mes servantes de l’intérieur. J’ai autant et plus de filles affranchies à l’extérieur ; avec leurs familles et enfants, cela fait en tout 700 personnes. Tu t’acquitteras de la dépense annuelle en soie, gaze, brocard et drap des unes et des autres. Et de même pour les baltacı, les cuisiniers, les başçı, les jardiniers, les voituriers, mes eunuques noirs et mes beys, qui composent mes serviteurs et qui comptent au total 500 personnes. Tout cela sans défaut, sache-le.” À quoi j’ai répondu : “Par Dieu, Madame ma sultane, je rentre juste de la campagne en Transylvanie. Je suis un vizir combattant pour la foi sur la voie de Dieu. Durant cette campagne, j’ai

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nourri 7 000 hommes, dépensé 170 000 pièces d’or et 200 bourses. Il m’a fallu vendre un grand nombre d’équipements, de cuirasses, de casques et d’armes ; et encore que j’emprunte de l’argent aux janissaires. Or, je ne suis pas un tyran qui opprimerait et prendrait les biens [des populations placées sous l’autorité] des offices qui m’ont été confiés, afin de pouvoir te nourrir selon ces dépenses prodigieuses. Je n’ai pas la capacité de couvrir de telles dépenses. Moi-même j’ai quelques serviteurs et domestiques [à entretenir]. Je suis un homme de guerre : ces dépenses sont trop [élevées]. Je vous en prie, réduisez-les un peu. J’ai la capacité de couvrir des dépenses équivalentes à celles de la défunte Kaya Sultane, mais je n’ai pas les ressources pour couvrir des dépenses cinq fois plus importantes !” Elle a aussitôt rétorqué : “Eh, mon cher petit pacha, me considérerais-tu comme Kaya Sultane ? Elle était la fille de mon frère, tandis que je suis la fille de ton seigneur Sultan Ahmed Han. Voyez cet esclave de mon père qui me confond avec Kaya la jeune !” Je lui ai répondu : “Que Dieu me pardonne, ma sultane, il m’est impossible de te confondre avec elle. Tu es la fille de mon seigneur Sultan Ahmed Han, tu es une vieille femme de soixante-dix-sept ans, qui a vécu trop longtemps et a vu trop de visage [d’hommes] : tu as connu douze maris. Tandis que j’ai pris Kaya Sultane quand elle était une fille chaste de treize ans : c’était encore une vierge, qui n’avait vu d’autre visage ni entendu d’autre voix que son père. Elle a vécu comme Rabia la mystique et elle est décédée en étant toujours ma femme. Elle était Kaya İsmihan, une femme sans égale, une lune étincelante. Toi, tu es une vieille femme usée et décrépite, avec des rides au visage. Comment pourrais-je jamais te confondre avec ma sultane ?” La sultane a aussitôt répliqué : “Voyez ce fiancé ! Tu fais savoir que je suis vieille : pourquoi donc m’as-tu prise ?” À cela je lui dis : “Que Dieu me pardonne. Je n’avais certainement aucune idée que j’allais t’épouser. Alors que j’étais sans nouvelles en [pleine] campagne de Transylvanie, toi à İslambol, tu m’as pris [pour époux]. La nouvelle du mariage m’est parvenue en Transylvanie. Juste quand je remerciais Dieu en disant : “Me voilà sauvé des dépenses de Kaya Sultane”, le défunt Köprülü t’a donnée à moi. “J’ai donné un éléphant à Melek, qu’il le nourrisse !” a-t-il déclaré [à cette occasion] ; puis il est décédé. Voilà, je suis maintenant venu à toi. C’est la volonté de Dieu.” La sultane a aussitôt déclaré : “Mon pacha, si tu ne peux pas t’entendre avec moi, je divorcerai de toi, vivant ou mort ! Prépare-toi tout de suite à me donner mon douaire d’un Trésor égyptien !” « Nous nous sommes disputés de la sorte jusqu’au petit matin. Quelle nuit de noces ! Quelle nuit de merde ce fut ! Finalement, une heure avant la prière de l’aurore, je [lui] dis : “Ma sultane, prenez donc toutes les dépenses et prodigalités énumérées. Et si d’aventure je devais revenir [un jour] ici, fasse que Dieu prenne mon âme !” Je suis alors sorti et ai accompli la prière du matin, toujours en état de pureté (rituelle) depuis celle du soir. Nous sommes venus ici ; grâce à Dieu, nos prières ont été acceptées : Dieu me pardonne, je ne retournerai jamais au palais de Fatma Sultane et si Dieu le veut, je ne reverrai jamais son visage. » Dans le Jardin de l’arsenal, il raconta ainsi au pauvre que je suis [= Evliya], en sanglotant et avec moult précisions, le résultat des

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aventures qu’il traversa avec la sultane. Puis nous remontâmes sur le caïque et, parvenus au niveau de la Porte du Jardin, nous enfourchâmes des montures et nous rendîmes directement auprès du grand vizir Köprülüzade Ahmed Pacha. Le grand vizir lui fit les cadeaux [d’usage], lui souhaitant « Que vos noces soient heureuses ! », et ils se rendirent ensemble auprès du souverain fortuné. À l’occasion de cette rencontre, celui-ci félicita le pacha en ces termes : « Mon lala Melek Pacha, que ton mariage avec ma tante soit heureux ! » et il le fit vêtir d’une veste de zibeline. Puis il ajouta : « Mon lala Melek, je t’ai fait deuxième vizir de la coupole aux côtés du grand vizir et t’ai doté du sancak d’Afyonkarahisar comme donation impériale sous forme d’arpalik. » Le patient pacha répondit : « C’est l’ordre de mon souverain » et, en sortant, il se rendit à son palais. Il avait débuté au Conseil impérial depuis trois mois révolus et s’y montrait assidu lorsque ce pauvre malheureux demanda l’autorisation de se rendre à Afyonkarahisar avec le müsallim [= son second dans la hiérarchie des gouvernements provinciaux], mais l’autorisation sacrée lui fut refusée sous le prétexte « Tu seras nécessaire pour quelques jours ». Quelques jours plus tard, quelques calomniateurs et cerbères intrigants sans foi firent courir le bruit : « Melek Ahmed Pacha et Fatma Sultane se sont disputés pendant la nuit de noces », de sorte que, sous forme de ragots [transmis par] les langues des personnes diaboliques, la nouvelle parvint aux oreilles augustes de Sultan Mehmed Han. Un jour d’audience, Son Altesse le fortuné souverain refuge du monde ordonna : « Mon lala Melek Pacha, vous êtes-vous disputés avec ma tante ? Ce sont des choses qui arrivent ; personne ne doit interférer entre un homme et une femme ; mais je vais quand même vous réconcilier et vous faire vous revoir », et il ajouta quelques anecdotes. Le pacha quitta ensuite l’audience et, après [la séance du] conseil, il se rendit à son palais ; il accomplit la prière ebvabin et s’arrêta dans cet état de quiétude.

II. Créer des personnages : les protagonistes II.1. Le confident auteur-spectateur : Evliya Çelebi

Parmi les acteurs présents, Evliya Çelebi tient une place à part ; sa biographie personnelle demeure, toutefois, mal connue9. Il serait né en 1611 à Istanbul, d’un père appelé Derviş Mehmed Ağa, apparemment au service du Palais impérial. Il se proclame descendant de la famille des Germiyanoğulları, du côté de son père, et circassien de la tribu Abaze, du côté de sa mère. Par sa mère, il serait ainsi apparenté aussi bien à Melek Ahmed Pacha qu’à Defterdarzade Mehmed Pacha, voire à Ipşir Mustafa Pacha. Il aurait un frère et une sœur, laquelle aurait épousé Balıkesirli Ilyas Pacha – un des meneurs des révoltes sous Murad IV. Les liens maternels l’affilieraient donc avec les plus grands pachas du xviie siècle, ce qui n’est peut-être pas sans expliquer ses

9 Cf. İlgürel 1995 ; Mordtman 1970 ; Dankoff 1991 ; Dankoff 2006.

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accès à la haute société ottomane. Au demeurant, il exerce régulièrement, à divers titres, auprès de ses parents et alliés – dont Melek Ahmed Pacha. Il aurait suivi une formation en medrese, avant d’entrer au Palais, dans les services de l’Enderûn, parmi les ‘‘artistes’’ qui y officient. Il effectue son premier voyage en 1630, le dernier dans les années 1680. La nature de ses pérégrinations est des plus variables, au gré de ses goûts personnels, mais le plus souvent, elles s’inscrivent dans le cadre de ses fonctions auprès de pachas successifs. Auteur du récit, il joue également un rôle participatif dans les scènes qu’il relate. Il se présente sous une double identité de témoin et de confident : témoin des événements qu’il décrit ; confident des propos qu’il rapporte. Il sert donc doublement de caution au récit. Il faut lui faire confiance, parce qu’il était là, parce qu’il a tout vu, et ce qu’il n’a pas vu, il l’a entendu de la bouche même du pacha, en confidence, sous le sceau du secret. Le récit de la confidence débute d’ailleurs sur l’injonction du pacha : « Mon Evliya, que cela reste un secret ! » Par ce ressort, l’auteur invite subrepticement son audience à donner foi au récit qu’il en fait : il était là, il a tout écouté ; le pacha lui a fait confiance, c’est qu’il n’y a pas de raison de douter de la véracité de son rapport. Cette entrée en matière suscite également l’intérêt, par une plongée immédiate dans l’intrigue : le pacha, énervé, sort de la chambre nuptiale en état de pureté rituelle ; au lieu de recevoir les invités venus le féliciter, il s’échappe dans un jardin aux qualités surnaturelles. Le lecteur est tenu en suspense ; on en rajoute dans l’inouï : il est question de tortures, pires que celles que vivent les prisonniers à Malte. L’évocation devait suffire à effrayer : n’est-ce pas là que les coursiers gardaient les musulmans capturés en mer ? L’île échappe au contrôle ottoman ; elle est entre les mains des infidèles, qui massacrent les musulmans ou les vendent comme esclaves : Malte est donc la porte vers le monde obscur et vers une déchéance humaine et sociale. Et ces tortures, Melek Ahmed Pacha les aurait subies pendant sa nuit de noces : le décalage des genres, la comparaison osée (les prisonniers de Malte n’eussent pas manqué de s’en offusquer) créent un effet de surprise, agrémentée d’une touche d’humour, provoquée par cette exagération volontaire. II.2. La victime : Melek Ahmed Pacha

Immédiatement, une deuxième voix se fait entendre, celle de Melek Ahmed Pacha, qui prend le pas sur celle d’Evliya Çelebi, lequel use dès lors du discours rapporté – avec pour effet de renforcer le sentiment de proximité, de participation spectatrice du lecteur. Evliya ne se fait plus l’intermédiaire entre les propos du pacha et le lecteur : ils sont retranscrits tels quels – du moins est-ce l’effet recherché. Un dialogue s’instaure, par paroles rapportées, entre Melek Ahmed Pacha et Fatma Sultane, entre mari et femme : le lecteur n’est, dès lors, plus dans le Jardin de l’arsenal ; il est transporté au sein même du harem, dans cette chambre nuptiale dont l’accès lui est théoriquement interdit. Il suit l’échange de mots des conjoints, il voit le jeu qui se déroule à force d’attaques et de coups peu amènes : la balle court vite, rendue plus rapide par l’usage répété du mot hemen, « tout de suite, aussitôt ». Mari et femme se répondent sans attendre, tout en introduisant chaque phrase par de doux mots protocolaires (« mon cher pacha », « ma sultane »).

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À ce stade du récit, l’auditoire d’Evliya Çelebi est supposé être largement familier de la figure de ce protagoniste, de sorte qu’il se passe de présentation. Le lecteur d’aujourd’hui n’ayant pas nécessairement cette accointance, il faut la restituer. Quand il épouse Fatma Sultane, Melek Ahmed Pacha n’est pas un nouveau venu sur la scène politique : il approche le faîte de sa vie – et de sa carrière. C’est un kul, un esclave du sultan, formé d’abord sous le patronage d’Ahmed Ier (1603-1617), comme se plaît à le lui rappeler son épouse (« ton seigneur Sultan Ahmed Han », « cet esclave de mon père »), puis sous celui de Murad IV (1623-1640) et de sa mère, la Valide Sultane Kösem. Le lien dynastique avait d’ailleurs été consolidé par son union avec une princesse ottomane, la fille de Murad IV : Kaya İsmihan Sultane. Un mariage heureux, qui dura 15 ans (de 1644 à 1659), jusqu’à la mort de la jeune femme, décédée en mettant au monde leur fille, Fatma Hanım Sultane. Melek Ahmed Pacha n’aurait pas caché sa peine à la mort de la très chère épouse, pleurant publiquement tandis qu’on la mettait en terre – le grand vizir de l’époque, Köprülü Mehmed Pacha, lui en fit d’ailleurs le reproche10. Au demeurant, ce mariage se révéla une alliance profitable pour le pacha, dont le soutien politique de son épouse fut aussi durable qu’efficace, au point de le voir obtenir (brièvement) le sceau de l’État11. Quand cette histoire débute, il rentre tout juste de sa dernière affectation : il vient de se « distinguer » en menant la « guerre sainte » en Transylvanie, sur les frontières de l’Empire. En récompense, il se voit accorder la main d’une seconde princesse. Le fait est rare (je n’en connais qu’un autre exemple, en la personne de Cigalazade Mehmed Pacha, marié successivement à deux sœurs, petites-filles de Mihrimah Sultane, suite au décès prématuré de l’aînée) et souligne à quel point il est considéré comme une personnalité importante, qu’il convient de s’attacher par des liens plus forts que la dépendance maître – serviteur. Pour la seconde fois, il est honoré de la dignité de « gendre impérial » (dâmâd-ı şehriyârî)12, qui lui vaut aussitôt d’être nommé au rang de deuxième vizir. C’est un grand honneur : il siège au Conseil impérial, qui décide quotidiennement de la marche du gouvernement. En outre, cet office lui donne de grandes responsabilités – et les finances qui les accompagnent. Il a encore le privilège de pouvoir rester à la capitale, où les carrières se font et se défont et où se nouent les intrigues : il est au cœur du pouvoir. Enfin, en cas de décès du grand vizir (même dans la force de l’âge, celui-ci n’est pas à l’abri d’un décès soudain), il est en bonne position pour servir de successeur. En arrière-plan, toutefois, se distingue une refonte des rapports de force entre les factions politiques portées par les hauts dignitaires, induite par la mort récente du grand vizir Köprülü Mehmed Pacha et son remplacement – discuté – par son propre fils, Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pacha. Le rappel au siège de ce grand personnage qu’est alors Melek Ahmed Pacha et sa nouvelle union avec une princesse ottomane, bien loin d’être une forme de camouflet, comme le laissent à penser les propos désobligeants

10 Evliya Çelebi 2001, 5 : Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Kütuphanesi Bağdat 307 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu :134. 11 Concernant sa nomination au grand vizirat, voir Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî 2011 : 1, 3, 187-188 ; Dankoff 1991 : 91-92. Pour une explication de cet événement : Dumas 2013a : 281-284. 12 Pour une analyse de cette position honorifique, voir Dumas 2012a ; Dumas 2012b ; Dumas 2013a : chap. 2.

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qu’Evliya Çelebi attribue à ce propos au défunt grand vizir, soi-disant auteur de cette union, sonnent au contraire comme la conclusion d’une recherche de compromis pacifique, qui se scelle par un retour en grâce du futur gendre impérial (je reviendrai plus loin sur l’interprétation à donner à cette union). À ce stade, sa carrière, pleine de rebondissements, à l’image de cette première moitié du xviie siècle, semble donc loin d’être achevée ; elle donnerait même le sentiment de connaître un nouveau souffle13. Hélas, la mort frappe bientôt à sa porte et l’emporte avant d’avoir pu pleinement en profiter : il meurt le 1er septembre 1662. Pourtant, dans cette histoire de mariage, rien ne transparaît de cette brillante carrière ; Melek Ahmed Pacha est présenté comme une victime : de Köprülü Mehmed Pacha, qui le marie à une vieille princesse ; de Fatma Sultane, qui se montre insupportable à son égard ; des mauvaises langues, qui n’hésitent pas à rapporter aux oreilles du sultan des ragots – pourtant vrais, si l’on en croit le récit d’Evliya Çelebi – concernant sa nuit de noces ; et même du sultan, jeune homme tout juste sorti de l’adolescence, qui s’impose comme conseiller conjugal. Victime, surtout, de la politique dynastique, qui jouerait de ses kul et de ses princesses comme de vulgaires pions qu’on peut placer et déplacer au gré des intérêts de la politique : voilà l’auditoire invité à s’apitoyer sur le sort de ces époux – sans considération pour des princesses, encore plus fortement instrumentalisées par la dynastie14. Les chroniques de règne insistent, en effet, sur la nature unilatérale de la prise de décision, dans le cas des mariages de princesses : tout se passe comme si l’ordre était donné par les sultans sous la forme, très impersonnelle, d’un firman impérial adressé aux intéressés (le pacha retenu pour devenir gendre impérial et la princesse qui lui est destinée)15. Les chroniques se font ainsi le relai du discours impérial : le mariage avec une princesse ottomane constituerait un honneur dévolu selon le seul bon vouloir du sultan. Toutefois, si la formulation officielle s’accorde avec l’idéologie dynastique à l’égard des mariages princiers, il revient à l’historien de ne pas prendre ces textes au pied de la lettre. À en croire Evliya Çelebi, Melek Ahmed Pacha n’aurait joué aucun rôle dans cette affaire : il n’aurait rien demandé, n’aurait été informé de rien, tout se serait fait sans son avis, malgré lui : « je n’avais certainement aucune idée que j’allais t’épouser […] toi à Islambol, tu m’as pris [pour époux]. La nouvelle du mariage m’est parvenue en Transylvanie ». Image presque pathétique, qui contraste avec celle du combattant pour la foi, auréolé de victoire. De telles unions supposent pourtant des négociations pré-maritales intensives, tant pour décider du futur gendre impérial, que de la future épouse16. En outre, Evliya Çelebi tait sciemment le prestige et les intérêts politiques très concrets d’une telle union, pour l’heureux élu. Les épouses, tout particulièrement quand elles sont des sultanes, sont avant tout des atouts pour un pacha. Elles se font le relai et les défenseurs des intérêts du conjoint, dans une association d’intérêt qui 13 Dankoff 1991 : 3-14 ; Sarıcaoğlu 2004. 14 Quelques historiens se sont fait le relai de cette image de hauts pachas, malheureux en mariage, contraints aux pires vilenies par leur union avec une princesse ottomane. Voir notamment Uzunçarşılı 1988 : 159-166, largement repris, voire copié, par divers historiens ultérieurs. 15 Dumas 2013a : chap. 2. 16 Dumas 2013a : chap. 2.

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unit les époux au bénéfice de l’ensemble du réseau familial, du couple et des individus eux-mêmes. Les princesses se montrent d’ailleurs particulièrement compétentes sur cet aspect, intercédant en leur faveur pour l’octroi d’offices de premier rang, voire, situation extrême, pour sauver la vie menacée d’un mari17. L’ambition personnelle de Melek Ahmed Pacha peut difficilement être écartée des motifs d’une telle union. II.3. Fatma Sultane l’extravagante versus Kaya Sultane la candide : deux princesses, deux stéréotypes

Quasiment inexistante dans l’ensemble du récit d’Evliya Çelebi (à l’exception notable de l’extrait en question), Fatma Sultane est pourtant loin d’être une pâle figure. Princesse ottomane, elle descend en ligne directe d’Ahmed Ier (1603-1617). Le statut de sultane est extrêmement enviable, car il est sans égal : dans tout l’Empire, les sultanes sont les seules femmes à naître avec une position de supériorité indéfectible. Seule la reine mère (la Valide Sultan) s’élève au-dessus d’elles dans la hiérarchie féminine ; encore ne doit-elle sa position qu’à la réussite de son fils : on n’est pas reine mère à vie, mais par l’élévation du fils au trône. Il n’en demeure pas moins qu’au cours de cette période, la puissance et le pouvoir politique qu’hérite la mère du souverain sont immenses, plus encore en cas de régence, comme c’est le cas au moment du mariage de Fatma Sultane avec Melek Ahmed Pacha. La reine mère est alors Turhan Hadice Sultane, qui exerce la régence au nom de son fils, Mehmed IV (1648-87), monté sur le trône alors qu’il avait tout juste cinq ans. Quand elle épouse Melek Ahmed Pacha, Fatma Sultane n’est plus toute jeune : elle a déjà 54 ans (semble-t-il), ce qui, pour l’époque, fait d’elle une femme d’âge vénérable. Déjà mariée par trois fois par le passé, elle ne connut que des unions de courte durée18. On peut se plaire à imaginer qu’avec l’expérience de ses précédents mariages et la maturité venant, la princesse ait acquis une conception peu romantique du mariage. Pour le moins, elle n’est pas une débutante sans expérience et sait s’imposer. Elle n’est pas décidée à se laisser dominer, ni à être traitée avec moins d’honneur et à moindre coût que lui vaut sa position de princesse du sang. Or, ces femmes naissent et sont éduquées avec une conception très marquée de leur rang et l’assurance de leur supériorité sociale. Kaya İsmihan Sultane, précédente épouse de Melek Ahmed Pacha, décédée trois ans plus tôt19, tient également une place importante dans ce récit, dans le rôle de figure féminine positive, antithèse de Fatma Sultane. Moins portée sur le devant de la scène politique que sa tante, elle est pourtant bien mieux connue de l’historiographie et de l’auditoire d’Evliya Çelebi, du fait de la place exceptionnelle que ce dernier lui accorde dans son récit : non seulement sa présence s’égrène à longueur des volumes, mais en plus, les extraits ont une consistance inhabituelle. Se fondant sur les informations de ce témoin, les historiens ont généralement retenu

17 Dumas 2013a : chap. 4. 18 Uluçay 1992 : 51-52 ; Sakaoğlu 2009 : 233-234 ; Dumas 2013a : chap. 2. 19 Uluçay 1992 : 54-55 ; Sakaoğlu 2009 : 241-242 ; Dumas 2013a : chap. 2.

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l’idée d’amour réciproque et d’entente cordiale qui auraient uni les deux époux. Sans nier un possible attachement réciproque, un excès de crédulité n’est pas de mise. Je plaide que le portrait qui en émerge est volontairement stéréotypé afin de faire de Kaya İsmihan Sultane l’émule de l’épouse parfaite : prompte à venir au secours de son époux (son intervention permit notamment à Melek Ahmed Pacha de devenir grand vizir20), elle se montrerait également discrète et peu coûteuse (au regard des demandes de Fatma Sultane), et surtout, elle n’hésiterait pas à délier les cordons de sa propre bourse pour rétribuer ou sauver de la prison les serviteurs de son époux21. Épouse parfaite encore, parce qu’elle se présente vierge et jeune à son mariage (elle aurait eu treize ans, semble-t-il) – ce qui n’est pas sans expliquer l’ascendant dont le pacha a pu jouir dans son couple22. Si le présent extrait est semé d’indications permettant de souligner cette montée en opposition des deux figures de princesse, il ne fait que rappeler une construction déjà diffuse dans l’ensemble du récit de l’auteur. Les indications et épithètes relatives à Kaya İsmihan Sultane, qui peuvent apparaître ici gratuites, s’appuient en fait sur divers extraits antérieurs. Parmi ces extraits, il faut mentionner le long récit détaillé de la mort de cette princesse, relaté à grand renfort de rêves prémonitoires, et de la part de la sultane elle-même, et de son époux. Véritable crescendo pathétique dans l’œuvre d’Evliya Çelebi, ce passage est exceptionnel à tous points de vue23. Le récit de la mort de Melek Ahmed Pacha, tel qu’il est présenté dans le présent extrait, y répond. Si la mise en scène de la mort de Kaya İsmihan Sultane permet d’insister sur son humilité, son humanité, son attachement à son époux et à ses proches, s’il contribue à pré-construire une forme d’attachement à l’égard de cette sultane et à compatir à la douleur de son époux, ce sont toutefois d’autres extraits qui soulignent le mieux tout l’écart qui semble exister entre les comportements des deux princesses. Kaya İsmihan Sultane surgit, en effet, très tôt dans le texte, dans divers passages relatifs à son action politique en faveur de Melek Ahmed Pacha. À ce titre, il faut noter que la sultane intervient notamment en faveur d’individus au service de son époux, dont elle prend à cœur la protection comme s’ils étaient ses propres serviteurs, n’hésitant pas à débourser des sommes considérables pour leur venir en aide : le contraste avec une Fatma Sultane, réclamant des sommes extraordinaires pour sa propre maisonnée, fût-ce au détriment des intérêts de celle de Melek Ahmed Pacha, est flagrant. Nombre de mentions éparses de la première épouse du pacha spécifiant tels dons, telles distributions de menue monnaie ou cadeaux, indistinctement à ses serviteurs et ceux de la suite de son époux, viennent encore enfoncer le clou. Ailleurs, on retrouve Kaya

20 Dankoff 1991 : 3-14 ; Sarıcaoğlu 2004. 21 Dankoff 1991. J’ai analysé cet événement dans une conférence donnée dans le cadre des rencontres-débats de l’Iremam (Institut des Recherches et d’Étude sur les Mondes Arabes et Musulmans, UMR7310 du CNRS, Aix-en-Provence) le 12 avril 2016 : « Des femmes musulmanes en politique. Les princesses ottomanes » ; le texte a été intégré dans la version remaniée de ma thèse, en cours d’édition (Dumas 2013a, chapitre 3). 22 Sur la question de l’âge au mariage des princesses, Dumas 2013a : chap. 2. Voir également Uluçay 2012. 23 Evliya Çelebi 2001 : 5 : Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Kütuphanesi Bağdat 307 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu : 130-135.

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İsmihan Sultane en train d’organiser une cérémonie de Mevlud – récitation d’un poème en prose relatant la naissance du Prophète, fort apprécié de la haute société ottomane – qui ne manque pas de faire écho avec sa comparaison avec la mystique Rabīʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (voir plus bas). Toutefois, il faut s’interroger sur la capacité de l’auditoire à connaître précisément ces données antérieures concernant la première épouse de Melek Ahmed Pacha. Dans le texte parvenu jusqu’à nous, les divers éléments parsèment le long récit d’Evliya Çelebi, à intervalles étendus et dans des volumes différents. Or, rien ne prouve que le document dispose alors de la mise en forme qu’on lui connaît précisément aujourd’hui (d’après Dankoff, Evliya Çelebi aurait eu le projet de faire un ouvrage spécifique, à la gloire de Melek Ahmed Pacha, dont les passages liés à ce personnage pourraient avoir servi de base)24. Il est encore moins certain que sa lecture et les récitations auxquelles il a pu donner lieu suivaient cet ordre. En outre, quand bien même on considérerait une lecture intégrale et suivie dans l’ordre précis actuel, il y a quelque gageure à supposer que le public ait parfaitement mémorisé les détails de ces extraits relatifs à la personne de Kaya İsmihan Sultane et les ait fraichement en tête au moment d’aborder l’extrait relatif au nouveau mariage de Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane. Je crois important de se prémunir de surinterprétations à partir de lectures contemporaines biaisées par l’usage d’index et d’éditions fragmentaires reconstruisant des cohésions et renforçant le propos élaboré par Evliya Çelebi. Au contraire, il paraît clair qu’il a soin de jouer sur la mise en récit de certains éléments, n’hésitant pas à taire certains détails ou procéder à des ellipses pour produire un véritable discours. De fait, en toile de fond de cette mise en miroir des deux princesses, émerge une critique morale à l’encontre des droits maritaux extraordinaires dévolus aux princesses, qui obligent leurs époux à se soumettre à leur bon vouloir. Les couples princiers exaltent l’idéal de suprématie de la dynastie, qui se proclame sans égale, au-dessus des lois du commun des mortels. Cette exaltation de la supériorité dynastique ottomane, affirmée jusqu’au sein de l’intimité des couples princiers, contrevient aux pratiques conjugales islamiques : ce n’est plus l’homme, mais la femme qui détient la position dominante au sein du couple. La figure de Kaya İsmihan Sultane symbolise, certes, aux yeux d’Evliya Çelebi et de Melek Ahmed Pacha, l’épouse idéale ; tout le contraire de Fatma Sultane, extravagante parce qu’elle ne respecte pas les codes moraux de son époque, qui prônent la soumission de l’épouse à son mari. Or, c’est bien Fatma Sultane qui symbolise le mieux la figure de la princesse ottomane parfaite, telle que la dynastie l’a esquissée progressivement : superbe, exigeante, certaine de son statut de supériorité en tant que membre de la Maison d’Osman et prompte à rappeler à son mari sa condition d’esclave du sultan. L’attitude de Fatma Sultane, comparée à celle de Kaya İsmihan Sultane, permet à Evliya Çelebi de susciter chez son auditoire une réaction critique : comment ne pas plaindre ce pauvre Melek Ahmed Pacha, contraint de vivre avec une femme aussi extravagante et insupportable que Fatma Sultane ? Et de s’insurger contre l’immodestie de ces princesses ottomanes, qui ont le toupet de vouloir tenir tête à 24 Dankoff 1991 : 7.

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leur époux. Ce n’est pas par hasard que Melek Ahmed Pacha compare sa première épouse à « Rabia la mystique » (« Râbi‘a-i Adeviyye »), qui n’est autre que Rabīʿa al-ʿAdawiyya, connue pour ses invectives à l’égard des hommes (et femmes) de son temps, qui adoraient Dieu par intérêt, dans la crainte de Son courroux ou l’espoir de recevoir Ses grâces, plutôt que par amour pour Lui25. Par cette association, qu’il renouvelle à diverses reprises dans son récit, il inscrit la première épouse dans la lignée des musulmanes modèles, entièrement dévouées à Dieu, soumises à Lui, de cœur pur. Au contraire, Fatma Sultane devient l’exemple de ces mauvais musulmans, dont la foi est entachée par leur immodestie, leur superbe, qui les conduit vers une démarche spirituelle moins sincère, que contrainte et ostentatoire. On se croirait en présence de personnages tout droit sortis d’une comédie de Molière ou d’une pièce de Shakespeare. II.4. Les seconds rôles : le sultan, le grand vizir, la reine mère

D’autres personnages sont présents dans le récit, en toile de fond. Certains sont mentionnés nominalement ; d’autres se font invisibles, quand bien même on peut discerner leur présence. Il y a ainsi le sultan régnant, Mehmed IV, un jeune garçon plus intéressé par la chasse que par les affaires gouvernementales, dont il laisse volontiers la gestion à sa mère, Turhan Hadice Valide Sultane26. Celle-ci n’intervient pas dans le récit, pourtant sa présence est palpable : c’est elle qui prend les décisions avec le grand vizir. Le mariage de Fatma Sultane n’a pu se faire sans son assentiment. Köprülüzade Ahmed Pacha, fils aîné du précédent et successeur de Köprülü Mehmed Pacha au grand vizirat, depuis le 30 octobre 1661, se fait également discret : il n’est présent que par absolue nécessité, lorsqu’il convient de l’accompagner auprès du sultan. Il ne vient pas rendre visite au nouveau marié le lendemain des noces (peut-être le protocole ne nécessitait pas sa présence ?) : au final, c’est Melek Ahmed Pacha qui se rend chez lui, en route pour aller se présenter au sultan. Enfin, on note, dans le récit, la disparition de tous les membres de la suite du pacha, sans laquelle il ne se déplaçait certainement pas. Ainsi, embarqués à plusieurs sur le caïque qui entraîne le pacha loin de son épouse, seuls demeurent ensuite, dans le récit, Melek Ahmed Pacha et Evliya Çelebi : les accompagnateurs et rameurs disparaissent sans mot dire, ce qui permet de renforcer le sentiment de confidence intime entre Melek Ahmed Pacha et Evliya Çelebi, entre l’auteur et le lecteur, le narrateur et son public.

25 Sur cette femme mystique, voir Smith 1928 ; Benghal 2000 ; Küçük & Ceyhan 2007. 26 Femme de poigne et avisée, il lui fallut s’imposer malgré et contre la précédente reine mère, probablement la plus puissante de l’ère du « sultanat des femmes » : Kösem Valide Sultane (1589 ?-1651), qui sut habilement manigancer pour rester au pouvoir après la destitution de son dernier fils, İbrahim, père de Mehmed IV et frère de Fatma Sultane. Le conflit se résolut d’ailleurs dans le sang, avec l’assassinat de Kösem sur l’instigation de sa belle-fille, Turhan Hadice (1627 ?-1683). Or, Kösem, ancienne favorite d’Ahmed Ier, n’est autre que la mère de Fatma Sultane : difficile d’imaginer l’état des relations entre ces deux femmes, au-delà de la bienséance protocolaire qui s’impose. Cf. Uluçay 1992 : 48-49 ; Peirce 1993 : chap. 4 ; Sakaoğlu 2009 : 224-232 ; Sakaoğlu 1999.

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Il faut s’étendre un peu plus longuement sur la place du précédent grand vizir (père du premier ministre à l’époque de l’anecdote), Köprülü Mehmed Pacha, sur lequel est reportée la responsabilité de ce mariage malheureux. Aux dires d’Evliya Çelebi, ce choix relèverait d’une volonté mesquine d’ennuyer Melek Ahmed Pacha, perçu comme un rival, tout en se débarrassant des frais d’entretien d’une princesse particulièrement coûteuse : « J’ai donné un éléphant à Melek, qu’il le nourrisse ! », aurait-il déclaré à cette occasion. Or, n’oublions pas qu’une union avec une princesse ottomane est avant tout un honneur – fort coûteux, mais qui n’est pas sans avantages : Melek Ahmed Pacha y gagne tout de même une place au conseil impérial ! Difficile, dans ces conditions, d’accréditer la version du récit d’Evliya Çelebi. C’est l’occasion de revenir sur la question du sens à donner à cette union. Pour cela, un retour aux dates et au contexte politique dans lequel elle s’inscrit s’impose. De fait, Evliya Çelebi étant le principal informateur concernant cette union, il est indispensable de restituer la chronologie des événements, non pas au vu de ce seul extrait, largement à charge, mais à partir des diverses annotations égrenées tout au long de son ouvrage. Il apparaît que la première annonce de cette union émerge sitôt la mort de Kaya Sultane, la première épouse de Melek Ahmed Pacha : devant la peine du mari éploré, Köprülü Mehmed Pacha, alors grand vizir, aurait évoqué l’idée de lui donner une autre princesse pour épouse27. Dans cet extrait, cette proposition est présentée comme la marque d’un manque de tact du grand vizir face à la peine sincère du pacha, de sorte que l’information n’a pas été prise au sérieux. En outre, l’animosité dont témoigne Evliya Çelebi à l’égard du grand vizir et la lecture qu’il donne de l’union de Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane, comme une forme de cadeau empoisonné, a induit une lecture conflictuelle des relations entre Köprülü Mehmed Pacha et Melek Ahmed Pacha. Pourtant, à ce stade, quand le grand vizir formule cette proposition (qui ne dit rien précisément à propos de Fatma Sultane, ni d’un refus de la part de Melek Ahmed Pacha), ce dernier est alors sadâret kaymâkâmı (suppléant du grand vizir), un office dont on imagine mal qu’il ait pu en bénéficier contre l’avis du grand vizir – d’autant plus que celui-ci est réputé pour avoir négocié les pleins pouvoirs comme grand vizir et s’est rendu célèbre pour avoir évincé tous ses opposants28. Dès lors, il faut se concentrer sur la carrière de Melek Ahmed Pacha, après la mort de Kaya Sultane et pendant le grand vizirat de Köprülü Mehmed Pacha. Or, celle-ci est loin de prendre un tournant négatif, bien au contraire, même si elle souligne un redéveloppement des sphères d’activité du pacha. Jusque-là, l’essentiel de ses affectations s’étaient concentrées en Anatolie et en Syrie ; elles s’organisent désormais du côté occidental, entre la province de Roumélie et de Bosnie, avec la participation active aux campagnes sur le front occidental – en Morée, puis en Transylvanie29. Il s’agit alors de positions clés, dans un contexte de guerre longue contre l’Empire austro-hongrois et ses

27 Evliya Çelebi 2001 : 5 : Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Kütuphanesi Bağdat 307 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu : 133. 28 Mantran 1989. 29 Sarıcaoğlu 2004.

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alliés vénitiens. Difficile, dès lors, de continuer à accréditer la thèse d’une relation conflictuelle entre Köprülü Mehmed Pacha et Melek Ahmed Pacha. La datation du mariage constitue un second point de discussion aussi confus que central. Si l’on en croit l’affirmation de Melek Ahmed Pacha à Fatma Sultane durant leur dispute, le mariage aurait été conclu avant même son retour à la capitale, pendant qu’il guerroyait en Transylvanie – soit très probablement en 166130. En effet, il est nommé gouverneur de Roumélie en 1660 et rappelé à la capitale en avril 1662 (la campagne de Transylvanie se déroule dans cet intermède). Cela donnerait alors foi aux assertions selon lesquelles Köprülü père, en fonction à ce moment-là, serait largement responsable de cette union. Pourtant, plus haut dans le texte, Evliya Çelebi semble se contredire, en renvoyant la conclusion du mariage à son retour à la capitale. Il faut ici revenir sur les enseignements apportés par l’étude des cérémonies de mariage des princesses ottomanes. De fait, ces mariages sont loin de se décider dans la précipitation et répondent à de longues tractations et une procédure qui s’étend volontiers dans la durée – tout particulièrement au xviie siècle. Je serai brève et renvoie à mes travaux antérieurs pour plus de détails31. Une fois les négociations abouties, le mariage est conclu juridiquement : pour cela, les représentants des époux se réunissent en présence d’un représentant de l’autorité religieuse et d’un membre de l’administration, qui fait office de scribe – il s’agit du ‘akd-ı nikâh, parfois appelé seulement nikâh. Désormais, légalement, les époux sont bels et bien unis contractuellement. Ni l’époux, ni la princesse ne participent personnellement à cet événement, quand bien même ils seraient présents dans la capitale au moment de sa conclusion. Toutefois, dans le cas de secondes noces d’une princesse, il arrive bien souvent que l’époux se trouve alors en poste en province : la nuit de noces, qui devrait théoriquement suivre de près la conclusion du mariage, est alors différée jusqu’au moment du retour. On notera que, dans le récit d’Evliya Çelebi, une certaine association est faite entre la signature de ce contrat, pendant que Melek Ahmed Pacha est sur le front, et son retour à la capitale, comme s’il avait fallu que l’union ait été effectivement scellée pour justifier son rappel. Une fois l’époux rentré, il ne faut pas longtemps pour qu’ait lieu la nuit de noces – le temps pour lui de mettre en ordre ses affaires et de se préparer pour recevoir sa royale épouse. Le court délai s’explique par le fait que, même de moindre importance (absence de parade nuptiale grandiose), une telle union demeure une cérémonie qui convoque une partie de l’élite ottomane : elle nécessite dès lors quelques préparatifs. La réception du pacha par le sultan, au cours de laquelle celui-ci semble lui annoncer son mariage avec Fatma Sultane, doit être lue avec précaution : en fait, le sultan n’apprend rien au pacha de son union royale, mais confirme et autorise la tenue de la nuit de noces et, dès lors, la concrétisation de l’union pré-conclue. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’il arrive que durant cet interstice de temps, le pacha déçoive et que la dynastie revienne sur sa décision antérieure. C’est ce qui s’est passé, par exemple, avec Hasan Pacha qui, marié contractuellement à Emine Sultane (fille de Mustafa II – 1695-1703)

30 Sarıcaoğlu 2004 ; Alper 1999. 31 Dumas 2013a : chap. 3.

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en 1702, en parallèle à sa nomination à la tête de la caravane annuelle de pèlerinage, devait recevoir son épouse à son retour : las, la mauvaise gestion de son office aurait entraîné sa défaveur et l’annulation de son mariage32. D’un point de vue purement légal, on ne sait pas bien comment se résolvait ce genre de situation. L’absence de relations sexuelles entre les époux rendait, dans tous les cas, l’annulation du mariage plus aisée. Melek Ahmed Pacha ne se retrouve pas dans ce cas de figure : sa réussite militaire confirme son élévation au rang de gendre impérial et il est invité à prendre possession de ses droits maritaux – voilà, en substance, ce que dit l’intervention du souverain, qui octroie, comme c’est souvent le cas, une petite gratification financière au gendre, comme contribution pour ses frais de cérémonie à venir. Toutefois, la confirmation impériale peut aussi prendre une seconde consistance car, entre la conclusion contractuelle du mariage et le retour du pacha, un changement de grand vizirat s’est produit, ce qui est bien souvent le signe d’un renversement des rapports de force entre factions. Melek Ahmed Pacha pouvait alors craindre le pire : une disgrâce, formalisée par l’annulation de son union. D’autant que son grand âge pouvait lui faire redouter une mise à la retraite prochaine. La consécration de cette union, lors d’une audience impériale, par le souverain lui-même, prend donc un sens symbolique fort : Melek Ahmed Pacha est confirmé dans sa position de personnage fort du gouvernement – il est tout de même nommé second vizir dans la foulée… Non seulement, la dynastie réaffirme son désir de renouveler son alliance avec lui ; mais en plus, cette alliance signe également la poursuite de la bonne entente entre la faction portée par Melek Ahmed Pacha et celle de la famille Köprülü, dont le fils aîné vient de prendre la succession du père au grand vizirat. Loin d’être une punition, le mariage de Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane est, pour ce vieux dignitaire, une véritable aubaine qui l’installe de nouveau au sommet de l’édifice gouvernemental ottoman. En creux, on voit comment l’art littéraire d’Evliya Çelebi manipule des données historiques tout à fait véridiques, pour les mettre en scène de façon particulière. Il apparaît dès lors très clair que cette réorganisation subtile des événements répond à un exercice discursif précis, dont il s’agit de dénouer les fils pour en restituer les logiques. Il ne ment pas, il travestit les faits historiques, dans une mise en intrigue volontaire.

III. Planter le décor : les lieux III.1. Les palais, sièges de l’intimité

Le palais de Fatma Sultane sert de cadre spatial autour duquel se construit le récit, si ce n’est physiquement, du moins dans les évocations qui y sont faites : l’histoire a beau être racontée ailleurs et entraîner le lecteur dans d’autres endroits, tout tourne autour de ce palais. Topkapı, centre du pouvoir et résidence privée du sultan, se présente comme un lieu intercalaire : chacune des rencontres avec le sultan, qui 32 Râşid 1865 : 2, 529 ; voir la traduction dans Dumas 2013a : 618-619.

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scande le récit, se termine par l’envoi, effectif ou planifié, de Melek Ahmed Pacha auprès de Fatma Sultane. Ainsi, la première entrevue avec Mehmed IV débouche presque aussitôt, par une ellipse, sur la nuit de noces chez Fatma Sultane. La seconde se tient le lendemain ; elle est encore associée au mariage : Melek Ahmed Pacha est reçu par le sultan, qui l’honore d’une robe d’honneur et le promeut au poste de second vizir, parce qu’il est devenu gendre impérial. Si le nouveau gendre impérial vient de jurer de ne plus remettre les pieds chez Fatma Sultane, il ne se prive pas d’endosser les bénéfices de ses noces. Lors de la dernière rencontre, le sultan s’engage à réconcilier les époux : Melek Ahmed Pacha serait alors amené à rompre sa promesse… mais Dieu entend sa prière et le délivre avant d’être contraint au parjure. Le palais de Fatma Sultane sert ainsi de lieu (répulsif) de référence à l’ensemble de l’aventure du pauvre pacha, quand le palais de Topkapı, pour sa part, tient le rôle de fil conducteur permettant de faire avancer l’histoire, d’en presser les événements. Nous ne savons rien du palais de cette princesse, si ce n’est, d’après les informations fournies par Evliya Çelebi, qu’il se situe dans le quartier d’Eyüp et est doté des caractéristiques typiques d’une résidence en bord de mer. La terminologie employée est intéressante : Evliya Çelebi ne parle pas de yalı – ce terme est inexistant dans les sources de l’époque – ; il n’utilise pas non plus le mot sahilsaray, que l’on trouve dans d’autres sources du xviie siècle, pour spécifier ces « palais de bord de mer »33. Pour Evliya Çelebi, l’élément important est que cette résidence appartient à Fatma Sultane – ce qui lui vaut l’appellation de palais (saray). Néanmoins, Melek Ahmed Pacha s’en échappe en requérant d’Evliya Çelebi qu’il aille chercher une barque, ce qui ne laisse aucun doute sur sa présence à proximité du bras de mer de la Corne d’or, particulièrement apprécié des membres de l’élite. Pour l’historien, cette précision est capitale. Les noces ne se déroulent pas dans une habitation quelconque du pacha (le mari), mais au domicile de la princesse (l’épouse). Or, le choix du lieu des noces est hautement symbolique de l’état des rapports de genre au sein d’un couple. Contrairement aux pratiques traditionnelles en cours dans la société ottomane, ici, c’est bien le mari qui prend résidence chez son épouse, non la femme qui entre au domicile de son époux – soit un renversement des rapports de force au sein du couple, au bénéfice de la princesse34. Au jour du mariage, la résidence répond ainsi à une logique uxorilocale. Au petit matin, les membres de l’élite viennent y féliciter l’heureux élu, en sa condition de nouveau gendre impérial, de dâmâd-ı şehriyârî – un état intimement lié à la personne de la princesse, puisque sans elle, il ne saurait accéder à cette dignité. On souligne toutefois le fait qu’il n’en a pas toujours été ainsi. Jusqu’au xviie siècle, les cérémonies de mariage se déroulaient au domicile de l’époux. Les sources sont indiscutables : au cours de la parade nuptiale, les princesses étaient escortées par les hauts dignitaires ottomans du domicile paternel (tantôt Topkapı, tantôt le Vieux

33 Cf. Dumas 2010a. 34 Il ne s’agit là que de l’un des aspects qui illustrent ce renversement des rapports de force au sein des couples princiers ; cf. Dumas 2013a : chap. 2.

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Palais) au palais de leur mari. La répartition spatiale de l’événement respectait alors les conceptions islamiques du couple, selon lesquelles l’époux dirige sa maison, sa famille et son couple. Dès le début du xviie siècle, les pratiques évoluent – par étapes, sur lesquelles il n’est pas essentiel de s’attarder ici35. Les filles d’Ahmed Ier, mariées à plusieurs reprises sous le règne de ses successeurs, sont les premières princesses pour lesquelles les noces se déroulèrent ainsi au sein de leur palais, au détriment de celui de leur époux. Or, Evliya Çelebi inscrit l’information sans s’en choquer, preuve qu’en 1660, la pratique s’est déjà imposée. Le xviie siècle a donc renforcé l’expression symbolique de la puissance des princesses sur leurs époux, en la rendant publique, à travers l’habitat. III.2. La route de la délivrance : de Transylvanie à Afyonkarahisar

La Transylvanie et Afyonkarahisar sont à peine évoqués dans le récit. Leur rôle symbolique est pourtant non négligeable : ils encadrent, spatialement, l’ensemble de l’histoire. La Transylvanie représente, pour Melek Ahmed Pacha, tout autant un lieu d’exil que de gloire : il s’y est distingué aux yeux du sultan, comme devant Dieu. Là (se plait-il à répéter), il a dépensé sans compter ; là, il a mis toute son énergie au service de la guerre sainte ; il y est devenu un guerrier pour la foi, un gazi. Parce qu’il a placé l’honneur de son souverain et de son Dieu avant ses intérêts propres, ce qu’il a perdu en richesses lui est rendu : d’abord par le sultan, par sa nouvelle nomination qui fait suite à son élévation honorifique par voie matrimoniale, ensuite par Dieu, qui le reconnaît parmi les siens – telle une promesse pour l’au-delà. Afyonkarahisar, à l’autre extrémité du récit, tient un rôle assez similaire, comme lieu d’auto-exil espéré. Le fait que Melek Ahmed Pacha n’ait pas choisi cette localité en particulier n’est d’aucune importance : elle est devenue son bien propre, en guise de rétribution pour ses bons offices et, à ce titre, le lien avec la Transylvanie est direct et permet de voir dans la période de sa nomination au conseil et ses tourments conjugaux comme une intermède, une parenthèse, sur une route qui l’emmène vers le paradis. Melek Ahmed Pacha ne cesserait de demander l’autorisation de s’y retirer : rien n’y fait, ses demandes essuient chaque fois des refus. Ce faisant, il est maintenu dans ses souffrances ; pire, on prétend l’obliger à retourner auprès de son tortionnaire. Il faut l’intervention divine pour libérer Melek Ahmed en lui offrant la paix éternelle. L’interprétation de ce passage comme le résultat d’une construction littéraire se fonde sur plusieurs indices. Tout d’abord, la lecture des événements proposés par Evliya Çelebi invite au scepticisme : revenu au faîte du pouvoir, sur les premières marches du vizirat, le pacha n’aspirerait qu’à une retraite bien méritée. Aurait-il été malade, voire dans l’attente imminente de sa mort, suite à quelque rêve prémonitoire dûment interprété auquel l’auteur a habitué son auditoire ; la chronologie serait-elle différente et, au lieu d’un exercice de quelques mois, s’agirait-il de plusieurs années ; 35 Dumas 2013a : chap. 3.

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n’aurait-il donné aucun signe de désir de maintien politique, en refusant, par exemple, d’épouser une seconde princesse ; il serait alors tentant de suivre la proposition d’Evliya Çelebi selon laquelle, lassé de ses charges, il aurait émis le souhait répété de prendre sa retraite. Au demeurant, on peut émettre quelques doutes sur ces prétendus refus réitérés de le laisser partir, au motif que sa présence serait indispensable à la cour : les candidats à son remplacement ne manquaient certainement pas et il y a peu de raison de supposer qu’aucun d’entre eux n’aurait su faire l’affaire – que ce soit en termes de compétences, de maturité politique, voire même de bonnes accointances. À cela s’ajoute un dernier élément : le silence d’Evliya Çelebi concernant les causes du décès du pacha, d’autant plus surprenant que Mehmed Süreyya suggère qu’il serait mort de la peste36. Tous ces éléments invitent à reconsidérer la rédaction de ce passage, finalement assez obscure, pour tenter de lui donner du sens. Le fait est que le décès est aussi brutal qu’inattendu et qu’on ne comprend pas bien pourquoi Afyonkarahisar est mentionné, sauf si l’on considère que, face à une mort peu glorieuse, comme suite à la peste (hypothétiquement), Evliya Çelebi a choisi de mettre en place une stratégie littéraire visant à réécrire de façon positive la mort de son parent et ami. Toutes les pièces du puzzle font alors sens pour clarifier ce texte, qu’il convient de relire intégralement : le récit de cette nuit de noces n’est qu’un prétexte pour amorcer la construction de son personnage en héros malheureux, en passe de devenir martyr. Or, pour y parvenir, il lui faut des péripéties douloureuses, au cours desquelles la force de caractère du héros, sa vaillance (physique ou spirituelle) est testée – après la guerre sainte, ce sont les invectives insoutenables de son épouse, puis les ragots, soit la non reconnaissance de sa juste valeur, qui se transforme même en manque de respect à son égard. Il lui faut alors faire preuve de résilience et d’acceptation face à son destin. Enfin, il lui faut une belle mort, une mort qui sonne comme une délivrance, mais aussi une mort choisie par Dieu, comme la marque de son élection, l’annonce de sa salvation prochaine. Pour cela, Evliya Çelebi a soigneusement placé ses jalons : la promesse devant Dieu (dans un jardin chargé de valeurs surnaturelles) de ne jamais remettre les pieds chez son épouse ; son maintien forcé en politique, quand il n’aspirerait qu’à une retraite spirituelle ; enfin, l’injonction impériale de réconciliation, le plaçant face au dilemme de parjure ou de lèse-majesté. Il peut alors mourir sereinement – d’autant plus que, intuition ou foi totale en la clémence divine, il a accompli sa prière funéraire… Au lecteur sceptique devant cette accumulation de procédés littéraires, j’ajouterai que ce n’est pas la première fois qu’Evliya Çelebi procède à une telle construction. En effet, le parallèle entre le récit de cette mort et celle de sa première épouse, Kaya 36 Mehmed Süreyya est un auteur très postérieur à ces événements, ce qui invite à quelque prudence face à ses allégations. Toutefois, à son actif, il faut noter que son recueil de notices des grands personnages de l’Empire s’est largement abreuvé à de multiples sources ottomanes, dont les chroniques d’époque, mais aussi les stèles funéraires (qui lui ont permis de fournir tant d’informations prosopographiques précieuses). Il est certain que ses notices recèlent des erreurs et qu’il ne peut être une source historique suffisante ; néanmoins, il est souvent fort juste dans ses informations, de sorte qu’il est difficile de le disqualifier complètement. Mehmed Süreyya 1996 : IV, 509.

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İsmihan Sultane, pour laquelle l’auteur avait de toute évidence un profond respect et beaucoup d’affection, est tout à fait remarquable. Là aussi, Evliya Çelebi fait entrer son lecteur au cœur de l’intimité de la protagoniste, dont il raconte la mort avec force détails macabres ; là encore, il insiste sur les souffrances ante mortem (celles-là physiquement bien réelles), de sorte que la mort sonne comme une délivrance. Dans le cas de Kaya İsmihan Sultane, l’auteur utilise d’ailleurs le terme de şehide (celle qui est morte en martyre). Dans les deux cas, il fait fleurir le pathétique sur le terreau d’une souffrance intime, sur laquelle il appelle la compassion. L’intrusion dans un cadre privé serait alors un moyen de renforcer le sentiment des intenses tourments subis par les protagonistes.

Conclusion Il n’est plus besoin de rappeler à quel point le Seyyahatname d’Evliya Çelebi est plurisémique. Au gré des pages, les changements de registre se multiplient, obligeant les chercheurs à les analyser de façon non linéaire. L’auteur procède volontiers à des jeux de rappel internes, entre différents passages de son oeuvre, tandis que la distance chronologique et culturelle qui sépare son contexte de production avec celui de son étude scientifique oblige à rechercher, dans la finesse de détails devenus à peine perceptibles, toute la subtilité des partis pris de l’auteur. Le présent extrait compte parmi ces passages qui, en apparence aisés à appréhender, relèvent en fait d’une construction délicate et subtile, qui ne doit rien au hasard : loin de la confession autobiographique, rédigée presque sur le vif, comme Evliya Çelebi voudrait le laisser à penser, le récit du mariage de Melek Ahmed Pacha avec Fatma Sultane répond à un exercice littéraire réfléchi, visant à offrir à son parent et ami une belle mort, une mort digne d’un héros. Pour cela, il use de procédés littéraires, au risque de tordre certains faits, de dissimuler nombre d’informations pourtant bien connues, d’exagérer jusqu’à la caricature les caractères de ses personnages. Dès lors, c’est avec la plus grande prudence qu’il faut appréhender ce texte, dont l’intérêt réside moins dans ses données historiques (tant elles sont déformées par les partis pris littéraires), que comme un récit romanesque, empreint des subjectivités moralisatrices de son auteur, qui restent à analyser dans une prochaine contribution. Le récit de la belle mort de Melek Ahmed Pacha ne devrait-elle pas se lire comme une critique discrète de la pratique dynastique des mariages des princesses ottomanes, qui font de ces femmes le conjoint dominant du couple - soit une inversion des rapports de force conjugaux, tels qu’ils étaient alors prônés par la société ottomane ?

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Références bibliographiques 1.

Sources éditées

Dankoff, Robert, (éd.), The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman : Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-1662) as Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels, New York : State University of New York, 1991. Dankoff, Robert, « Marrying a Sultana : The Case of Melek Ahmed Paşa », in Farah, Caesar E., (éd.), Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire, Kirksville, Missouri : Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993 : 169-182. Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, Topkapı Sarayı Kütuphanesi Bağdat 307 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsyonu, éd. Dankoff, Robert, Kahraman, Seyyit Ali, & Dağlı, Yücel, Istanbul : Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2001 : vol. V. Evliyâ Çelebi b. Derviş Mehemmed Zıllî, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, 2 volumes, 10 tomes, Istanbul : Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2011. Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmanî. Osmanlı Ünlüleri, éd. Kahraman, Seyyit Ali, 6 volumes, Istanbul : Tarih Vakf Yurt Yayınları, 1996. Râşid, Râşid Târîh, 6 volumes, Istanbul, 1865. 2. Travaux Alper, Ömer M., « Ahmed Paşa (Melek) », dans Yaşamları ve Yapıtlarıyla Osmanlılar Ansiklopedisi : 1999 vol. I, 150-151. Benghal, Jamal-Eddine, La Vie de Rabi‘a Al-‘Adawiyya : une sainte musulmane du viiième siècle, Iqra, 2000. Dankoff, Robert, An Ottoman Mentality : The World of Evliya Çelebi, Leiden, Boston : Brill, 2006. Dumas, Juliette, « Hücreden Saraya : 15-18. Yüzyıllarda Osmanlı Konutları », Toplumsal Tarih 193 (2010a) : 18-25. Dumas, Juliette, « Osmanlı Hareminden Fransız Sarayına : 16. Yüzyılda Osmanlı ve Fransız Prensesleri Arasında Bir Karşılaştırma », Toplumsal Tarih 202 (2010b) : 77-83. Dumas, Juliette, « Prenseslerin Değeri  : 16. Yüzyılda Osmanlı ve Fransız Prensesleri Arasında Bir Karşılaştırma », Toplumsal Tarih 203 (2010c) : 76-81. Dumas, Juliette, « Des esclaves pour époux… Réflexion sur les stratégies matrimoniales de la dynastie ottomane », Clio. Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés 34 (2011a) : 255-275. Dumas, Juliette, « Bir Prenses Bir Kulla Evlenirse  : 14. Yüzyıldan 15. Yüzyılın İlk Yarısına, Osmanlılarda İlkel Evlilik Sistemi », Toplumsal Tarih 209 (2011b) : 86-91. Dumas, Juliette, « Bir Prenses Bir Kulla Evlenirse II  : Osmanlıların Sıradışı Evlilik Sistemi (15. Yüzyıl Ortalarından 16. Yüzyıl Ortalarına) », Toplumsal Tarih 210 (2011c) : 36-42. Dumas, Juliette, « Tanım ve Kulanımlarıyla : Klasik Çağda Dâmâd-ı Şehriyârî », Toplumsal Tarih 226 (2012a) : 34-40. Dumas, Juliette, « Evlilikle Gelen Ek Yükümlükler : Erken Modern Dönemde Dâmâd-ı Şehriyârî II », Toplumsal Tarih 227 (2012b) : 72-79.

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Dumas, Juliette, « Les perles de nacre du Sultanat. Les princesses ottomanes (mi-15e - mi18e s.) », thèse de doctorat, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2013a. Dumas, Juliette, « La princesse et l’esclave… Pragmatisme politique et stratégies matrimoniales à la cour ottomane (xive – mi-xvie siècle) », dans Malamut, E., et Nicolaïdes, A., (éd.), Impératrices, princesses, aristocrates et saintes souveraines. De l’Orient chrétien musulman au Moyen Âge et au début des Temps Modernes, Aix-enProvence : Presses universitaires de Provence, 2014 : 171-191. Garcin, Jean-Claude, (éd.), Lectures du roman de Baybars, Marseille : Éditions Parenthèses, 2003 [Parcours Méditerranéen]. Garcin, Jean-Claude, Pour une relecture historique des Mille et une nuits. Essai sur l’édition de Bulâq, Arles : Actes Sud / Sindbad, 2013. İlgürel, Mücteba, « Evliya Çelebi », dans Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi vol. 11 (Istanbul 1995) : 529-533. Küçük, Hülya, et Ceyhan, Semih, « Râbia El-Adeviyye », dans Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi Istanbul 34 (2007) : 380-382. Mantran, Robert, « L’Etat ottoman au xviie siècle  : stabilisation ou déclin  ? », dans Mantran, R., (éd.), Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris : Fayard, 1989 : 227-264. Mordtman, Johannes H., « Evliya Celebi », dans Encyclopedia of Islam. New Edition : vol. II (1970) : 717-720. Peirce, Leslie P., The Imperial Harem : Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1993. Sakaoğlu, Necdet, « Kösem Sultan », dans Yaşamları ve Yapıtlarıyla Osmanlılar Ansiklopedisi, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, Istanbul, 1999, 37-39. Sakaoğlu, Necdet, Bu Mülkün Kadın Sultanları. Vâlide Sultanlar, Hâtunlar, Hasekiler, Kadınefendiler, Sultanefendiler, Istanbul : Oğlak Yayıncılık, 2009. Sarıcaoğlu, Fikret, « Melek Ahmed Paşa », dans Türk Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 29, Ankara : 2004, 42-44. Smith, Margaret, Rābi’a the Mystic and Her Fellow-Saints in Islām : Being the Life and Teachings of Rābi’a Al-’Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya of Basra Together with Some Account of the Place of the Women Saints in Islām, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1928. Uluçay, Çağatay M., Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları, Ankara : Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1992. Uluçay, Çağatay M., « Beş Yaşında Iken Nikâhlanan ve Beşikte Nişanlanan Sultanlar », in Koz M. S., et Şahin H., (éd.), Sancaktan Saraya, Seçme Yazılar, Istanbul : Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2012 : 285-291. Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı, Osmanlı Devletinin Saray Teşkilâtı, Ankara : Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1988. Veyne, Paul, Comment on écrit l’histoire, Paris : Le Seuil, 1996.

Professional Lineages and Transmission

Sandra Aube

Family Legacy Versus Regional Style: Tracing Three Generations of Woodworkers in Māzandarān (Iran, 1460s-1500s)

Woodworkers are among the barely visible corporations of Iranian craftsmanship. In the nineteenth century, carpenters were probably one of the larger groups of craftsmen, with families of woodworkers engaged in their craft for at least three generations.1 Yet nothing is known about their organization during the medieval and pre-modern periods in Iran: textual sources do not mention woodworkers, no documentation related to their medieval corporations has been kept, and carpenters, joiners, cabinet makers are generally not mentioned in biographical dictionaries. The signatures they applied on some of their masterpieces appear to be one of the latest evidence to investigate their milieu. In the meantime, wood being a fragile material, most of medieval wooden works have now disappeared. In this context, the Māzandarān region (Northern Iran, see the map) offers a rare opportunity to enter the woodworkers’ milieu. In the tenth century, this remote area was already providing timber for wooden furniture productions in Rayy, Qum or Isfahan region.2 Woodworkers felled and sawed, but also sculpted the wood on the spot and developed regional workshops.3 In the fifteenth century, this network of workshops is of particular interest for the pieces created for architectural contexts: beams and carpentry production on the one hand, but also lattice panel productions on the other hand, sculpted by joiners and cabinet makers to create doors, windows or cenotaphs. Fortunately, a great number of these latter joiner works is still intact (about fifty pieces have been already identified). Most of them are wooden doors and cenotaphs made for medieval mausoleums



1 Floor 2006: 166. From textual evidences, Floor attempts to establish the number of woodworkers in several Iranian cities in the nineteenth century. 2 See studies by Wulff 1966: 81, and Floor 2006: 168. 3 See Floor 2006: 168. For instance, Āmul is known for having produced wooden vessels from the tenth century onward. Sandra Aube  •  CNRS, Centre de recherche sur le monde iranien – UMR 8041 Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 197-217 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122936

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Fig. 1. Family tree of the woodworker Ustād Aḥmad Najjār and his descendants (drawing: Sandra Aube).

related to the early development of Shi‘i ideologies in the region.4 They date back to the period between 1420 and 1510 and many of them reveal the signatures of the woodworkers (Pers. najjār).5 These dated signatures, related to a quite limited area, provide new insight into a barely known corporation. Their substantial number indicates the recognition of these masters among the community of craftsmen. But more importantly, they give access to individuals, constituting an opportunity to reconstruct the career of a craftsman, while the onomastics offer the possibility to identify families of woodworkers. The present contribution aims at reconstituting one of these families, drawing on their remaining woodworks.6 In 1978, Adrian Bivar and Ehsan Yarshater established the first connections between Master Aḥmad Najjār, his sons Shams al-Dīn and Ḥusayn b. Ustād Aḥmad, and his grandson Muḥammad b. Ustād Ḥusayn (Fig. 1).7 Following these opening steps, this article attempts to go back to each generation and fill in additional information on this family. The mausoleums or imāmzādas in which the woodworks were kept have been largely restored — or even rebuilt —



4 On the early emergence of Sufi movements and the development of Shi‘i ideologies in the regions of Māzandarān and Gīlān, see in particular Hermann 2004, Calmard 1971 and Calmard 1986. 5 The study of fifteenth-century Māzandarānī mausoleums and their woodworks is an ongoing project started in the framework of the ANR-DFG DYNTRAN project (Dynamics of Transmission: Family, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, fifteenth-seventeenth centuries). 6 In a previous article, I attempted to trace back the lineage of another family over at least three generations: the Māzandarānī woodworker Ustād Fakhr al-Dīn and his father, his brother and his son, who worked between the 1440s and 1500s around the cities of Bābul and Sārī. See Aube 2017: 283-303. 7 Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 8-9.

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Map 1. Map of Māzandarān with main towns, locating the activities of Ustād Aḥmad Najjār’s family members (© E. Giraudet and S. Aube, CNRS, CeRMI, 2020).

over the last decades. Many woodworks that were briefly recorded in the past have now disappeared.8 Despite some missing evidence, this family corpus constitutes a significant resource to explore. Its epigraphic data allows us to follow the footsteps of a family workshop for about forty years (between the 870s and the 910s/about 1465-1505). Its stylistic study offers a first understanding on how skills and models were transmitted within such a family framework.9 By following the careers of three generations of woodworkers, this article attempts to examine the transmission of decorative models and to assess the influence of regional trends within this family’s production.



8 I have started to inventory fifteenth-century Māzandarānī woodworks thanks to studies carried out before the 1980s. See in particular Bivar and Yarshater 1978, as well as Rabino 1928, Hillenbrand 1974, Sutūda 1977. 9 Written and visual sources dealing with the processes of transmission of architectural knowledge in Medieval Iran are extremely limited. A number of them disappeared due to their wide and practical use, like the decorative models for architecture. About the rare known theoretical or practical handbooks addressed to craftsmen working on architectural sites, and medieval drawings and designs for architecture, see in particular: Holod 1988, Necipoğlu 1995 and Necipoğlu 2017. Yet, it is worth underlining that the woodworkers often formed quite an independent group in this context.

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I.

Tracing a Family of Woodworkers

I.1. The Master Aḥmad Najjār b. Ḥusayn-i Sarāvī

The earliest stage of this lineage is also the least well known. Ustād Aḥmad Najjār b. Ḥusayn-i Sarāvī was probably born around the 830s (i.e. more or less the 1420s).10 He is recorded for having worked several times on the imāmzāda of Qāsim b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim, in the city of Bābul, between 870/1465 and 888/1483. Unfortunately, this building has been largely transformed and enlarged over the last decades11 and all of Ustād Aḥmad’s wooden works are now missing. Its oldest woodwork was a double door, signed by (ʿamal-i) Ustād Aḥmad Najjār bin Ḥusayn on its right leaf, and dated to Muḥarram 870/September 1465 on its left leaf.12 Eighteen years later, Ustād Aḥmad Najjār signed a cenotaph for the same monument, dated to the year 888/1483.13 Rather than specifying his genealogy (bin Ḥusayn), the woodworker chose here to indicate his nisba (Sarāvī, i.e. from Sārī). This is his latest woodwork. As far as I know, no photograph of these pieces has ever been published. Another cenotaph was attributed to Ustād Aḥmad Najjār by Leo Ary Mayer,14 but its identification is still unsure. This wooden cenotaph is now kept at the museum of the Rhode Island School in Design, in Providence (USA).15 It was commissioned for the imāmzāda of Qāsim b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim by a local ruler, the Bādūspanīd Jalāl al-Dīn Gustaham b. Malik Ashraf Ustāndār. Its inscription commemorates Tāj al-Mulk va-l-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim and indicates that the woodwork was completed in Ramażān 877/February 1473. It ends with a signature whose reading is not completely clear: ʿamal-i Ustād Aḥmad Najjār va [?] Ḥus[ayn] ibn Ḥas[an].16 This signature might suggest the collaboration of two woodworkers instead of one. It

10 The calculation of birth dates, for each member of this family, is based on a subjective estimated gap of more or less 20 years between each generation, corroborated with the dates of their woodworks. It appears that the 20-years’ gap cannot be extended much, except maybe for Shams al-Dīn, whose career is more difficult to date precisely. 11 According to Robert Hillenbrand, this monument was in a good state of preservation in August 1968; however, he was not allowed to enter the building so we don’t know if the woodworks were still being kept inside (Hillenbrand 1974: 348-349). For an illustration of the original appearance of the building, see Hillenbrand in: Golombek and Wilber 1988: II, pl. 472. 12 After Rabino 1928: 18 (Persian text); also quoted by Mayer 1958: 29, and Kalus 2017: no. 12519. See also Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 435. 13 Mishkātī 1970: 182. See also: O’Kane 1987: 380 no. 89; also quoted by: Kalus 2017: no. 36261. The form of the signature in 888/1483-1484 is supposed to be: Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sāravī. 14 Mayer 1958: 27. 15 Rhode Island School in Design [RISD] Museum, inv. 18.728. Mayer 1958 gives a consistent bibliography on this cenotaph. More recently, see: Lentz and Lowry 1989: 207 and cat. no. 111, and Komaroff 2011: 55, Fig. 47, as well as the RISD Museum website: https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/ cenotaph-taj-al-mulk-wal-din-abul-qasim-18728 (last accessed 01/12/2020). 16 Due to its state of preservation, the signature could equally be read: ʿamal-i Ustād Aḥmad Najjār va Ḥasan ibn Ḥusayn (see the reading in Komaroff 2011: Fig. 47).

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would be quite a coincidence — although not impossible — to find two people named Ustād Aḥmad Najjār working for the same monument at the same period of time. But in addition to the confusing reading of the signature, some stylistic dissimilarities are also worth mentioning: none of the friezes and decorative panels employed on this cenotaph can be compared with the repertoire used on all other woodworks associated with this family workshop (cf. the second part of this paper). All of these points cast doubt on the attribution of this latter cenotaph to the aforementioned group. I.2. The Woodworker Ḥusayn b. Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī

One of Aḥmad Najjār’s sons was named Ḥusayn (b. c. 850s/1445s). Three (perhaps four?) wooden double doors from his hand are identified for the period covering 873-890/1468-1485. His first creation was recorded in Limrāsk (East of Bihshahr, see map), in an imāmzāda called Buland Imām.17 There was a double door associated with the monument with an inscription indicating that the patron was Sayyid Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn ibn Sayyid Ismāʿīl, in 873/1468-1469. The work was signed: ʿamal-i Ḥusayn ibn Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sarāvī, according to Rabino.18 The original structure has been largely rebuilt and no woodwork remains inside the monument today. Robert Hillenbrand identified a fragment of a door with a similar signature kept at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA] and attributed it to the Limrāsk imāmzāda (Fig. 2).19 It might be meaningful to note some minor changes between the signature transcribed by Rabino (mentioned just above) and the text of the LACMA door (ʿamal-i Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī). Since the original work is missing in Limrāsk, it is impossible to state whether the differences result from an erroneous reading by Rabino, or if the LACMA door is another item made by the same craftsman. The style of this latter item is however very close to a door that Ḥusayn made seventeen years later for the imāmzāda of Qāsim b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim in Bābul. Interestingly, Ḥusayn worked in Bābul in the very same imāmzāda where his father had already worked from 870/1465 to 888/1483. Ḥusayn sculpted a double door there that is still in place (Fig. 3). This door is crowned by a wooden mashrabiya; the whole is surrounded on the three sides by an inscription, written in one line of thuluth script and giving the names of the Twelve Imams. The base of this epigraphic frame has been slightly cut off. The door itself is signed at the bottom of the right leaf: ʿamal-i Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad Najjār, followed by the date, on the bottom left leaf: Muḥarram 890/January-February 1485.20 17 First recorded by Rabino 1928: 65, and 25 (Persian text). See also Bronstein 1938: III, 2623 n. 3, and Mayer 1958: 42, Hillenbrand 1974: 389, and Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 439. 18 The original inscription of the door was transcribed in Rabino 1928: 25 (Persian text). 19 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, inv. M.76.3. See Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 439. The door is published in: Welch 1979: 130-131. 20 About these woodworks, see in particular Mayer 1958: 41, Mishkātī 1970: 170, Hillenbrand 1974: 349 (quoted after Dorn), Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 435, and Kalus 2017: no. 13429.

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Fig. 2. Fragment of a wooden door with the signature of Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī (© Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Public Domain High Resolution images, accessible at: http://collections.lacma.org/node/226892 [last accessed 11/12/2018]).

Fig. 3. Bābul, Imāmzāda of Qāsim b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim: Double door signed “Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad Najjār” in 890/1485 (© Sandra Aube, 2014).

Fig. 4. Sārī, mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn: Double door signed “Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad-i Sārī” in 890/1485 (© Sandra Aube, 2014).

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Some months later, Ḥusayn sculpted another double door for the mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn in Sārī (Fig. 4). This monument has been largely remodelled, which probably explains why it has not attracted much attention over the years.21 Its rectangular structure is composed of a vestibule and a prayer room, where three wooden pieces are preserved: a mashrabiya, a double door, and a cenotaph, all dated to the fifteenth century.22 The wooden double door presents floral and geometrical sculpted decorations, and still has traces of paintings. On either side of the door is a thuluth inscription, in two separate registers. It gives the name of the donor, Sayyid Ismāʿīl ibn Sayyid Fatḥallāh al-Najafī, followed by the signature of the woodworker, ʿamal-i Ḥusayn bin Ustād Aḥmad-i Sārī, and the date, Rajab 890/ August 1485.23 Unlike his father, Ḥusayn never carried the title of ‘master’ (ustād) in any of his signatures. Interestingly, in Sārī, Ḥusayn chose to substitute in his signature the mention of his profession (najjār) by his place of origin (Sārī). This choice is quite surprising: one would have rather expected Ḥusayn to specify his origin when far away. It is precisely in Sārī, in the Shāhzāda Ḥusayn site, that he introduces his own son, Muḥammad. I.3. The Woodworker Muḥammad bin Ustād Ḥusayn Najjār-i Sārī

The last member of this lineage is Ḥusayn’s son, Muḥammad. He might have been born around the 870s/c. 1465, and he is identified through a single piece of work made during his youthful career: a wooden cenotaph kept in the mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn in Sārī. This piece-of-work stands in the centre of the prayer room. It is a rectangular structure with a base surrounded by a rectangular wooden socle (Fig. 5). This wooden furniture is richly sculpted with nested panels decorated with geometrical and floral patterns. Traces of paintings are still observable; on the north-eastern side, a border of floral scrolls painted with white, red, green and black is especially well preserved. Each side of the cenotaph is completely surrounded by an epigraphic frieze, written in thuluth script. The historical data can be found on its north-western side: the upper part dedicates the cenotaph to Sulṭān Ḥusayn and Sulṭān Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim, while the bottom gives the name of the donor, Ismāʿīl bin Fatḥallāh al-Najafī al-Ḥusaynī, the signature of the

21 The bibliography on this monument is extremely limited. Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber refer to a rebuilt structure (Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 443), which is not entirely true since some original parts probably remain, although they have been heavily transformed. They do not mention the wooden cenotaph. Woodworks associated with this mausoleum are only mentioned in: Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 8, pl. 57-63, and O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 94. 22 The double door and the cenotaph are presented hereafter. The wooden window has been removed from its original position and transformed. However, its remaining inscription indicates that it was made for the same building as the cenotaph (see the dedication to Sulṭān Ḥusayn and Sulṭān Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim), in Jumādā I 802/January 1400. This piece-of-work has never been mentioned in any publication, except in Ludvik Kalus’ online thesaurus: Kalus 2017: no. 37602. 23 About this wooden double door, see Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 8 and pl. 57-63, O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 94 (the door is erroneously dated to the year 896), and Kalus 2017: no. 30736.

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Fig. 5. Sārī, mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn. Cenotaph (north-western side) signed by Muḥammad bin Ustād Ḥusayn Najjār-i Sārī in 894/1488-1489 (© Sandra Aube, 2018).

craftsman, ʿamal-i Muḥammad bin Ustād Ḥusayn Najjār-i Sārī, followed by the year 894/1488-1489.24 It is the single known achievement of this woodworker. His signature specifies his craft — woodworker — , his local origin — the city of Sārī — , and his genealogy: he is the son of the woodworker Ḥusayn. Like his father, Muḥammad is not addressed as master (ustād). Father and son worked on the same site only four years apart; in Bābul, Ḥusayn also shared a site with his own father, Aḥmad. In these cases, the father seems to have thus officially introduced his son to his profession of woodworker. I.4. The Woodworker Shams al-Dīn b. Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī

The name of Shams al-Dīn is associated with four Māzandarānī woodworks. According to his nasab — identical to Ḥusayn’s — he was another of Ustād Aḥmad’s sons. Tracing back his career is still puzzling at some stages, due to contradictory dates. He might have been born in the 850s/1445s, like his brother, but he could also have been younger, according to the different dates given for his works. In Sārī, Shams al-Dīn worked at the imāmzāda of ʿAbbās, where he sculpted a gorgeous painted wooden cenotaph (Figs. 6 and 7), with a base surrounded by a wooden sculpted socle. Its nested decorative panels are framed on each side by a long thuluth inscription

24 About this wooden cenotaph, see: Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 8 and pl. 60-63, Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 443 (only a brief mention), O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 94, Kalus 2017: no. 37648.

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Figs. 6 and 7. Sārī, Imāmzāda Abbās: Details of the cenotaph (south side) made by Shams al-Dīn b. Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī (899/1494 or 897/1492) (© Sandra Aube, 2018).

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containing prayers. On the northern side, two rectangular panels contain historical data. Confusing information has been published about this ṣundūq. Indeed, one of the two epigraphic panels clearly establishes that the cenotaph was commissioned by five persons: Sayyid Murtażā ibn Sayyid Amīr, Sayyid Ḥasan ibn Sayyid ʿAlī, Sayyid ʿAbbās ibn Sayyid Sharaf al-Dīn, Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Sayyid Ḥusayn and Sayyid ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Sayyid Shams al-Dīn. The other cartouche shows the woodworker’s signature: ʿamal-i Shams al-Dīn ibn Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i Sārī. It is followed by the date of Jumādā II 899/ March-April 1494 — which could possibly also be read as 897/April 1492.25 Shams al-Dīn sculpted another cenotaph some years later. This piece is now kept at the Khalili Collection in London (Fig. 8) and its provenance is not known.26 This quadrangular sculpted wooden cenotaph has lost its socle, as well as its original paintings. But its general composition, with its nested panels, is stylistically related to the previous cenotaph. Epigraphic frames are mostly replaced by ornamental friezes, except on one of the narrower sides, where a thuluth text gives the names of Muḥammad, Fāṭima and the Twelve Imams, as well as the patrons Darvīsh ʿAbdallāh, his brother Darvīsh Rustam, and other names. On one of the longer sides, two vertical cartouches give historical data. One is the signature: ʿamal-i Shams al-Dīn bin Ustād Aḥmad Najjār-i baldat Sārī. The second cartouche gives the date 902/1496-1497.27 More evidence of Ḥusayn’s work was found in Bābulsar, where he sculpted two wooden doors for the mausoleum of Bībī Sakīna. Unfortunately, the mausoleum is no longer extant,28 the few studies mentioning its woodworks give controversial dates, no image was ever published and these wooden doors have not been traced since then, so that it is no longer possible to verify these inscriptions. The eastern29 25 No image of the ṣundūq has ever been published (excepted two details in: Bivar and Yarshater 1978: pl. 65/1-2) and access to the cenotaph, kept behind a metal grid, is very limited. Thus, it has long been difficult to verify the contradictory information published about it. Correct information, although incomplete, can be found in Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 9 and pl. 65, and O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 99; see also Mishkātī 1970: 185 (who reads the year 897/1492) and Shāyān 1957: 299-300 (although he read the signature in the following form: ʿamal-i Shams al-Dīn Banā ibn Aḥmad Najjār-i Sarāvī, and the year 897/1492). Rabino had previously introduced a possible confusion in his English text by applying to the cenotaph the data of the wooden door (Rabino 1928: 58; he did not give the text of the cenotaph in the Persian part of his book, but gave a correct transcription of the door on p. 23-24 [Persian text]). From these publications the idea of two cenotaphs emerged: one signed by Shams al-Dīn in 899/1494 and the other by Bahrām in 897/1492 (see: Kalus 2017: no. 37754 and 11197). The so-called cenotaph made by Bahrām in fact never existed (the text given in Kalus 2017: no. 11197 is false). Only the cenotaph of Shams al-Dīn does exist; the correct and complete transcription of its two panels is found in Kalus 2017: no. 37754, as presented hereafter. 26 Khalili Collection, inv. MXD 220. See: Rogers 2009: 200-201, and the Khalili collections website: http:// www.khalilicollections.org/collections/islamic-art/khalili-collection-islamic-art-cenotaph-mxd220/ (last accessed 11/12/2018). 27 See Rogers 2009: 201, and O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 101. 28 The mausoleum was located around 300 meters from the imāmzāda of Ibrāhīm Abū Javāb. It was already in poor condition when Robert Hillenbrand studied it in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The two doors mentioned were still standing, although the second one was partly damaged. See: Hillenbrand 1974: 357-359. 29 Dorn, Mayer, and all their followers designated it as the northern door, but Hillenbrand corrected this mistaken compass. See: Hillenbrand 1974: 358.

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Fig. 8. Cenotaph sculpted by Shams al-Dīn b. Ustād Aḥmad Najjār from The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, MXD.220; provenance unknown, 902/1496-1497 (© The Khalili Family Trust).

door was the first to be made. According to Rabino,30 its inscription stated that the monument was built over the grave of Bībī Sakīna, daughter of Imam Mūsā b. Jaʿfar al-Kāẓim, that the donor of the door was Sayyid Khujasta ibn Fakhr al-Dīn Bābulkānī, and the woodworker was Shams al-Dīn, son of Ustād Aḥmad. Rabino read the date 873/1468-1469, but his later followers read 893/1487-1488.31 On the southern side was another wooden door, with an inscription that indicated the name of the same woodworker and the year 911/1505 — read 901/1495-1496 by Golombek.32 None of these readings can currently be verified and even the farthest readings could be still possible, offering a maximum career length of 38 years.33

30 Rabino 1928: 47. 31 Rabino 1928:47 versus Mayer 1958: 64, Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 9, O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 96, Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 437. A single photo of this door is given in Hillenbrand 1974: pl. 317b, but it is not possible to read the inscription. See also: Kalus 2017: no. 36273. 32 Rabino could not decipher this inscription (Rabino 1928: 47). The date 911 is given in: Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 9, O’Kane 1987: 381 no. 96, and Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 437, who indicates Golombek’s reading of 901. The information is repeated in Kalus 2017: no. 13635. The only images of this southern door I have found are in André Godard’s archives kept at the Musée du Louvre (DAI, fonds privés, archives Godard: 1APA1/4335, 1APA1/4336). I would like to thank Yannick Lintz (Musée du Louvre) and Marie Fradet (Musée du Louvre) for having authorized me to consult these archives, as well as Sarah Piram (Victoria & Albert Museum) for her precious commentaries on Godard’s archives. 33 For the eastern door, the year 893/1487-1488 would fit well with other woodworks made by Shams al-Dīn, but the year 873/1468-1469 is also possible: Shams al-Dīn was in his twenties, and such a date would even correspond to the first known work completed by his brother Ḥusayn. Concerning the southern door, the year 901/1495-1496 is closer to others of his known achievements, but 911/1505 is still a possibility since Shams al-Dīn would have been around 60 years old.

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II. The Stylistic Legacy in Question II.1. A Family Legacy?

While medieval woodworks from Iran have mostly been lost and many woodworkers remain anonymous, this family of craftsmen gives us the rare opportunity to analyse the style of one woodworker through several of his works and even to assess his style in regard to his family legacy. A great homogeneity prevails in Ḥusayn, Shams al-Dīn and Muḥammad’s woodworks. Shams al-Dīn’s work is a noteworthy example of the repetitive patterns that make up their style. Shams al-Dīn completed two wooden cenotaphs within three years: one in 899/1494 (or 897/1492?) for the imāmzāda of ʿAbbās in Sārī (Figs. 6 and 7) and the second in 902/1496-1497 (Khalili Collection, unknown provenance, Fig. 8). Both pieces are very similar in composition, design and of course in technique — although the Khalili cenotaph has lost most of its paintings. Shams al-Dīn repeated the same decorative models with even the same sequences. Thus, one side of both cenotaphs repeats exactly the same organization: a vertical frieze of interlaced dodecagons (Fig. 11-K), followed by a vertical frieze of quatrefoils (Fig. 9-C), and by a medallion composition on a ‘fish-scale’ background (Fig. 10-H). Only the central panels and some framing bordures differ. Even when the sequence is not exactly repeated, the decorative models employed are identical on both pieces: see for example the geometrical panels centred on a six-pointed star (Fig. 11-L), the compositions of interweaved palmettos (Fig. 10-G and Fig. 11-J) or the different kind of vertical friezes (Figs. 9-B, D). Interestingly, the third remaining cenotaph related to this family shares the same features, as well. It was made some years earlier, in 894/1488-1489, for the mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn in Sārī by Shams al-Dīn’s nephew, Muḥammad (Fig. 5). Both woodworkers were active in the 890s. One could wonder how much their works might reflect the style of their atelier, since the cenotaph made by Muḥammad employs exactly the same models as Shams al-Dīn’s: the same friezes of interlaced dodecagons (Fig. 11-K), of quatrefoil patterns (Figs. 9-A, C), of interlaced braids with dots (Fig. 9-D), the same geometrical panels centred on six-pointed stars (Fig. 11-L), the same medallion composition on a ‘fish-scale’ background (Fig. 10-H), the same interwoven palmetto compositions (Fig. 10-G). Their pieces-of-work are stylistically so close that it would be impossible to discern one hand from another.34 A glance at the doors made by this same family leads to similar remarks. A strong homogeneity prevails in Ḥusayn’s doors, illustrated in particular by 34 On this question, it is worth recalling that these cenotaphs have been restored, sometimes heavily. Consequently, it is now quite difficult to distinguish nuances in the way they were originally sculpted. For instance, the cenotaph at the imāmzāda of ʿAbbās is finely painted, with a rich range of colours, some of them finely cut, while the one at the mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn is covered by a thick layer of shiny paint. The cenotaph of the Khalili collection was completely washed and did not keep any traces of its original paint.

Fig. 9. Repertoire of the most recurrent patterns employed in Ustād Aḥmad’s family workshop (part 1). Decorative models employed by: A) Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Bābulsar [eastern door]) and Muḥammad. B) Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph). C) Shams al-Dīn (Sārī, Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. D) Ḥusayn (Bābul and Sārī), Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. E) Ḥusayn (Bābul and Sārī) and Shams al-Dīn (Bābulsar [eastern door]). F) Ḥusayn (Bābul and Sārī), and Muḥammad. (Drawings Sandra Aube).

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Fig. 10. Repertoire of the most recurrent patterns employed in Ustād Aḥmad’s family workshop (part 2). Decorative models employed by: G) Ḥusayn (Bābul), Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. H) Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. I) Ḥusayn (Sārī) and Shams al-Dīn (Bābulsar - Eastern door). (Drawings Sandra Aube).

the friezes of interlaced braids (Fig. 9-D), of confronted palmettos (Fig. 9-E), or by scrollwork compositions (Fig. 9-F; see also the scrollwork on the epigraphic panels in Bābul’s door, Fig. 3, and on the fragment kept at the LACMA, Fig. 2). Similar decorative models are also employed by his brother and his nephew. For instance, the door he made in Sārī is comparable to Shams al-Dīn’s door in Bābulsar: they both employed the same framing frieze (Fig. 9-E) and a similar central composition (Fig. 10-I).35 The stylistic analysis of their woodworks thus demonstrates that this family of woodworkers shared the same decorative models and had a homogenous style. 35 See the eastern door of the mausoleum of Bībī Sakīna in Bābulsar illustrated in Hillenbrand 1974: pl. 317b. This door has vanished.

Fig. 11. Repertoire of the most recurrent patterns employed in Ustād Aḥmad’s family workshop (part 3). Decorative models employed by: J) Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph). K) Ḥusayn (Bābul), Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. L) Ḥusayn (Bābul), Shams al-Dīn (Sārī and Khalili cenotaph) and Muḥammad. (Drawings Sandra Aube).

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Fig. 12. Safīdshāh, Imāmzāda: Detail of the cenotaph dated 885/1480-1481 (© Sandra Aube, 2018).

II.2. A Regional Style?

The question is to understand whether the style and repertoire developed by this group are a signature of this family workshop, or whether they fall under broader regional traditions. Several of the decorative models described above are shared with other Māzandarānī woodworkers. Numerous examples could be quoted. For instance, the frieze of interlaced braids with dots (Fig. 9-D) and the geometrical network centred on a six-pointed star (Fig. 11-L) are found on a wooden cenotaph dated to the year 885/1480-1481 and kept in the imāmzāda in Safīdshāh (Fig. 12).36 This cenotaph also presents a similar ‘fish-scale’ decoration (although with less delicacy and detail) as well as a geometric network like that already seen on Ḥusayn’s work in Bābul (compare Fig. 12, on the left, and Fig. 3, the openwork geometric frieze at the bottom of the mashrabiya). This latter geometrical network, along with the frieze of interlaced dotted braids (Fig. 9-D), the bordure of quatrefoils (Fig. 9-C), and the ‘fish-scale’ composition

36 About this woodwork, see: Bivar and Yarshater 1978: 7-8 and pl. 46-51; a part of its inscription is mentioned in O’Kane 1987: 380 no. 87. The village of Safīdshāh is only mentioned in Rabino 1928: 69.

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(Fig. 10-H), constitute also the repertoire of the cenotaph in the imāmzāda of Ibrāhīm in Āmul (dated 925/1519).37 These last three decorative models, plus another kind of quatrefoil frieze (Fig. 9-A), are repeated on a double door inside the imāmzāda of ʿAbd al-Ṣāla in Marzrūd (undated door38). This latter imāmzāda also houses a dazzling cenotaph dated to the year 884/1479-1480 and signed by a certain Ustād ʿAlī bin Ustād Fakhr al-Dīn Najjār-i Rāżī (Fig. 13). Interestingly, I retraced this woodworker’s lineage in a previous article and this recently discovered woodwork reveals a new stage of his professional activity.39 However, this cenotaph offers an interesting parallel with the one that Shams al-Dīn sculpted for the imāmzāda of ʿAbbās in Sārī. Both cenotaphs are minutely carved, richly painted, and ornamented with meticulous details. They share a common repertoire: friezes of quatrefoils (Fig. 9-C), of dotted braids (Fig. 9-D), networks of interlaced palmettos (see Fig. 10-G as well as Fig. 9-E with a duplicated form), ‘fish-scale’ compositions (Fig. 10-H), same geometrical networks (Fig. 13, see the central panel on the narrow side of the cenotaph). Yet Shams al- Dīn’s cenotaph employs a broader range of vegetal compositions, some being particularly original within the Māzandarānī repertoire (Fig. 7). These remarkable vegetal panels do not seem to characterize Shams al-Dīn’s style either, since they are not found in his other works. However, they do help emphasize the high quality of the cenotaph ordered from Shams al-Dīn for the imāmzāda of ʿAbbās.40

Conclusion To sum up, the stylistic analysis of the remaining woodworks made by Ustād Aḥmad Najjār’s family demonstrates their solid uniformity. These woodworkers — presumably from the same workshop — shared and transmitted the same decorative models all through their careers, namely from the 870s/late 1460s to the 900s/1500s. But this coherent style is incontestably impregnated by fifteenth-century regional trends. Several of the decorative models observed were transmitted across Māzandarān from one workshop to another (in particular: Figs. 9-A to D, the ‘fish-scale’ aesthetic and some geometrical networks). That being said, some patterns might be more specific to Ustād Aḥmad Najjār’s family. It is the case of the frieze of fronted palmettos (Fig. 9-E), the composition of interlaced palmettos traced with a very thick line (Fig. 11-J), as well as the scrollwork compositions (type Fig. 9-F). This consistency might be part of the family workshop’s signature style. Their area seems to have been mainly limited to the surroundings of the

37 About this monument, see: Sarre 1901: 98, Rabino 1928: 38 and 12-13 (Persian text), Wilber 1937: 114, Shāyān 1957: 285-286, Aube 2015: 33-54, and above all Hillenbrand in Golombek and Wilber 1988: I, 429-430. 38 A second wooden double door remains in this monument. As far as I know, no images or studies of these doors have ever been published. 39 See Aube 2017. 40 It is also worth recalling that the general composition of this cenotaph is slightly different from other cenotaphs of its time: the panels are more numerous and their layout is more intricate. The carving is more accurate overall.

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Fig. 13. Marzrūd, Imāmzāda of Abd al-Ṣāla: Cenotaph by Ustād Alī bin Ustād Fakhr alDīn Najjār-i Rāżī (884/1479-1480) (© Sandra Aube, 2018).

cities of Bābul, Sārī and Bābulsar. Their repeated presence on some monuments over generations is interesting. Muḥammad worked in 894/1488-1489 on the mausoleum of Shāhzāda Ḥusayn in Sārī after his father Ḥusayn had already done so in 890/1485. Ḥusayn himself was introduced in 890/1485 on the site of the imāmzāda of Qāsim b. Mūsā al-Kāẓim in Bābul where his own father, Ustād Aḥmad, had worked between 870/1465 and 888/1483. The same sort of introduction is observed with another family of woodworkers: in 906/1500, Ustād ʿAlī b. Ustād Fakhr al-Dīn made a double door for the imāmzāda of Ibrāhīm Abū Javāb in Bābulsar, where his uncle had already worked in 841/1437 on sculpting another double door.41 These woodworkers seem to have benefited

41 See Aube 2017: 296 and figs. p. 294.

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from family ties and inherited specific sites to work on. This practice thus illustrates the introduction of a father/master to his son/pupil on the framework of an architectural site. It is worth to end by remembering how the social context of craftsmen, especially woodworkers, is particularly unknown. Consequently, the reconstitution of a family of craftsmen across three generations is not common in medieval or pre-modern Iranian art history. Unlike calligraphers or painters or architects, the woodworkers are usually not mentioned in Persian sources.42 Many wooden works have now vanished and very few studies have focused on Iranian woodworkers or woodwork furniture pieces.43 This is why the Māzandarān region presents a particular interest. About sixty signatures of craftsmen have been already recorded across the material created in the region during the fifteenth century. And other family workshops have emerged, like Fakhr al-Dīn’s family who is comparable to Ustād Aḥmad Najjār’s one.44 Thus Māzandarān witnesses a significant network of woodworkers’ workshops — presumably family ateliers in most cases — specialized in lattice panels’ carving, working during the same period around the cities of Sārī, Bābul, Bābulsar, and sharing the same decorative models. In fact, this great number of woodworkers’ signatures is surprising, especially in such a limited area. Unlike many regions of the Middle East, Māzandarān has always been largely forested which was certainly favourable to the development of a specialized woodcraft tradition. The fact that the woodworkers proudly signed their works might reflect a certain social recognition of their corporation during the fifteenth century.45 One could also wonder whether the association with sacred structures might have contributed to increase the status of woodworkers.46 Anyhow, the Māzandarānī woodworkers seemed to have benefited from an improved status. Their works constitute a remarkable resource for the history of craftsmanship in Iran. They also illustrate the development of a regional and independant style, with a production stylistically unrelated to the wooden panels produced at the same time in Timurid and Turkmen artistic centers. 42 See for instance the narratives of Timurid chroniclers and historians such as Mīrkhvānd or Khvāndamīr who, according to my research, never quote woodworkers (see for example Muḥammad ibn Khvāndshāh ibn Maḥmud Mīrkhvānd, Tarīkh-i rawżat al-ṣafā, Tihrān: Intisharat-i ʿIlmī, 1373sh./1994; Ghiyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad Khvāndamīr, Part One. Genghis Khan-Amir Temür and Part Two. Shahrukh Mirza-Shah Ismail. Vol. 1-2 of Habibu’s-Siyar. Tome Three, (ed. and tr.) Wheeler Thackston, Chicago: Harvard University, 1994). Later biographical dictionaries of artists do not mention woodworkers either, like the sixteenthor seventeenth-centuries works by Qāżī Aḥmad b. Mīr Munshī (see his Gulistān-i Hunar, [ed. and tr.] Vladimir Minorsky, Calligraphers and Painters, Washington: Freer Gallery Occasional Papers, 1959) or Mustawfī Bāfqī Mufīd (Jāmiʿ-i Mufīdī, ed. by Īraj Afshār, Tihrān: Intishārat Asāṭir, 1385sh./2006). 43 See the few studies by Bronstein 1938, Mayer 1958, Gierlichs 2014. See also the first data on Māzandarānī woodworks published in: Rabino 1928 and Bivar and Yarshater 1978. 44 About Fakhr al-Dīn’s family, see Aube 2017. The study of fifteenth-century Māzandarānī woodworks and their signatures is an ongoing project. 45 See in particular Yasser Tabbaa who developed the idea of woodworkers’ signatures as a “sign of pride in workmanship” in the context of medieval Syria (Tabbaa 2015: 189). The notion of pride is quite in opposition to the presumed assumption of anonymity and humility in craftsmanship that certainly has to be questioned; see especially Blair and Bloom 1999. 46 See Tabbaa 2015: 190, who questions how much the association with a religious object or monument might explain the posterity that some woodworkers met in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Syria.

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Bibliographical References Aube, Sandra, “Le mausolée Zayn al-‘Ābedin à Sāri: Contribution à l’étude des tourstombeaux du Māzanderān au xve siècle,” Studia Iranica 44/1 (2015): 33-54. Aube, Sandra, “Skills and Style in Heritage: The Woodworker Faḫr al-Dīn and his Son ʿAlī in the Mazandaran (Iran, ca. 1440-1500),” in Aube, Sandra, and Maria Szuppe, (eds.), Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East, special issue, Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017): 283-303. Bivar, Adrian D. H., and Ehsan Yarshater, Eastern Māzandarān I, Portfolio I, plates 1-72, Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, Part IV: Persian inscriptions down to the early Safavid period, vol. VI, Māzandarān province, London: Lund Humphries, 1978. Blair, Sheila, and Jonathan Bloom, “Signatures on Works of Islamic Art and Architecture,” Damaszener Mitteilungen, XI (1999): 49-66. Bronstein, Leo, “Decorative woodwork of the Islamic period,” in Pope, Arthur Upham, (ed.), A Survey of Persian Art, London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1938: III, 2607-2627 and pls. 1460-1475. Calmard, Jean, “Le chiisme imamite en Iran à l’époque seldjoukide, d’après le Kitâb alNaqd,” in Aubin, Jean, (ed.), Le monde iranien et l’Islam, I, Genève/Paris: Droz/Minard, 1971: 43-67. Calmard, Jean, “Marʿashīs,” in Encyclopedy of Islam 2nd edition, Leiden: Brill, vol. VI (1986): 510-518. Floor, Willem, “The Woodworking Craft and its Products in Iran,” Muqarnas 23 (2006): 159-189. Gierlichs, Joachim, “Tabrizi Woodcarving in Timurid Iran,” in Pfeiffer, Judith (ed.), Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, Leiden: Brill, 2014, 357-370. Golombek, Lisa, and Donald Wilber, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Hermann, Denis, “Aspectos de la penetración del shiismo en Irán durante los periodos ilkháni y timuri. El éxito politico de los movimientos Sarbedâr, Mar‘ashi y Musha‘sha‘yân,” trad. Vania Galindo Juárez, Estudios de Asia y Africa, 39/3 (2004): 673-709. Holod, Renata, “Text, Plan and Building: On the Transmission of Architectural Knowledge,” in Ševčenko, Margaret (ed.), Theories and Principles of Design in the Architecture of Islamic Societies, Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic, 1988, 8-24. Hillenbrand, Robert, “The Tomb Towers of Iran to 1550,” PhD thesis, University of Oxford, Trinity College, 1974. Kalus, Ludvik, (ed.), Thesaurus d’Epigraphie Islamique, Paris/Geneva: Fondation Max Van Berchem, 2017; online edition: http://www.epigraphie-islamique.org/epi/texte_ acceuil.html (last accessed 28/11/2018). Komaroff, Linda, (ed.), Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, Los Angeles/New Haven: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2011.

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Lentz, Thomas W., and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, Los Angeles/Washington: Los Angeles County Museum of Art-Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1989. Mayer, Leo Ary, Islamic Woodcarvers and Their Works, Geneva: A. Kunding, 1958. Mishkātī, Nuṣratallāh, Fihrist-i banāhā-yi tārīkhī va amākin-i bāstānī-yi Īrān, Tihrān: Nashrīya-yi Sāzmān-i Millī-yi Ḥifāẓat-i Ās̱ār-i Bāstānī-yi Īrān, 1349/1970. Necipoğlu, Gülru, The Topkapı Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Topkapı Palace Library MS H. 1956, Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, 1995. Necipoğlu, Gülru (ed.), The Arts of Ornamental Geometry. A Persian Compendium on Similar and Complementary Interlocking Figures, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017. O’Kane, Bernard, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan, Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1987. Rabino, Hyacinthe Louis, Safar-nāma-yi Māzandarān va Āstarābād, London: Luzac & Co, 1928. Rogers, Michael, Arts de l’Islam, chefs-d’oeuvre de la collection Khalili, Paris: Hazan/Institut du Monde Arabe, 2009. Sarre, Friedrich, Denkmäler persischer Baukunst, Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 1901. Shāyān, ʿAbbās, Māzandarān, Tihrān: Cāpkhāna-yi Mūsavī, 1336/1957. Sutūda, Manūchihr, Az Āstārā tā Istārbād, Tihrān: Anjuman-i Ās̱ār-i Millī, vol. 3, 1356/1977. Tabbaa, Yasser, “Originality and Innovation in Syrian Woodwork of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Talmon-Heller, Daniella, and Katia Cytryn-Silverman (eds.), Material Evidence and Narrative Sources. Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015, 188-215. Welch, Anthony, Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World, Austin: Dawson, 1979. Wilber, Donald, “Preliminary Report of the Eighth Season of the Survey,” Bulletin of the American Institute for Iranian Art and Archaeology 5 (1937): 109-136. Wulff, Hans E., The Traditional Crafts of Persia. Their Development, Technology, and Influence on Eastern and Western Civilizations, Cambridge, MA/London: The M.I.T. Press, 1966.

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La formation d’un calligraphe dans le monde iranien*

I.

Un enseignement dispensé dès l’enfance

Tout le monde connaît la scène souvent présente dans les manuscrits persans illustrés qui montre Laylī, enfant, à l’école en compagnie d’un autre enfant, Qays, le futur Majnūn. La scène où l’auteur évoque la première rencontre des futurs amoureux permet de montrer un groupe d’enfants qui, sous la férule d’un maître, dans un édifice qui évoque l’intérieur d’une madrasa le plus souvent, apprennent à lire et à écrire. Les artistes iraniens, puis ottomans, ont pris prétexte de cette scène pour évoquer l’apprentissage non seulement de la lecture et de l’écriture, mais des différents arts du livre. On peut donc voir des planches (lawḥ) servant à enseigner comment on trace les lettres de l’alphabet, des feuillets isolés ou des cahiers de manuscrits sur lesquels s’exercent les élèves, différentes sortes de livres et de reliures, des pupitres, des encriers et des calames. On montre souvent aussi la préparation du papier, et son lissage nécessaire au travail du copiste, mais aussi l’emploi occasionnel de papiers colorés et le monde du kitābkhāna est ainsi associé à celui de l’école. En fait le texte qui accompagne ces images, que l’on rencontre couramment depuis le xve siècle au moins dans des manuscrits illustrés, n’évoque l’apprentissage de l’écriture que très brièvement. Chez le fameux poète persan Niẓāmī, mort en 1209, le texte de son poème Laylī va Majnūn relate comment1 le père de Qays envoya son fils entre sa septième et sa dixième année à l’école (maktab), où il se trouve avec un groupe de petits garçons, mais il y a aussi un groupe de petites filles, dont Laylī (voir Fig. 1). Le poète ne précise cependant pas comment la science (ʿilm) et l’écriture leur sont enseignées. Il en va de même dans la version du poème donnée plus tard par Amīr Khusraw de Delhi (m. c. 1328) : le récit de la façon dont les deux enfants tombent amoureux à

* Toute notre gratitude va aux responsables du projet ANR-DFG Dyntran dans le cadre duquel cette recherche a pu être menée à bien (https ://hypotheses.org/dyntran). 1 Niẓāmī, Khamsa : 60. Francis Richard  •  BULAC, Paris/Centre de Recherche sur le Monde iranien – UMR 8041 Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 219-236 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122937

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Fig. 1. Laylī et Majnūn à l’école avec d’autres enfants et apprenant à écrire. Manuscrit de Cinq poèmes (Khamsa) de Niẓāmī Ganjavī probablement copié et illustré à Ispahan dans les premières années du XVIIe siècle. Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Ms. 2431, f. 101v-102 (© BM de Lyon).

l’école (maktab) est très similaire. Ils ont le même âge. La description de cette école où les filles sont d’un côté et les garçons de l’autre est très voisine et le contenu de l’enseignement n’est pas décrit2. Amīr Khusraw lui-même avait commencé à écrire et composer des poèmes à huit ans mais sa propre expérience n’apparaît guère dans son récit. Les versions postérieures du poème de Laylī va Majnūn, par exemple celle du fameux poète et maître mystique ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, à la fin du xve siècle, celle de son neveu ʿAbdallāh Hātifī (m. 1521), ou la version en turc de Fużūlī (m. 1556), ne parlent malheureusement pas de l’apprentissage de l’écriture (khaṭṭ) des enfants de façon détaillée. Des cycles d’illustrations comparables ont trouvé leur chemin dans des copies d’autres œuvres littéraires persanes en vers, notamment dans le poème Mihr-u Mushtarī – qui sera évoqué plus loin et dont les copies illustrées sont très nombreuses



2 Amīr Khusraw, Majnūn va Laylī : 73.

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aux xve et xvie siècles – ou dans celui que Badr al-Dīn Hilālī Chaghatāʾī (m. 936/1529) consacre, sous le nom de Shāh‑u Darvīsh ou Shāh‑u Gadā, à l’histoire d’un derviche (ou mendiant) qui s’éprend d’un jeune prince, futur roi. Dans Mihr‑u Mushtarī, c’est les deux héros, Mihr et Mushtarī qui vont ensemble à l’école (voir Fig. 2), tandis que dans l’œuvre de Hilālī on représente une salle de classe où l’un des élèves est le jeune roi, tandis que le derviche le regarde de l’extérieur alors qu’il apprend à écrire3. On sait que les princes apprenaient habituellement la calligraphie. À l’époque timouride, deux exemples sont très fameux. Le sultan Bāysunghur (m. 1433), qui introduisit le style nastaʿlīq dans son kitābkhāna de Hérat en y faisant venir Mawlānā Jaʿfar de Tabriz, avait appris la calligraphie et la pratiquait excellemment4. Son frère Ibrāhīm Sulṭān, le gouverneur de Shiraz, avait aussi appris cet art, de Ṣadr al-Dīn Rūzbihān Shīrāzī en particulier, et le pratiquait lui-même avec talent en copiant des manuscrits, notamment le Coran. Mais ce semble avoir été tout particulièrement la règle pour les princes timourides d’être formés à la calligraphie5. Ils paraissent y avoir été formés dès leur enfance. Un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale de Vienne, le Dīvān-i Āzurī coté Mixt 1151, des alentours de 1478-1490, malheureusement non daté6 est l’œuvre du calligraphe ʿAbd al-Karīm, fils du fameux ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khwārazmī. Dans son colophon le copiste signe et précise qu’il a écrit ce manuscrit à l’âge de dix ans (dar dah sālagī nivishta shud) et son écriture est déjà parfaitement formée. Il ne semble pas s’agir d’un exploit vraiment unique7. Les futurs calligraphes apprennent très tôt. Ainsi on en trouve un écho amusant, mais tardif, dans les collections de la Bibliothèque Universitaire des Langues et Civilisations (BULAC), à Paris, dans le recueil manuscrit Persan 112 : pour montrer son savoir le jeune Joseph Rousseau, fils du consul Jean-François Rousseau (1738-1808), alors âgé de dix ans, calligraphie à Bagdad le 15 novembre 1790 une lettre en persan qu’il adresse à l’érudit interprète, professeur et diplomate Pierre Ruffin (1742-1824), sans doute pour lui montrer son savoir. Dans le même recueil se trouve une qaṣīda persane,



3 Un bel exemple de cette scène, illustrée en 1540 à Boukhara, se trouve au f. 13 du ms. M. 531 de la Pierpont Morgan Library, à New York. 4 Cf. par exemple l’inscription du mausolée du monument de sa mère Gawhar Shād à Mashhad, le ms. Add. 7628 de la British Library ou le f. 31v du recueil H. 2152 du musée de Topkapi. Voir notamment Roxburgh 2005 : 30, 37, 72-73 et 85. 5 Roxburgh 2005 : 74-75. 6 Duda 1983 : I/1, 202-3 et I/2, no. 68. 7 Priscilla Soucek a attiré l’attention sur l’intérêt des carrières et de l’œuvre du maître ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khwārazmī et de ses deux fils ʿAbd al-Karīm et ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (cf. Soucek 1979 : 24-29 et ill. 14). Elle a publié une page d’album conservée à Istanbul au Musée de Topkapı (H.2153, f. 32) qui est aussi de la main de ʿAbd al-Karīm et réalisée à l’âge de douze ans (davāzdah sālagī). Le très important manuscrit du Dīvān-i Navāʾī de la Bibliothèque nationale du Caire a été calligraphié par ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Khwārazmī, frère du jeune calligraphe (Erkinov 2015 : 15-17) et il est intéressant de confronter leur écriture. Un autre manuscrit peu connu qui se trouve à l’Institut des manuscrits de l’Académie des sciences du Tadjikistan à Dushanbe (ms. 2103) est un magnifique Gulshan-i rāz de Maḥmūd Shabistarī copié pour la bibliothèque (khizāna) du sultan Yaʿqūb Aq-Qoyunlu (1478-1490) par Anīsī al-Sulṭānī, autre signature du même ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b.  ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Il est intéressant de confronter l’écriture des deux frères ayant reçu une même éducation pour juger de la différence d’évolution du style de leur écriture.

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Fig. 2. Mihr et Mushtarī s’exercent dans une école où se trouve un calligraphe qui possède devant lui un coffre avec ses outils ; dans la même pièce des volumes sont rangés à plat dans une armoire-bibliothèque. Ms de Mihr u Mushtarī de Assār Tabrīzī, sans doute réalisé pour Pīr Budāq au milieu du XVe siècle, [Bagdad ?]. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Supplément persan 1964, f. 22v (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84272615/f48.image).

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panégyrique du roi Louis XVI, qui a été calligraphiée en nastaʿlīq, sans doute de la main du même jeune garçon, éduqué à la manière traditionnelle… Des indications un peu plus précises sur cet enseignement, dispensé aux jeunes nobles, sont cependant parfois données. Nous avons eu l’occasion de souligner8 l’intérêt du poème intitulé ʿIshq-nāma ou, le plus souvent, Mihr‑u Mushtarī dont la composition a été achevée à Tabriz en 778/1377 par le savant poète mathématicien, astronome et soufi Muḥammad Assār Tabrīzī, sous le règne du Jalāyiride Ḥusayn Ier Uvays (1374-1382), comme témoin de l’apparition de l’écriture naskh-i taʿliq9. Ce poème complexe, qui ne comporte pas de dédicace à un souverain, présente un intérêt certain. Il renferme quelques développements sur l’éducation des princes notamment leur apprentissage de l’écriture et de la calligraphie, de la composition (inshā), de l’équitation, du jeu d’échecs, etc. L’œuvre se fait l’écho de l’idéal de la période post-ilkhanide. Il s’agit aussi d’une sorte de voyage initiatique mettant en scène deux jeunes gens que lie une amitié très forte, Mihr (Mithra, le Soleil) et Mushtarī ( Jupiter). L’un est le fils du roi d’Iṣṭakhr, l’autre celui de son vizir. Voyages, mésaventures multiples, péripéties sans fin, les séparent et il est nécessaire pour Mihr de surmonter de nombreuses épreuves pour montrer de façon éclatante sa qualité de fils de roi. Après avoir enfin retrouvé son ami Mushtarī, il épousera la belle Nāhīd (Vénus). La première partie de l’éducation que Mihr reçoit dans son enfance est l’apprentissage de l’écriture (khaṭṭ) auprès d’un maître. Il commence par apprendre à tracer les lettres de l’alphabet, puis à les relier entre elles. Il devient vite si excellent dans cet art que personne ne l’égalait : lorsqu’il posait son calame (kilk) sur le papier (kāghaẕ) pour calligraphier (khaṭṭ) son écriture fortifiait les âmes car elle était animée de la même beauté que celle de Yāqūt. Il maîtrisait à la perfection les six styles reconnus comme canoniques en calligraphie arabe. Après avoir appris l’art d’écrire, il apprend l’art de composer (inshā). Le roi Kayvān lui fait subir une épreuve, en vue de s’assurer qu’il est digne de lui accorder la main de sa fille Nāhīd. Mihr s’y soumet avec succès et son écrit (manshūr) est tellement parfaitement calligraphié qu’il est exposé au centre (chārsū) du bazar de la cité de Khwārazm pour être admiré de tous. Le naskh écrit par Mihr était si beau et plein d’harmonieuses ligatures qu’il reçut le nom de naskh-i taʿlīq (un naskh « comme flottant en suspension »)10. Au-delà du caractère allégorique de cette anecdote qui fournit une explication imagée de l’origine du nom de l’écriture apparue vers 1375 tant à Tabriz qu’à Shiraz, l’épisode confirme l’importance de l’apprentissage de la calligraphie dans l’enfance et l’immense prestige de cet art. Le poème Mihr‑u Mushtarī décrit aussi un idéal d’éducation princière qui sera celui de la noblesse timouride.



8 Richard 2003 : 9-10. 9 Dans le poème c’est Mihr qui l’invente au Khwārazm et c’est une écriture de chancellerie (le premier texte écrit ainsi étant un manshūr – un document composé dans le style de chancellerie – réalisé par Mihr). 10 Richard 2003 : 9-10.

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I.1. Les qualités d’un calligraphe

Postérieur de plus d’un demi-siècle, le traité intitulé Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn dar āʾīn-i khushnivīsī va latāyif-i maʿnavī-i ān, composé en 858/1454 par un calligraphe de Shiraz émigré dans le sultanat bahmanide d’Inde, est en revanche riche en enseignements sur la formation du calligraphe11. Ce texte, transmis par un seul manuscrit, le Supplément persan 386 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)12, qui avait été rapporté d’Inde par A. H. Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805), était connu d’A .-I. Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) mais tomba ensuite dans un relatif oubli jusqu’à sa récente édition. Carl Ernst a souligné son intérêt pour l’histoire du soufisme13. L’auteur, Abū’l-Dāʾī Yaʿqūb b.  Ḥasan b. Shaykh, connu sous le nom de Sirāj al-Ḥasanī al-Shīrāzī appartenait à la famille du fameux soufi Rūzbihān Baqlī (m. 596/1209). Il avait émigré de Shiraz à Muḥammadābād (Bidar) peu avant de rédiger son traité, sous le règne de ʿAlā al-Dīn Aḥmad Shāh Bahmanī (r. 1435-1457), celui-là même qui avait fait venir à sa cour Shāh Niʿmatallāh Valī. On a pu comparer – toutes proportions gardées – le Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn au Subḥ al-aʿshā fī sināʿat al-inshāʾ (1412) du savant historien et mathématicien égyptien Aḥmad al-Qalqashandī, qui est une encyclopédie de tous les savoirs utiles pour les membres de l’administration de l’Égypte mamelouke : on y trouve en effet différentes théories concernant les lettres qui ont pu inspirer Sirāj Shīrāzī et qui prouveraient qu’il a eu connaissance de cet ouvrage. Le Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn a été terminé à l’époque même où, vers 1453, le futur vizir lettré de Muḥammad Shāh III Lashkarī (r. 1463-1482), le célèbre Maḥmūd Gāvān (1411-1481) vient d’arriver à Muḥammadābād. Maḥmūd Gāvān fera construire une madrasa célèbre riche de 3 000 manuscrits et dont les décors calligraphiés sont remarquables14. On peut aussi imaginer que Sirāj a participé au programme calligraphique du décor du mausolée d’Aḥmad II Bahmanī mort peu après l’achèvement du Tuḥfat. Un autre calligraphe émigré de Shiraz au Bidar, Mughith al-Qārī a signé une inscription en thuluth décorant la tombe de Shaykh Khalīlallāh, mort en 860/1455. Shaykh Khalīlallāh était le père d’Amīr-zāda Muḥibb al-Dīn Habīballāh, le maître spirituel de Sirāj Shīrāzī15, et petit-fils de Shāh Niʿmatallāh Valī. La rédaction du traité de Sirāj Shīrāzī se situe donc en milieu soufi et dans un contexte de floraison de l’art calligraphique et on peut même penser que ses enseignements ont pu avoir une influence sur la formation du sultan bahmanide Maḥmūd Shāh (r. 1482-1518), auteur en 909/1503 d’une des inscriptions du fort de Bidar.

11 Voir la Bibliographie en fin de cet article pour la référence complète à l’édition : Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al‑muḥibbīn. 12 Richard 2013 : 525-526. Sur l’importance du kitābkhāna de Shiraz durant la période de formation de l’auteur au Fārs, voir aussi Richard 2000 : 87-104. 13 Ernst 2009. 14 Parmi les calligraphes qui y ont travaillé figure ʿAlī al-Sūfī, qui a également été au service de Mehmet II (r. 1451-1481) à Istanbul. 15 Cf. Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn : 52, où il est nommé « successeur du Maître de la sharīʿa et de la ṭarīqa [c.-à-d. de Niʿmat Allāh] ».

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Le Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn comporte de nombreux développements sur l’esthétique de l’écriture et un des objectifs de l’auteur est de tenter de montrer les liens entre la pratique de la calligraphie et le soufisme. Sirāj se réclame de l’enseignement oral reçu de son maître (ustād) mais il ne le nomme pas. Sans doute s’agit-il de Ṣadr al-Dīn Rūzbihān. Si l’on excepte un voyage, il avait – avant d’émigrer au Deccan – passé sa vie à Shiraz où il « eut l’honneur » de fréquenter plusieurs autres maîtres et il considère son livre comme un compendium de ce que ses devanciers ont écrit ou lui ont transmis. Il nomme un certain nombre de ces devanciers et cite quelques calligraphes contemporains. Il rapporte ainsi que son maître lui a enseigné que le naskh-i taʿlīq de Tabriz, pratiqué par Mīr ʿAlī Tabrīzī et Jaʿfar Tabrīzī Bāysunghurī, respecte à la fois les règles du naskh et celles du taʿlīq16. Il précise d’ailleurs qu’il existe un naskh-i taʿlīq-i tabrīzī et un naskh-i taʿlīq-i shīrāzī17 ; lui-même a pratiqué ce dernier style18, mais surtout le thuluth et le riqāʾ19. C’est dans le cinquième chapitre (bāb)20 intitulé Dar ādāb-i kātib (Les règles du comportement du scribe) qu’il fournit d’intéressantes informations sur la formation du calligraphe ou copiste. Il faut que celui qui veut apprendre les sciences (ʿulūm) et les arts (ṣanāyiʾ) et tout spécialement le noble art de l’écriture possède de solides qualités d’intégrité et d’honnêteté. Les autres qualités nécessaires sont la régularité et la fermeté de caractère. Parvenu à l’âge adulte il se montrera un homme solide. Il doit toujours se fixer un seul objectif ; il doit être patient, supporter les difficultés, vivre dans une demeure bien rangée et être vêtu de manière appropriée. Il lui faut manger et boire de façon propre et avec sobriété, pour éviter d’avoir des douleurs de ventre ou d’autres maux… Il lui faut avoir l’esprit dispos, se concentrer sur l’apprentissage, y consacrer sa mémoire et se donner tout entier à l’étude. Par ailleurs, il faut, précise Sirāj, avoir recours à un seul maître, et que celui-ci ait un caractère égal et soit doué de qualités reconnues et qu’il ait déjà lui-même servi et suivi des maîtres. Sans cela l’apprentissage serait vain (« il faut donner le trésor de son cœur au roi et non aux mendiants »). Il faut avoir reçu l’enseignement d’un maître parfait et l’avoir servi – il rappelle les paroles attribuées à Alexandre le Grand (Iskandar) disant qu’il faut aimer son maître plus que son propre père – et cet apprentissage doit durer plusieurs années. On apprend la calligraphie en n’ayant cesse d’observer les mouvements du qalam du maître et en prêtant l’oreille à tous ses conseils. Par ailleurs, pour bien écrire il faut s’appuyer sur la jambe gauche et il 16 Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn : 140 et 143. 17 Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn : 93. Le style de Shiraz n’est pas, à l’origine, celui qui s’est imposé ensuite comme « classique » dans l’Iran du xve siècle. On peut renvoyer à ce sujet à l’étude très pénétrante de notre collègue Elaine Wright (Wright 2013 : 231-254). 18 Selon Mahdī Bayānī, il y aurait à la Bibliothèque du Majles de Téhéran une copie du Ẓafar-nāma datée de 840/1437 (ms. no. 1514) qui serait de sa main ; elle est en nastaʿlīq et est signée Yaʿqūb b.  Ḥasan al-mulaqqab b. Sirāj al-Ḥasanī al-Qatānī. 19 Pour une classification exhaustive des écritures dans le monde iranien, on peut se reporter à l’ouvrage classique de Ḥabīb Allāh Faḍāʾili (Faḍāʾili 1362sh./1983). La tradition qui attribue à Ibn Muqla l’invention d’une « écriture proportionnée » est par ailleurs remise en cause par Marina Rustow (2020), The Lost Archive :174-179. 20 Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn : 101sq.

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faut éviter d’avoir de l’encre au bout des doigts. Ne jamais se hâter et ne penser à rien d’autre qu’à son ouvrage. Il faut protéger sa main droite et la ménager. Sirāj ajoute que son maître lui disait qu’il faut aussi éviter d’avoir un récipient plein d’eau. Après avoir écrit on remet sa main à l’intérieur de la manche du vêtement. Un autre conseil venant de Yāqūt est qu’il ne faut pas calligraphier le vendredi. De la sorte ce qui est écrit le samedi l’emporte en qualité sur ce qui est écrit le jeudi… Sirāj assure par ailleurs21 que celui qui copie le Coran ou le Hadith ne doit pas « souiller sa main » en copiant autre chose et qu’il obtiendra des bénédictions. Ce même cinquième chapitre renferme une liste précise et détaillée des instruments qui sont nécessaires au futur copiste. Il lui faut les posséder et en apprendre le maniement. Dans plusieurs passages du Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn l’auteur, qui adresse son traité à un disciple (ṭālib), insiste sur le fait que l’art d’écrire se transmet essentiellement de calligraphe à calligraphe. Dans son étude sur la peinture et les arts du livre22, Yves Porter, qui a méticuleusement scruté les sources persanes, n’a guère trouvé de détails sur la formation des copistes ou des calligraphes. Dans un des textes qu’il édite en annexe, le Jawhar-i Sīmī de Sīmī Nīshāpūrī écrit vers 1435, l’auteur insiste sur les qualités indispensables au munshī pour que son travail soit le plus parfait possible. L’autre texte est le Qānūn al-suvvar de Ṣādiqī Bēg Afshār (fin du xvie siècle) : il y est question des peintres23. Là aussi, il est dit que sans avoir séjourné auprès d’un maître (ustād) réputé et bon pédagogue il est malaisé d’étudier l’art de la peinture. Les conseils de Ṣādiqī à son fils se rapprochent de ceux donnés à un futur calligraphe : « il ne faut pas que ce soit quelqu’un d’autre qui taille son calame (kilk) » et il doit tout apprendre. Dans les sources, on trouve peu de descriptions des années d’apprentissage des calligraphes et des copistes. On nous dit généralement simplement qu’ils ont appris auprès de tel ou tel maître, et s’ils ont appris un style, deux styles ou les six styles. Certains ont eu la chance d’avoir sous les yeux des modèles écrits par les grands calligraphes du passé, lorsque leur professeur ou leur protecteur en possédait. L’apprentissage par imitation semble la règle. Dans son dictionnaire du vocabulaire de la calligraphie et des arts du livre présent dans la poésie persane24, Ḥamīd Riżā Qalichkhānī n’a relevé que très peu de vers en rapport avec l’apprentissage, excepté ce qui a trait au maniement du qalam. Najīb Māyil Haravī a édité un ensemble de traités persans sur la calligraphie25. Parmi ceux-ci quelques-uns peuvent retenir notre attention. Le Risāla-yi Jawharīya de Sīmī Nīshābūrī composé en 837/1433-34, énumère les qualités nécessaires à un bon secrétaire (munshī). Il doit apprendre à être attentif, avoir l’esprit précis et être doué d’une bonne mémoire ; la taille du qalam joue un rôle essentiel et le secrétaire Sirāj Shīrāzī, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn : 106. Porter 1992 : 153-155, notamment. Porter 1992 : 198-200. Qalīchkhānī 1392sh/2013. Aux pages 26 ou 435, sous les termes shāgird (« le disciple ») ou ustād (« le maître ») on ne trouve pratiquement pas de description des méthodes d’enseignement. 25 Māyil Haravī 1372sh/1993. 21 22 23 24

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doit avoir appris à former et lier les lettres. Il lui faudra ensuite observer avec soin les règles de mise en page des documents en commençant les lignes au bon endroit26. Sīmī avait eu des disciples qui, comme le poète Muḥammad Kātibī Nīshābūrī – ou Turshīzī – (m. 838/1434-5), dans ses jeunes années, avaient bénéficié de son enseignement de l’art calligraphique à Nīshābūr27. De son côté, le traité Madād al-Khuṭūṭ de Mīr ʿAlī Haravī décrit seulement comment doit être la demeure d’un calligraphe : ouverte sur quatre côtés pour permettre d’y travailler aux différentes heures du jour, tandis que l’été on travaillera à proximité du bassin28… C’est évidemment le traité versifié de Sulṭān ʿAlī Mashhadī (m. 926/1520) intitulé Sirāt al-suṭūr (Le Chemin des lignes)29 qui nous renseigne le plus abondamment. Dans ce texte en effet le calligraphe nous raconte l’éducation qu’il a reçue. Attiré dès l’enfance par la calligraphie, orphelin à 7 ans, favorisé d’un songe, il avait appris seul l’écriture en autodidacte. Né en 841/1453 il fréquente à vingt ans une madrasa à Mashhad, où il se met à pratiquer la calligraphie du matin au soir et y rencontre des maîtres fameux comme Ẓahīr al-Dīn Azhar et ses disciples. Selon Sulṭān ʿAlī, pour bien écrire et progresser, il faut se retirer dans la solitude. Sulṭān ʿAlī qui eut de nombreux disciples donne des conseils : le premier est qu’il faut commencer très tôt l’apprentissage dans l’enfance. Il faut rassembler des pièces calligraphiées écrites par les maîtres et les imiter sans se laisser disperser ; c’est le seul moyen d’assimiler les règles de l’art. Celui-ci a deux faces : la pratique du qalam (qalamī) et l’observation attentive qui permet d’étudier chaque style calligraphique (naẓarī). Lettres, points et mots sont à reproduire avec la plus extrême précision, ligne à ligne, en évitant toute distraction. Les anciens maîtres réprouvent toute forme de rature ou de correction et on les évitera absolument. De la sorte, les qualités que doit avoir un futur calligraphe : être capable d’une attention de tout instant, d’abandonner toute autre activité et de se défaire de tout désir. Par ailleurs, il ne faut pas tricher et avoir le cœur pur. Le bon calligraphe ne doit être ni jaloux ni médisant. Il ne doit pas être bavard et il lui faut écouter les conseils de son maître et suivre ses avis. De la sorte l’apprentissage de la calligraphie entraîne toute une ascèse et lie étroitement le disciple à son maître. À cause de ce lien étroit entre maître et élève surgit la question de la reconnaissance de la qualité de calligraphe accompli, par un document (ijāza), permission ou licence délivrée par un maître illustre. Attestée par la tradition dans le cas d’Ibn Muqla30, cette pratique semble, comme on le verra plus loin, avoir été en vigueur dès la fin du xvie siècle dans l’empire ottoman mais nous n’en avons guère trouvé de mention en Iran.

26 Māyil Haravī 1372sh/1993 : 46, 48-49. 27 Dawlatshāh, Tad̲h̲kirat al-S̲h̲uʿarāʾ (éd. 1901) : 381-391. 28 Māyil Haravī 1372sh/1993 : 95. 29 Māyil Haravī 1372sh/1993 : 71-83. 30 Māyil Haravī 1372sh/1993 : 360 (il en est ainsi fait mention dans un traité Favāʾid al-khuṭūṭ de Darvīsh Muḥammad b. Dūst Muḥammad Bukhārī, achevé à Boukhara en 975/1567-8).

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I.2. Liens de parenté et appartenance au milieu des calligraphes et secrétaires

Les biographies de calligraphes permettent de compléter quelque peu le tableau. Ces sources sont souvent peu explicites sur les années de formation des artistes mais nous renseignent abondamment sur les lignées de calligraphes et les fréquents liens de parenté existant entre eux. Un texte intéressant de ce point de vue est la préface (dībācha) du Muraqqaʿ (Album) du prince Bahrām Mīrzā Ṣafavī (923-957/1517-1549)31 : l’auteur, Dūst Muḥammad, y parle de « chaîne de transmission » entre ces maîtres (silsila-yi arbāb-i kitābat) et beaucoup de ces artistes des xve et xvie siècles qu’il mentionne sont fils ou neveux de calligraphes. Daniel Zakrzewski32 s’est attaché à retracer quelques-unes des lignées de calligraphes de Tabriz : on voit qu’il existe entre nombre d’entre eux des liens de parenté ou des alliances familiales, en particulier dans le cas d’un personnage comme Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Khaṭṭāṭ (m. 930/1524). Dans le Gulistān-i hunar de Qāżī Aḥmad Munshī Qumī Ibrāhīmī33, de nombreuses notices concernent des calligraphes appartenant à certaines de ces lignées iraniennes sur lesquelles l’auteur avait pu recueillir le plus d’informations34, les calligraphes d’Asie centrale ou d’Inde étant pour la plupart absents de son ouvrage rédigé vers 1597 et complété vers 1606. Qāżī Aḥmad appartient lui-même à une de ces familles. Il est fils d’un munshī, Sharaf al-Dīn Ḥusayn Qumī, mort en 990/1582, qui avait commencé sa carrière à Hérat dans la chancellerie du prince safavide Sām Mīrzā35 autour de 1525, lorsque ce prince né en 923/1517 avait été nommé – encore enfant – gouverneur de Hérat. Ce munshī était frère du calligraphe Khalīlallāh, qui sera lui-même proche d’un autre prince safavide, le fameux bibliophile Ibrāhīm Mīrzā (946-984/1540-1577). Les calligraphes et les secrétaires (munshī) se recrutent volontiers dans les mêmes familles. Dans sa jeunesse, à la cour d’Ibrāhīm Mīrzā à Mashhad, vers 1545, Qāżī Aḥmad eut cinq maîtres dont au moins deux calligraphes réputés qui lui enseignèrent leur art, Shāh Maḥmūd Zarrīn-Qalam (sans doute vers 982/1574) et Mīr Sayyid Aḥmad, un disciple de Mīr ʿAlī Haravī, mort en 986/1578-9. Ce dernier, Mīr Sayyid Aḥmad36, offrit à Qāżī Aḥmad un muraqqaʿ, des modèles de lettres et des feuilles calligraphiées (qiṭʿa), présent précieux pour un calligraphe. 31 Thackston 2001 : 4-17. Voir aussi Adle 1993 : 219-96. 32 Zakrzewski 2016. 33 Eslami 2012 : 77-79. Voir Qāżī Aḥmad, Gulistān-i hunar (éd. 1365hsh/1986) et Calligraphers and Painters (traduction anglaise V. Minorsky, 1959). 34 De ce point de vue il est intéressant de comparer les listes établies par Mahdī Bayānī à partir des colophons des manuscrits eux-mêmes et les noms cités par Qāżī Aḥmad (Bayānī 1363sh/1985). Certaines familles, proches de l’auteur et de certains mécènes sont évidemment privilégiées. Il ne saurait être question de chercher un véritable souci d’exhaustivité chez cet auteur dont ce n’est pas l’objectif. 35 Sām Mīrzā sera lui-même bon calligraphe en nastaʿlīq (Bayānī 1363sh./1985 : 228, no. 360). 36 Il était fils d’un fabricant de chandelles de Mashhad et après avoir appris la calligraphie dans sa ville natale, il était venu à Hérat comme disciple du grand Mīr ʿAlī ; il le suivit à Boukhara, servit quelque temps le Shaybanide ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Khān (r. 1540-1550) puis rentra au Khorāsān, cf. Bayānī 1363sh./1985 : 44-54, no. 84.

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Le traité de Qāżī Aḥmad est à peu près contemporain des Menāqib-i hünerverān de Muṣṭafā Daftarī dit ʿĀlī Efendī37 (vers 1596-1598). Il s’agit probablement d’ouvrages correspondant à un besoin pour les calligraphes de définir leur profession comme une catégorie sociale à part. Les « généalogies » de calligraphes (shajara) que tente de reconstituer Qāżī Aḥmad rappellent un peu certaines chaînes de transmission des ordres soufis, mais il appartient à un milieu chiite, à la différence de Sirāj Shīrāzī. La justification de leur spécificité, les distinguant des copistes ordinaires, se fait surtout par leur naissance et l’éducation qu’ils ont reçue. Au fil du texte du Gulistān-i hunar, on observe quelques remarques sur cette dernière. Ainsi certains sont favorisés parce qu’ils peuvent copier des œuvres des anciens maîtres accessibles dans les collections de mécènes ou d’amateurs. Ainsi en va-t-il de la présence d’un manuscrit copié par Yāqūt dans la bibliothèque de Bahrām Mīrzā38. Par ailleurs il est dit que les disciples apprennent mieux s’ils restent au service d’un seul maître, tel Yūsuf Mashhadī qui servit très longtemps Yāqūt avant de transmettre son art à ʿAbdallāh Ṣayrafī (m. après 746/1345-6)39. Ce dernier choisissait ses – très rares – élèves à l’instar de Muʾīn al-Dīn Ḥājjī Muḥammad, son préféré, à qui il permettait même de signer de son nom, privilège insigne et rarement accordé. En revanche d’autres maîtres comme Sayyid Ḥaydar Gunda-nivīs accueillaient tous les candidats… Ceux qui furent les professeurs des princes dans leur jeunesse, comme Mawlānā Shams Bāysunghurī qui fut le maître de Bāysunghur, fameux gouverneur de Hérat (1417-1433) et fils de Shāhrukh, sont des personnages importants et influents40. À l’âge de neuf ans, c’est-à-dire vers 881/1476-7, le prince āq-quyūnlū Mīrzā Sulṭān ʿAlī b. Sulṭān Khalīl, qui était né à Shiraz, était déjà un calligraphe connu et admiré. Les notables font volontiers suivre à leurs enfants les leçons de calligraphes réputés. Cela ne peut que les aider dans leur future carrière. Qāżī Aḥmad cite l’exemple de Ḥaydar Qumī qui, à Qum, connaît tous les styles et est aussi excellent récitant (ḥāfiẓ) du Coran41. Par ailleurs beaucoup de calligraphes sont aussi poètes. L’apprentissage de ces deux arts peut être mené en parallèle. En outre, une des qualités pour être un bon calligraphe – comme dans le cas de Ḥāfiẓ Qanbar Sharafī – peut être d’être un bon lecteur, de connaître le Coran par cœur et d’avoir appris beaucoup de vers. Beaucoup transmettent leur savoir à leurs fils, comme Mīr Rūhallāh qui a été formé par son père Mīrzā Sharaf-i Jahān42. C’est particulièrement visible dans les familles de munshīs. Qāżī Aḥmad cite bien sûr l’exemple de ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Khwārazmī qui forma ses deux fils ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Anīsī et ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Pādishāh, tous deux célèbres ensuite. Nombre d’autres exemples apparaissent dans l’ouvrage. Cependant certains calligraphes n’appartenaient pas à ces familles. Sulṭān ʿAlī Mashhadī acceptait de

37 38 39 40 41 42

Cf. par exemple la copie manuscrite Supplément turc 193 de la BnF. Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 60-62. Cf. Ben Azzouna 2014 : 149-178. Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 71-73. Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 74. Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 91.

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nombreux élèves43 et, dès lors que l’élève faisait ses preuves et était accepté par son professeur, il pouvait envisager une carrière dans les métiers de l’écriture.

II. De l’empire ottoman à l’Inde, des pratiques comparables Clément Huart, ayant analysé le contenu de plusieurs traités, dont les Menāqib-i hünerverān, a pu rassembler un certain nombre de notices biographiques de calligraphes44. Dans le monde ottoman, on voit que depuis le xve siècle, beaucoup de calligraphes sont aussi des fils de calligraphes. Les modèles que l’on copie avec soin sont aussi un élément important dans la formation45. De même les princes ottomans sont également nombreux à avoir eu des professeurs de khaṭṭ-i khush. Les sources en citent quelques-uns. À la différence de ce que l’on sait de la tradition persane, le jeune calligraphe pouvait semble-t-il recevoir dans l’empire ottoman, au terme de sa formation, une « licence » (ijāza) prouvant sa qualité de maître. Ainsi le fameux calligraphe ottoman Ḥāfiẓ ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī, élève de Dervīsh ʿAlī avait reçu à l’âge de 18 ans une ijāza du calligraphe Suyoljū-zāde46. La pratique de la délivrance de telles licences avait donc cours à la fin du xviie siècle. On en voit un autre exemple dans la seconde moitié de ce même siècle avec l’ijāza reçu par Muḥammad b. Shāhīn47. Au début du xviiie siècle48, Muṣṭafā Sāmī Arpa Emīnī-zāde reçoit l’ijāza de Qaragöz Khwāja Muḥammad. On peut en citer d’autres exemples au xviiie siècle, ʿAbd al-Bāqī ou Khalīl b. Muḥammad Munajjim-bāshī puis de nombreux autres par la suite. Cette reconnaissance par l’ijāza semble accordée à des calligraphes arrivant à l’âge adulte, âgés de 18 à 25 ans. On ne sait pas à quel stade de leur formation, ni en étant passé par quelle madrasa, ce titre enviable pouvait être reçu. En revanche on voit une femme calligraphe, Ḥalīma bint Muḥammad Ṣādiq, recevoir l’ijāza dès son adolescence en 1167/1754. Un des premiers ijāza cités concernant un calligraphe ottoman est celui de Nūr ʿAlī Rūmī (m. 1024/1615), qui l’obtint du maître iranien Maḥmūd Shihābī Siyāvūshānī, mort vers 993/1585 à Hérat ou à Balkh. Ce dernier était fils d’un autre kātib fameux, Isḥāq Siyāvūshānī, le gendre du célèbre Mīr ʿAlī Haravī49 et il était parti comme lui en 935/1528 pour Boukhara après la prise de Hérat ; son beau-père se mit au service de ʿUbaydallāh Khān (r. 1534-1539) et fut maître de calligraphie du jeune prince ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Khān, sans plus jamais retourner en Iran safavide. Cette ijāza permettrait de rattacher Nūr cAlī à la lignée de Mīr ʿAlī. 43 Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 106. 44 Huart 1908. D’autres références concernant la calligraphie ottomane se retrouvent en outre notamment dans le chapitre XI du livre de Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (2008). 45 46 47 48 49

Blair 2008

Huart 1908 : 110, 114, et passim. Huart 1908 : 143. Huart 1908 : 146. Huart 1908 : 160, 165, et passim. Bayānī 1363sh./1985 : 876-880, no. 1313.

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Mais d’une manière générale tous ces calligraphes commencent à apprendre leur métier dans l’enfance. Sayyid Jalāl Adhud Yazdī, qui sera estimé par Bāysunghur, était fils du vizir du sultan muẓaffaride Mubāriz al-Dīn (1314-1358). Le sultan l’avait vu, tout enfant, étudier à l’école et, pris d’admiration, avait questionné son maître qui lui avait répondu que « c’était lui qui taillait le mieux son qalam », qualité essentielle qui permettait de déceler son talent50…. De même Bābā Shāh b. Sulṭān ʿAlī Iṣfahānī (m. 1012/1603-4) commençait à l’âge de huit ans à prendre des leçons auprès de Mīr ʿAlī Haravī et reste huit ans auprès de lui avant de connaître lui-même le renom51. C’est en particulier lui le copiste en 999/1591 d’un commentaire du Mathnavī de Mawlānā Rūmī conservé aujourd’hui à la Walters Gallery de Baltimore (le ms. W. 643). Il n’en demeure pas moins qu’outre les qualités morales et physiques, innées ou acquises, que doit avoir l’élève, il doit avant tout trouver un bon maître. Là aussi les textes s’accordent sur deux points : la durée du séjour auprès d’un tel maître doit être de préférence de plusieurs années et le professeur doit être non seulement un bon artiste mais un homme de bien au caractère droit et honnête. Il faut y faire très attention car alors la formation serait vouée à l’échec. Dans l’Inde musulmane, malgré la relative absence de biographies de calligraphes avant la fin du xviiie siècle52, on voit bien que le prestige des calligraphes était également immense et que les modes d’apprentissage comme les relations de maître à élève étaient assez comparables. Les membres de la cour moghole, princes et princesses, semblent avoir été dans leur prime jeunesse disciples de calligraphes renommés53. D’autre part le rôle joué par les munshī fut immense dans l’Inde médiévale et moderne et cela jusqu’au début de l’empire britannique. Plusieurs chercheurs54 ont souligné ce phénomène. N’est-ce pas dans l’Inde du xviiie siècle que l’écriture de style taʿlīq, spécifique des documents composés et calligraphiés par les munshī a connu une vogue extraordinaire auprès des amateurs de calligraphie, alors qu’elle était tombée en désuétude en Iran55 ? À Boukhara ou à Samarkand, les élèves suivent un cursus sur lequel les biographies de poètes composées en Asie centrale entre le xvie et le xviiie siècle nous donnent un

50 Huart 1908 : 211-212. 51 Huart 1908 : 234. 52 Voir par exemple notre note à propos d’une des versions du traité sur les calligraphes de Haft Qalamī, différente de celle qui a été imprimée à Delhi en 1910 (Richard 2016). 53 On peut citer, en Inde, des personnalités célèbres comme la princesse Jahānārā Bigūm (1614-1681) qui reçurent une éducation extrêmement complète. Dans l’Iran safavide du xvie siècle, M. Szuppe a relevé un certain nombre d’exemples de princesses ayant reçu une éducation soignée, où la calligraphie occupe une place de choix et montré comment Shāh Ṭahmāsb (1524-1576) était réputé d’avoir établi dans toutes les grandes villes de l’État safavide des écoles pour orphelins pauvres, accueillant chacune 40 garçons et 40 filles (Szuppe 1994 et Szuppe 1995). 54 Notamment Alam et Subrahmanyan 2012. Dans le chapitre intitulé “The making of a Munshī” (p. 337sq.), s’appuyant sur un texte du xviie siècle dû au munshī Nik Rāy, ils montrent les étapes de la carrière de cette classe de secrétaires dont le rôle ira croissant et qui au xviiie aura un rôle politique de plus en plus affirmé, notamment avec les communautés des Kayastha et des Khatri (ibid. : 427sq.). 55 On pensera par exemple au munshī et calligraphe Navvāb Murīd Khān Ṭabāṭabāʾī, actif vers 1740 à Lucknow et maître incontesté de cette écriture.

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certain nombre de renseignements56 : certains enseignements leur sont dispensés à la maison par un père ou un oncle, d’autres sont reçus au maktab ou à la madrasa. La calligraphie y occupe toute sa place. Au xixe siècle, la calligraphie restait toujours très en honneur. Nombre de membres de la société lettrée la tenaient en haute estime57. L’école de calligraphie nastaʿlīq de Boukhara, au style bien spécifique, était réputée. Beaucoup d’exemples montrent l’importance de l’apprentissage de la belle écriture, et de ses règles, dans la formation des élites, qui pouvaient par ailleurs fréquenter des cercles de poètes ou l’enseignement de tel ou tel maître dans les madrasa58. Beaucoup de peintres (naqqāsh) furent également calligraphes : c’est le cas de personnages comme ʿAbd al-Samad Shīrīn-Qalam qui quitta la cour de Shāh Ṭahmāsb (r. 1524-1576) en 951/1544 pour se mettre au service de Humāyūn en Inde ; il était calligraphe, peintre et poète59. C’est aussi le cas de Naẓīrī Qumī, du peintre Muẓaffar ʿAlī ou de Shaykh Muḥammad60. L’apprentissage de la peinture ou de l’enluminure requiert d’ailleurs des qualités voisines de celles que requiert l’écriture : l’habileté à manier le pinceau, une parfaite maîtrise des instruments et des techniques, la longue fréquentation d’un bon maître et la patiente copie des meilleurs modèles disponibles sont demandés au jeune artiste. Quelques musiciens aussi ont laissé le souvenir d’avoir été d’excellents calligraphes, tel le fameux Ṣafī al-Dīn Urmavī (mort en 693/1293-4) qui ajoutait à ses talents de savant théoricien de la musique, ceux de poète et de calligraphe, puisqu’il aurait été élève – dit-on – de Yāqūt Mustaʿṣimī61… Les meilleurs calligraphes, s’ils en ont eu la chance, ont pu fréquenter le kitābkhāna, où se retrouvent les artistes au service de la cour. Un important nombre de calligraphes se sont, par ailleurs, fait connaître comme poètes et se sont formés en fréquentant des cercles de poètes ; ils ont parfois inscrit des vers dans les colophons des manuscrits copiés par eux. Étant donné le prestige du métier de copiste dans le monde musulman et tout particulièrement dans le monde iranien, nous avons pu voir qu’une pédagogie spécifique associant dextérité manuelle et concentration intellectuelle était employée pour transmettre un savoir complexe où la tradition joue un rôle si important. Pouvoir apprendre à écrire auprès d’un maître illustre était une chance et un privilège

56 C’est le cas des taẕkira de Nīthārī, Muṭribī, de Malīhā et d’autres auteurs d’Asie centrale (Szuppe 2011 : 66-72). 57 Là encore les liens familiaux entre les grands calligraphes paraissent avoir été fort étroits. Pour le xvie siècle, où beaucoup de calligraphes avaient émigré de Hérat à Boukhara, quelques exemples ont été relevés par M. Szuppe (Szuppe 2017), avec notamment les figures de Mīr Kulangī et de son neveu dont les colophons des manuscrits permettent de retracer une partie de leur carrière. 58 Un exemple emblématique peut être trouvé dans la carrière d’Aḥmad Dānish, né en 1826, formé à la calligraphie puis à la peinture dans son enfance et qui devint munshi puis fut appelé à jouer un rôle considérable dans le khanat Manghit de Boukhara. Cf. Richard 2017 : 124-126 ; sur ses manuscrits voir Grassi 2015 : 233-272. 59 Karīmzāda Tabrīzī 1376sh/1997 : 329-337, no. 581. Dans les trois volumes de ce recueil de biographies de peintres (cf. Karīmzāda Tabrīzī, vol. II-III, Londres, 1990, passim) on trouve nombre d’autres exemples d’artistes qui furent calligraphes. 60 Qāżī Aḥmad, Calligraphers and Painters, (trad. Minorsky 1959) : 184, 186-187. 61 Farmer 1929.

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recherché depuis le haut Moyen-Âge. C’était l’un des moyens d’approcher des plus hauts sommets de l’état, soit par l’art – en devenant un des maîtres calligraphes –, soit par la compétence dans la pratique administrative en faisant carrière dans le dabīrkhāna ou le dār al-inshāʾ. Des enquêtes plus approfondies pourront – nous l’espérons – permettre de mettre au jour plus de textes ou de témoignages autobiographiques sur les méthodes d’apprentissage dans les milieux lettrés et notamment comment un élève formé aux rudiments de la calligraphie peut suivre d’autres enseignements dans les madrasa ou auprès de maîtres privés. On sait cependant qu’Avicenne (m. 1037) exhortait les parents, dès qu’un enfant avait atteint l’âge de six ans, à trouver un bon maître pour lui et de lui faire suivre un enseignement adapté à son âge62. Entre six et quatorze ans il conseille de leur faire étudier le Coran, la métaphysique, la langue, l’adab, l’éthique et des métiers manuels ; cela devra se faire dans une école (maktab) où il y aura une émulation entre les différents élèves, propice au progrès ; une fois acquis l’arabe et les sciences coraniques on pourra étudier la géométrie et la médecine. Avicenne, pas plus que Ghazzālī, l’auteur notamment du Kīmiyā-yi Saʿādat, au tout début du xiie siècle, pour qui ce que les enfants apprennent dans leur plus jeune âge au maktab est comme « gravé dans la pierre », n’est par ailleurs guère favorable à ce que les filles reçoivent le même enseignement que les garçons. Avec le développement des madrasa à partir du xe siècle, des établissements d’enseignement d’un niveau plus élevé voient le jour dans tout le monde iranien. Certaines madrasa sont plus illustres ou plus spécialisées (dans le domaine de la médecine par exemple). À la fin du xve siècle celles de villes comme Hérat sont très nombreuses et réputées. L’art de la calligraphie n’y est pas une matière d’enseignement dans le cursus des études. Certains des apprentis calligraphes ont pu suivre durant leur adolescence, parallèlement à leur formation dans l’art de l’écriture, des cours dans telle ou telle madrasa. Si l’apprentissage d’un art aussi complexe que la calligraphie peut se faire au sein d’un environnement familial favorable à la transmission de pratiques et de traditions, il semble cependant que le milieu des calligraphes, très spécifique, accorde tout autant sinon plus de place au rapport de maître à disciple. Une certaine ascèse, des aptitudes intellectuelles et pratiques, une sélection assez sévère font que ce métier d’élite, souvent proche de la cour, possède des caractères spécifiques qui lui confèrent un prestige qui ne s’est jamais démenti. On voit, en définitive, que les liens familiaux jouent un grand rôle dans le recrutement et la formation des khaṭṭāṭ. Ces artistes (pl. hunarmandān) se distinguent de la foule des copistes (sing. kātib) par leur talent reconnu et souvent envié, mais leur métier nécessite une discipline de vie bien particulière. Leur apprentissage repose essentiellement sur l’imitation du modèle et la proximité d’un maître. Comme en Chine, le calligraphe est une figure importante dans le monde iranien depuis le Moyen-âge jusqu’à nos jours.

62 History of civilizations of Central Asia 2000, IV/2 : 32-44.

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Références bibliographiques Adle, Chahryar, “Les artistes nommés Dust-Moḥammad au xvie siècle”, Studia Iranica 22/2 (1993) : 219-296. Alam, Muzaffar; Sanjay Subrahmanyan, Writing the Mughal World : Studies on Culture and Politics, New-York-Chichester : Columbia University Press, 2012 [N.B. : le chapitre “The Making of a Munshi” est paru originellement en 2004, avec le même titre, dans la revue Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24/2 : 61-72]. Amīr Khusraw, Majnūn va Laylī, éd. Taher Muharramov, Moscou : Danesh, 1964. Bayānī, Mahdī, Āthār va aḥvāl-i khushnivīsān, 4 volumes, Téhéran : Intishārāt-i ʿilmī, 1363sh./1985. Ben Azzouna, Nourane, “Pratique et théorie en calligraphie d’après l’œuvre de ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣayrafī (Iran, première moitié du xive siècle)”, Eurasian Studies 12/1-2 (2014) : 149176 et pl. III (volume thématique : Balbir, Nalini, et Szuppe, Maria (éds.), Lecteurs et copistes dans les traditions manuscrites iraniennes, indiennes et centrasiatiques / Scribes and Readers in Iranian, Indian and Central Asian Manuscript Traditions). Blair, Sheila S., Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2008. Dawlatshāh Samarqandī, Tad̲h̲kirat al-S̲h̲uʿarāʾ, éd. E. G. Browne, London-Leiden : Luzac, 1901. Duda, Dorothea, Islamische Handschriften. I. Persische Handschriften, Wien : Österreichische Akademie des Wissenschaften, 1983. Erkinov, Aftandil, (éd.), ‘Alī Shīr Navā’ī, Dīvān of the Aq Qoyunlu Admirers (1471), Tokyo : Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), 2015 [Studia Culturae Islamicæ, 101; MEIS Series, 18]. Ernst, Carl, “Sufism and Aesthetics of Penmanship in Sirāj al-Shīrāzī’s Tuhfat (1454)”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 129/3 ( July-September 2009) : 431-442. Eslami, Kambiz, “Golestān-e honar”, dans Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater (Gen. Ed.), Foundation for Iranian Studies, Columbia University, New York, vol. XI/1, 2012 : 77-79. Faḍāʾili, Ḥabīballāh, Aṭlas-i khaṭṭ: taḥqīq dar khuṭūṭ-i islāmī, 2e édition, Iṣfahān : Muʾassasayi Intišārāt-i Mašʿal, 1362sh./1983. Farmer, Henry George, A History of Arabian Music to the XIII Century, Londres : Luzac, 1929. Grassi, Evelin, “The Manuscripts of the Works by Ahmad Danish and his Popularity as a ‘Precursor’ of the Bukharan Jadids”, dans De Chiara, Matteo, et Grassi, Evelin, (éds.), Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia, from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, Paris : AAEI, 2015 : 233-272 [Cahiers. Studia Iranica, 57]. History of Civilizations of Central Asia, volume IV : The Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century, Part 2 : The Achievements, C. E. Bosworth et M. S. Asimov (Gen. Ed.), Paris : UNESCO, 2000. Huart, Clément, Les calligraphes et les miniaturistes de l’Orient musulman, Paris : E. Leroux, 1908. Karīmzāda Tabrīzī, Muḥammad-ʿAlī, Aḥvāl va āthār-i naqqāshān-i qadīm-i Īrān va barkhī az mashāhīr-i nigār-i Hind va ʿUsmānī (The Lives and Art of Old Painters of Iran), volume I, Tehrān : Intishārāt-i Mustawfī, 1376sh./1997.

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Māyil Haravī, Najīb, Kitāb-ārāʾī dar tamaddun-i islāmī, Majmūʿa-yi rasāyil dar zamīnayi khushnivīsī, murakkab-sāzī, kāghaẕgarī, taẕhīb va tajlīd ba inzimām-i farhang-i vazhagān-i niẓām-i kitāb-ārāʾī (The Art of Bibliopegy in Islamic Civilisation. A Collection of Articles on Penmanship, Ink making, Papers, Gilding and Book binding with a Glossary of related terms), Mashhad : Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī, 1372sh./1993. Niẓāmī, Khamsa, éd. Vahīd Dastgirdī, Téhéran : Armaghān, 1313sh./1934. Porter, Yves, Peinture et arts du livre. Essai sur la littérature technique indo persane, ParisTéhéran : Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1992 [Bibliothèque iranienne, 35]. (Traduction anglaise : Painters, Paintings, and Books. An Essay on Indo-Persian Technical Literature, 12th-19th Centuries, Delhi : Manohar, 1995). Qalīchkhānī, Ḥamīd Riżā, Zar-afshān farhang-i istilāhāt va tarkībāt-i khushnivīsī, kitāb-ārāʾī va nuskhapardāzī dar shiʿr-i fārsī, Tehrān : Farhang-i Muʿāthir, 1392sh./2013. Qāżī Aḥmad Qumī, Gulistān-i hunar, éd. Aḥmad Suhaylī Khwānsārī, Téhéran : Manūchihrī, 1365sh./1986. [Qāżī Aḥmad Qumī,] Calligraphers and Painters : A Treatise by Qāḍī Aḥmad, son of MīrMunshī, trad. Vladmir Minorsky, Washington : Freer Gallery of Art, 1959 [Occasional Papers, 3/2]. Richard, Francis, “Naṣr al-Solṭāni, Naṣir al-Moẕahheb et la bibliothèque d’Ebrāhim Solṭān à Shirāz”, Studia Iranica 30/1 (2000) : 87-104. Richard, Francis, “Autour de la naissance du nasta‘liq en Perse : les écritures de Chancellerie et le foisonnement des styles durant les années 1350-1400”, Manuscripta Orientalia, International Journal for Oriental Manuscript Research 9/3 (September 2003) : 8-15. Richard, Francis, Catalogue des manuscrits persans. Bibliothèque nationale de France (Département des manuscrits), Tome II : Le Supplément persan, II/1 : Première partie, Supplément persan 1 à 534, Rome : Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino & UMR Mondes iranien et indien, 2013 [Series Catalogorum, VI/1-2]. Richard, Francis, “De maître à élève. Nouvelle source concernant les biographies de calligraphes de l’Inde musulmane. Le manuscrit no. 2432 de Rampur”, DYNTRAN Working Papers 13, online edition, June 2016, http://dyntran.hypotheses.org/1416 Richard, Francis, “Calligraphy as an ethic : Ahmad Donish calligrapher and importance of educational methods”, dans Proceedings of the Ahmad Donish Conference, Dushanbe : Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, 2017 : 124-126. Rustow, Marina, The Lost Archive : Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue, Princeton, University Press, 2020. Roxburgh, David J., The Persian Album 1400-1600, from Dispersal to Collection, New Haven & London : Yale University Press, 2005. Sirāj Shīrāzī, Yaʿqūb b. Ḥasan, Tuḥfat al-muḥibbīn dar ā’īn-i khushnivīsī va latāyif-i maʿnavī-yi ān, éd. Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpajūh, Karāmat Raʿnā Ḥusaynī et Īraj Afshār, Téhéran : Nashr-i Nuqṭa, 1376sh./1997-8. Soucek, Priscilla P., “The Arts of Calligraphy”, dans : Gray, Basil (éd.), The Arts of the Book in Central Asia 14th-16th Centuries, Paris-Londres, UNESCO - Serindia Publications, 1979 : 7-34.

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Szuppe, Maria, “La participation des femmes de la famille royale à l’exercice du pouvoir en Iran safavide au xve siècle”, Part I : Studia Iranica 23/2 (1994) : 211-258, et Part II : Studia Iranica 24/1 (1995) : 61-122. Szuppe, Maria, “A Glorious Past and an Outstanding Present : Writing a Collection of Biographies in Late Persianate Central Asia”, dans Marlow, Louise (éd.), The Rhetoric of Biography. Narrating Lives in Persianate Societies, Boston-Cambridge, Mass. : Ilex Foundation & Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University, 2011 : 41-88 [Ilex Foundation Series, 4]. Szuppe, Maria, “The Family and Professional Circle of Two Samarkand Calligraphers of Persian Belles-Lettres Around the Year 1600 (ca. 1010AH)”, Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017) : 320-349 [vol. thématique : Aube, Sandra, & Szuppe, Maria (éds.), avec la collaboration d’Anthony T. Quickel, Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East]. Thackston, Wheeler M., Album Prefaces and other documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters, Leiden : Brill, 2001. Wright, Elaine, The Look of the Book. Manuscript Production in Shiraz, 1303-1452, Washington : Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, in association with University of Washington Press, 2013. Zakrzewski, Daniel, “Calligrapher Families of Tabriz, 8th/14th-10th/16th centuries”, DYNTRAN Working Papers 9, online edition, February 2016, http://dyntran. hypotheses.org/9955

Managing Households and Family Estates

Christoph U. Werner

The Rażavī Sayyids of Mashhad Families within a Family

Schâh-Abbâs reçut l’infortuné Nédir-khàn avec distinction & respect, parce qu’il voulut honorer dans sa personne, le fils d’une fille unique de Mîrzâ Abù-Tàlib, dernier descendant en ligne directe de l’Imâm-Ryzâ, qui l’avait donnée en mariage à Dîn-Mouhammèd, père de Nèdir, lors de la prise de Mèsch’hèd par Abdoul-moûmin.1

This quote from a Central Asian historiographical work emphasises the respect paid by the Safavid Shāh ʿAbbās to one of his Uzbek adversaries: Sayyid Nadr Muḥammad Khān was a direct descendant of Imām Riżā through his mother and thus a member of the prestigious family of Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad. Two members of one and the same family encountered and honoured each other — the Safavid Shah and the Uzbek Khan were both considered descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad. The Safavid rulers presented themselves as a lineage of Mūsavī sayyids, while the Rażavī sayyids were divided into numerous branches and smaller family units. We can follow the rise and fortune of the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad from the Timurid fifteenth up to the twentieth century, and their close association with the shrine of Imām Riżā is certainly one feature that sets them apart from other groups of notables, as well as from other prominent sayyid families. How did this multiple configuration of belonging to different families within one family play out in reality? The individual households and smaller family units of Rażavī sayyids formed together the imagined ‘Rażavī-family’, which in turn constituted one particular ‘family’ within the Family of the Prophet.2 Very remotely this echoes the multiple layers of tribal affiliation, from household and clan, to tribe,



1 Senkowski 1824: 45; Senkowski is a paraphrasing translation of Muḥammad Yūsuf, Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khānī. 2 This is not a modern, imposed interpretation of ‘family’: the author of the Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khānī presents the mother of Nadr Khān as being of the family (khānavāda) of the Prophet and of the family (dūdamān) of the Rażavī sādāt, Muḥammad Yūsuf, Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khāni: 164, more on this below. Christoph U. Werner  •  Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 239-267 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122938

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to confederacy. Of special interest to us are the long-term strategies of transmission employed by these manifold Rażavī families both in relation to each other and to the superordinate concept of belonging to one meta-family.3 In addition to their association with the shrine, further techniques, tools and strategies were important in maintaining their longevity and ongoing presence on the local scene of Mashhad and the regional arena of Khorasan.

I.

Introduction: The Family of the Prophet and sayyid Families of Khorasan

The Family of the Prophet stands out throughout Islamic history: Known as sayyids (sayyid, pl. sādāt), the descendants of the prophet Muḥammad and his house formed the most widespread, most visible and most noble of all families.4 Their members carried enormous prestige and profited from exclusive benefits provided for them through interpretations of Islamic law or from acts of public piety, whether individual or institutionalised through endowments. As descendants of the Prophet they were perceived as natural leaders in local communities, and in times of crisis, unrest or war they enjoyed immunity from persecution. Their interpretations of Islamic law and tradition, as well as their scholarly endeavours carried additional weight. This wide-ranging veneration and respect can be observed irrespective of religious confession, geographical location or historical period. However, the esteem for the direct descendants of the prophet through his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, the ʿAlids, and the special place reserved for the ahl al-bayt takes an even more pronounced place. Early genealogies of sayyids thus distinguish between the more prominent ʿAlid and Ṭālibid (through Abū Ṭālib) lineages and other descent groups, such as the Banū Hāshim. Further distinctions indicate ancestral lineages along nisbas such as Ḥasanī and Ḥusaynī, after the Prophet’s grandsons, or Mūsavī or Rażavī, descendants of the seventh Shi’i Imām Mūsā b. Jaʿfar (745-799) or the eighth Imām ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riżā (765-818).5 Studies devoted to sayyids/sādāt are a rather recent field of Middle Eastern studies. They follow in the footsteps of traditional genealogists and the classical science of genealogy (ʿilm al-nasab), but set out to ask new questions about origins, spread and dispersion, inter-social relations, economic backgrounds and foundations, internal





3 See the overarching theme of the ANR/DFG research project “Dynamics of Transmission” (https:// dyntran.hypotheses.org) and the special issue of Eurasian Studies (2/2017) edited by Sandra Aube and Maria Szuppe; therein Werner 2017. 4 In other regions of the Islamic world also named as ashrāf (sg. sharīf), i.e. Winter 1992, chapter 7, for Egypt under Ottoman rule; this appellation is not common in an Iranian context. Definitions of who is a sayyid or sharif and thus belongs to the family of the prophet can vary and be drawn both wider and narrower. 5 For a concise overview Bernheimer 2013.

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organisation and marriage patterns of this eminent und unique family.6 Depending on respective interests, the perspectives chosen can be that of Islamic studies, i.e. dealing with traditionalist literature and nasab,7 sociological and anthropological, i.e. with regard to marriage patterns in a contemporary context,8 or historical, looking at sayyids and sayyid families in past contexts of nobility, power structures, economy, urban life and patronage patterns.9 It should be pointed out that, perhaps surprisingly, there has been no attempt until now to lay out a broader history of sayyids/sādāt in the wider Iranian or Persianate world. Especially questions of early migration and settlement patterns onto the Iranian plateau that would go beyond the history of single urban communities are only in their initial stages, as are studies that would move beyond a primarily Shi’i perspective.10 For the Eastern Islamic lands, Iran and Central Asia, special emphasis in historical research has been placed on urban elites and the role sayyids/sādāt played on a local level. In pre-modern cities like Nishapur, Yazd and Qum influential sayyid families formed an essential component of the urban fabric and were considered elite groups in their own right.11 The Mongol incursions and subsequent rule over Iran and Central Asia influenced considerably the fate and prospects of many sayyid families: for some, changes in the political structures opened up new opportunities of patronage and support, for others, the destruction of their social and economic bases proved to be challenging. In many ways, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries mark a transition period between the medieval and the early modern era of Iranian history which was felt particularly strongly in the larger region of Khorasan. During this transition period, the town of Mashhad with the mausoleum of the eighth Shi’i Imām ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riżā emerged as a new centre in Khorasan. The importance of sayyid families for the rise, expansion and continuing prestige of the shrine of Imam Riżā in Mashhad has been noted by almost all authors contributing to the shrine’s history, most certainly by May Farhat who stated: In the case of Mashhadi sayyids, we witness a confluence of purpose between the sayyids’ need to preserve their social/corporate identity as descendants of the Prophet, along with all their attendant prerogatives, and to promote the memory/cult of ʿ Alī al-Riḍā.12

6 Still a milestone is the special issue of Oriente Moderno, edited by Bianca Scarcia Amoretti und Laura Bottin (1999). Of equal importance is the volume by Kazuo Morimoto (2012). 7 Morimoto 1999, 2014 and 2016. 8 Mauriello 2018. 9 On the Ottoman state’s attempt to register and control sayyid families in Anatolia and the Balkans on the basis of the Nakibüleşraf Defterleri (Registers of the Marshal of the Descendants of the Prophet), see Canbakal 2009. 10 Jaʿfariyan 1395/2016 for a perspective on Shi’ism (and sādāt) in Iran. Ḥusaynī 1397/2018, prepared an atlas on the lineages and migration patterns of sādat from Isfahan. 11 Bulliet 1972 on Nishapur, Drechsler 1999 on Qum, recently Mancini-Lander 2019 on Yazd. 12 Farhat 2002: 5.

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To recapitulate, mashhad refers to the place of martyrdom of the eighth Shi’i Imām, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riżā. After the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn had invited him to come to Khorasan to become his heir and successor he was murdered there in the year 818 and buried in the small village of Sanābād close to the city of Ṭūs. Gradually, his burial place developed into a venerated shrine, but the town known today as Mashhad only gained prominence some time after the Mongol invasion which had led to the destruction of major cities of eastern Iran such as Marv and Nishapur. In early Safavid sources, Ṭūs still featured as main fortified place, and Mashhad at times continued to be referred to as Mashhad-i Ṭūs, as not to be confounded with other places of martyrdom (mashhads). Control over the shrine, which appears in historical sources as the Sarkār-i fayżās̱ār-i rażavī (‘the grace- and bountiful estate of Riżā’) and today primarily as the Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī (‘the holy threshold of Riżā’) increasingly became crucial for the legitimisation of political authority and was also economically viable once patronage and building activity had turned the shrine into a trans-regional and prospering centre of pilgrimage.13 I.1. Sayyid families in Khorasan and their naqībs

The presence and influence of sayyid families is cosely connected to both the early development of the mausoleum of Imām Riżā and the growth of the urban centres of Khorasan. They had taken up residence in Marv, in Nishapur14 and in Ṭūs early on and were represented through their respective naqībs, or heads of sayyid households. Sources point out especially the settlement of Mūsavī sayyid families, probably with Shi’i credentials, from the ninth to the twelfth century in Ṭūs.15 It is from there that they — as well as sayyid families from nearby Nishapur — also took an active interest in the shrine at Mashhad. Their naqībs were also linked to renovation projects of the shrine during the Saljuq period.16 Spurious references to the presence of Mūsavī sayyids and their role in the upkeep of the shrine during the Ilkhanid period and the time of Sarbadār rule can be found, however, we have little information on the actual day-to-day management of the shrine’s affairs, nor do we have systematic genealogies of sayyid families in the area.17 This limited interest in the shrine’s management — at least in comparison to later periods — is a natural reflection of mostly local pilgrimage, negligible patronage and the absence of large-scale endowments. At least the frequently cited visit by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa to Mashhad and the mausoleum of al-Riżā in

13 Still the best histories of the shrine are Muʾtaman 1348/1969 and ʿAṭārudī 1371-72/1992-93, while Sayyidī 1378/1999 provides a detailed history of the town of Mashhad. Further literature in Morikawa/Werner 2017. 14 Bulliet 1972: 234-240 on the Ḥasanī sayyids in Nishapur. Bernheimer 2013: 73-85 and Bernheimer 2015 on the ʿAlids of Nishapur. 15 Farhat 2002: 29-30. Jaʿfariyān 1395/2016 I:769-777 on Shi’ism in Khorasan in the sixth century hijrī. 16 Farhat 2002: 52. 17 Farhat 2002: 66, 72.

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the year 1333 demonstrates that in the fourteenth century the shrine was flourishing and its architecture had been restored.18 Central to our perception of sayyid families or households during this prolonged period is the position or title of naqīb. Initially responsible to ensure the integrity of genealogies and lineages, as well as to identify members of the sādāt/ashrāf eligible for benefits, the naqībs also acted as the heads and representatives of their respective households within urban society and as such wielded considerable authority.19 Their status, however, had to be continuously legitimised and upheld, as has been shown by Kazuo Morimoto for the Zabbārā and Buṭḥānī sayyids in Saljuq Bayhaq and Nishapur.20 We understand that their authority also covered to a certain degree the shrine at Mashhad. With the arrival of new sayyid families in the fourteenth century, the idea of holding the exclusive position of naqīb (or niqābat) in a certain region or town gradually dissolved and appears to have increasingly become more of a titular position with several individuals at a time acting as naqīb or simply being addressed as such. Later on, in the Safavid period, it indeed became a form of standardised appelation extended to most prominent sayyids, as in the chancellery designation as siyādat-u niqābat panāh (‘refuge of sayyid- and naqīb-ship’). While it has been implied, quite naturally, that the naqībs of Ṭūs and Mashhad had been in charge of the shrine’s administration as kilīd-dārs (‘keykeepers’), there is little concrete evidence on the actual range of such function.21 Looking at the role of sayyid families in relation to political power at Mashhad and the shrine of Imām Riżā, especially over the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, three main aspects must be taken into account. One is the continuation of the medieval tradition of sayyid urban notables as natural representatives of a town’s elites, whether in the professional garb of jurists, scholars, administrators or simply rentiers. A second major aspect that, although primarily relevant for the thirteenth and fourteenth century, is the convolution of Sufi lineages and sayyid genealogies. This gave rise to the establishment of regional powers as in the case of the Kār Kiyā or the Marʿashī powers along the Caspian Sea.22 The necessity to construct and define a sayyid lineage was a challenge for many Sufi movements, most prominently the Safavids. But also their early rivals, the Kujujīs of Tabrīz claimed sayyid descent in the fourteenth century.23 This leads to the third aspect, the importance of relaying sayyid-ship (siyādat) and statehood in the innovative Safavid ‘project’. The sayyid lineage 18 Ibn Battúta 1929: 177. 19 Bernheimer 2013: 51-70 for an excellent overview up to the fifth/tenth century. Her emphasis that our understanding of the origins and functions of this office remains limited, is especially valid for Iran and the post-Saljuq periods. For the situation in Central Asia, see DeWeese 1995, especially 617-618 for a titular shrine niqābat in Timurid Balkh, and McChesney 1991: 42. For the Naqīb al-ashrāf in Ottoman Cairo, Winter 1992: 186-188. 20 Morimoto 2007. 21 Ḥasanābādī 1385/2006: 74. 22 Goto 1999 and 2011, also Hermann 2004. On the later relationship between the Marʿashī sayyids and the Safavid state, Sulṭān Hāshim Mīrzā, Zabūr-i Āl-i Dāvud, and Calmard 1999. 23 Dirakhshān 1975 and Morimoto 2010 on the pre-dynastic claim to sayyid status by the Safavids. Werner 2017: 270.

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of the Safavid dynasty had to be aligned with the protection of and cooperation with sayyid families throughout the realm as part of Safavid state ideology and legitimacy. This meant not only to include the patronage of sayyids as part of the new Safavid religious politics, but also to turn possible political rivals into loyal allies.24 I.2. Sources and Framework

Since May Farhat’s ground-breaking studies,25 a large number of new sources have come to light and especially the enormous fundus of archival material from the shrine is now more easily accessible.26 This has been used extensively by Abū al-Fażl Ḥasanābādī, in particular in his detailed monograph on the Rażavī sayyids that also contains valuable document editions and tables.27 The range of sources available to trace the sayyid families of Mashhad and some of their outstanding individuals is wide. Early genealogies can be found in the standard traditional works on ʿAlid and Ṭālibid nasab, although they rarely reach the early modern period.28 Most dynastic histories and chronological works covering the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries mention the sayyids/sādāt of Mashhad and their main protagonists. This information can be confirmed and enriched by archival material — appointment decrees, vaqf deeds, administrative records — of which a significant number has been published.29 Biographical information can also be gathered from epigraphical data, especially funerary or building inscriptions. From the nineteenth century onward, local historiography becomes more and more important, a monumental example is the three volume work Maṭlaʿ al-Shams composed by Ṣanīʿ al-Dawla,30 as is the impressive catalogue of the shrine’s endowments, the Ās̱ār al-Rażavīya, compiled in 1899.31 Perhaps the most important source for the history of the Rażavī sayyids is the work Shajara-yi ṭayyiba composed by the well-known scholar and faqīh Muḥammad Bāqir Mudarris Rażavī (d. 1923).32 The author is steeped in the tradition of ʿilm-i ansāb (genealogy) and follows in the footsteps of classical geneaologists, such as Ibn al-Kalbī (d. 819). On the other hand, it is a hybrid study in that combines different approaches, both traditional and modern, in the composition of genealogies, while incorporating numerous documents (farmāns, vaqfnāmas) and testimony from other sources. As such, his book resembles works on local or family history from late 24 Newman 1999 discusses this dilemma in detail. Arjomand 1984 with reference to sayyid families as part of the clerical estate. With regard to Mashhad also Ṭalāyī 1387/2018. 25 Farhat 2002 and 2014. 26 Hasanabadi/Mahbub 2009. 27 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008. 28 As below, see Ibn ʿInaba,ʿUmdat al-ṭālib fī ansāb āl Abī Ṭālib. 29 Most recent Shahīdī 1397/2019. Published archival material can be found either in appendices to other works, in journal articles on specific topics or in separate volumes. 30 Iʿtimād al-Salṭana 1301-1303q/1883-85. 31 Ismāʿīl Khān Hamadānī, edited in Morikawa/Werner 2017. 32 Rażavī 1352/1973. Composed around 1915-16, it remained in manuscript form until its publication sixty years later. The copious preface includes a biography of the author and an introduction to the work. The edition is only occasionally annotated and does feature neither a table of contents nor an index.

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nineteenth and early twentieth century Iran, and is related to the genre of khāṭirāt or autobiographical memoir literature as well.33

II. The Rażavī Sayyids of Mashhad As the time frame of our investigation covers several centuries, we propose a rough tripartite periodization for the history of the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad that distinguishes between (1) the arrival of major Rażavī individuals and families under the rule of Timurid principalities of the fifteenth century, (2) the consolidation and expansion of their status under the rule of the Safavid Shahs Ṭahmāsp (r. 1524-1576) and ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629) and then (3) their wide diversification in the administrative areas of the shrine in the period of later Safavid and Afsharid rulers of the eighteenth century. The overall problem we encounter in the case of pre-modern families is to what degree they are identifiable and recognizable. In our case, the nisba of Rażavī does not necessarily point to the geographical location of Mashhad and is not yet very common in the fifteenth century. While the main branches of Mashhad Rażavī sayyids are well documented, the fringes of these families, especially side-branches of Rażavī sayyids in other locations, often remain difficult to map. Only from the Safavid period onward it is possible to identify households and multi-generational groups through hereditarily held professions, functions and positions. We will take a close look on two branches of one lineage of Rażavī sayyids in Mashhad and trace the fate of their key protagonists, while establishing a periodization for different stages in the professional development of this family and their relationship with the shrine and the political environment of their time. II.1. Timurid Patronage of the Shrine and the Ascent of Rażavī sayyid Families

The Timurid period of the fifteenth century is crucial for any discussion of sayyid families in Mashhad and the question of guardianship over the shrine. It signals the actual arrival of Rażavī sayyids to Khorasan and the town of Mashhad who were drawn by the promise of support and patronage by the new rulers. Also, Timurid building activity marks the transition from a local shrine and mausoleum to a trans-regional centre of pilgrimage and the origins of the present-day shrine complex.34 The attention paid to the shrine at Mashhad by the Sunni Timurid rulers not only focused on the erection of buildings — outstanding is the Mosque commissioned 33 The distinction between genres such as memoirs, ancestral histories, geographical works and local historiography is at best vague in the transitional period between the late Qajar and the early Pahlavi periods. On geographical literature Gustafson 2016, on modern historiography the contributions by Abbas Amanat and Fakhreddin Azimi in the major edited volume on Persian Historiography (Melville 2012). 34 On the architecture, O’Kane 1987 and Golombek/Wilber 1988. Subtelny 2007: 205-207, highlights the shrine’s administrators as a “powerful corporate group”.

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by Gawhar Shād which was completed in 1418 — but comprised the recruitment of scholars, artists and sayyids. One of those who came to Mashhad during the reign of Shāhrukh (r. 1405-1447) was Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad who can be considered the most important ancestor of the Mashhadī Rażavī sayyids.35 He arrived from Qum and was a thirteenth-generation descendant of the famous naqīb Abū ʿAbdallāh Aḥmad (d. 968), an eminent notable of Qum in the tenth century.36 Now, Abū ʿAbdallāh was a grandson of Mūsā al-Mubarraqaʿ (d. 909), son of the ninth Imām Muḥammad al-Taqī al-Javād (811-835) who had migrated from Medina, passing through Kufa, to Qum, where he had finally settled down about a century earlier. Mūsā al-Mubarraqaʿ is named as the forefather of all sayyids/sādāt carrying the nisba of Rażavī or Riżvī in later times.37 We do not know why Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad came to Mashhad and what his profession was, but the reputation of stemming from a noble and well established sayyid lineage certainly must have been a good introduction. It appears also that he did not arrive alone, but that other Rażavī sayyids from Qum also came to Mashhad around the same time, establishing a marked presence there. Another descendant of Mūsā al-Mubarraqaʿ who set up a household in Mashhad as professor (mudarris) of theology and jurisprudence was Rażī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAli during the reign of Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bāyqarā (r. 1468-1505).38 However, it was the son of Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad, Abū Ṣāliḥ Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn ʿAzīz, who became highly successful and whose sons created the two major branches of Raẓavī sayyids in Mashhad: The historian Khvāndamīr has a small section in his universal history Ḥabīb al-siyar on sayyids, naqībs, Sufi shaykhs, ʿulamā and religious scholars, contemporary to the time of Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bāyqarā. There he stresses the primacy of the sādāt and nuqabā resident at the shrine in Mashhad (rawża-yi muqaddasa-yi rażavīya), mentioning in particular three outstanding individuals holding the position (manṣab) of naqīb: Amīr Niẓām al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥayy, Amīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn ʿAzīz and Amīr ʿAlāʾ al-Mulk. He emphasizes both their superiority over the other Mūsavī and Rażavī sayyids and their role in the upkeep of the shrine (tarvīj-i taʿmīr-i ān mazār-i quds-ās̱ār).39 Beyond the immediate reference to the name of Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn ʿAzīz this is a clear indication that the newly arrived Rażavī sayyids were still in competition with Mūsavī sayyid households under their own naqībs. They had not yet reached the singular position where they would be the only sayyid lineage in Mashhad and whence sādāt of Mashhad meant sādāt-i Rażavī. We also realize that the use of nisbas denoting sayyid

35 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 86. Rażavī 1352/1973: 62-63, with reference to Shūshtarī’s Majālis al-Muʾminīn (not verified). Amīr or Mīr are interchangeable appellations, both appear in the sources and mark sayyid status. 36 Drechsler 1999: 186-187. 37 Fischer 1980: 107, on the continuing role of the Rażavī sayyids in Qum as mutavallī/naqīb in the fifteenth century and beyond. 38 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 31-32. Khvāfī, Mujmal-i Faṣīḥī: III, 1116. 39 Khvāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-siyar: IV, 333-334. Cf. Farhat 2002: 110-111, with further biographical references.

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descent lines was not yet frequent, at least in historical works — in other words, one can only indirectly discern their background. Thus prior to the Safavids, we encounter sayyid families of different descent and lineage, both Mūsavī and Rażavī, in Mashhad, who were all involved in the shrine’s affairs in a semi-official position. While the Gawhar Shād mosque had been generously supported by endowments, the shrine complex or the mausoleum as a whole still lacked broader resources and thus also the need for a chief mutavallī or guardian was not evident. To equate the role the naqībs played under the Timurids with the later introduction of exclusive guardianship and the position as mutavallī under the Safavids should therefore be considered ahistorical.40 The three mentioned naqībs were recognized by the Timurids, but it would equally be misleading to consider them state appointed officials. They still stand in a tradition of urban representatives and it is in this capacity that we come across the name of Amīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn as a landowner in Khorasan who was granted tax immunity for his estates by the Sunni Uzbek ʿUbaydallāh Khān Shībānī in a farmān (decree) dated 1 Shavvāl 932 (21 July 1526).41 This farmān dates to the first takeover of Mashhad by ʿUbaydallāh Khān and confirms a previously granted suyūrghāl42 while transforming it from a direct subsidy into an exemption of all taxes for four individually named sayyids (all addressed as naqīb): Ṣadr al-Dīn Ibrāhīm, Muʿizz al-Dīn Khalīlallāh, Niẓām al-Dīn Abū Ṭālib and the already introduced Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn Abū Ṣāliḥ. It is also highly probable that he was among the group of sādāt and nuqabā from the shrine (rauża-yi muṭahhira) who had come out to Nishapur to greet and receive ʿUbaydallāh’s uncle Muḥammad Khān Shaybānī in 1509, as narrated by Khunjī in his Mihmān-nāma-yi Bukhārā.43 Their role as prominent urban notables is further enhanced by their participation in literary circles and in composing poetry. Thus, Mīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn and one of his sons are mentioned in the well-known anthology Majālis al-nafāʾis by ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī (poet and mystic, 1441-1501).44 The relationship of sayyid households to those in political power was different from that of other local families or aristocracies as they enjoyed a high amount of immunity, both financial and physical. While they were in need of official recognition, the same was true for anyone with political authority who could ill afford to mistreat or ignore sayyids and their representatives. Thus, patronage by the Timurids did not prevent them from accepting protection from the Uzbeks during their frequent 40 Muʾtaman 1348/1969: 225-226. 41 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 86. Rażavī 1352/1973: 65-67 with the full text of the farmān. Note that here as in other instances individuals appear with different variants of their names in the sources (narrative or archival): thus Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn ʿAzīz, Amīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn or Mīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn are one and the same person. ʿUbaydallāh Khān b. Maḥmūd was the nephew of Muḥammad Shībānī, on him and “khanal auhority”, see Welsford 2013:122-124. 42 A suyūrghāl is a generic type of land grant, usually in the form of tax immunity, related to the tradition of iqṭāʾ. 43 Khunjī, Mihmān-nāma: 346. Fażlallāh Khunjī Iṣfahānī (1455-1521) was a historian and scholar who enjoyed the patronage of the Timurids and Shaybanids. 44 ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī, Majālis al-nafāʾis: 96-97 (no. 286) and 137-138 (no. 390). On the confluence of nobility and poetic activity, Werner 2017.

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invasions of Khorasan in the early sixteenth century or later on from cooperation with the early Shi’i Safavid rulers. II.2. Safavid Religious Politics and the Guardianship over the Shrine

The situation in Khorasan remained insecure and vulnerable far into the sixteenth century, and Shāh Ṭahmāsp was only able to focus more on Mashhad and the shrine during the latter half of his reign. Control over the shrine of Imām Riżā, both spiritually and economically, became of utmost importance to the still nascent Safavid state as part of its ‘shi’itisation-project’.45 As we have seen, no central administration of either the shrine as pilgrimage site nor of its endowments and collections existed under the Timurids and for the following transitional period in Khorasan, nor was there any urgent need for one. The paramount role of the mutavallī, head administrator and guardian of the shrine, only developed in the course of the Safavid period, beginning in a tentative and experimental way in the time of Shāh Ṭahmāsp.46 Prior to the reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp no such official position appears to have existed, the ascertained list of accredited guardians with clear and corroborated dates of appointment to the office exist only from the time of Shāh ʿAbbās I onwards. Crucial for the Safavid understanding of guardianship over the shrine (tawliyat) was the role of the Shah as legitimate ‘ruler of the age’ (sulṭān al-ʿaṣr) in lieu of the absent Shi’i Imam. Consequently, he acted as the nominal head of the shrine, delegating actual functions to an appointed representative, the acting mutavallī, exercising the office of tawliyat. Ḥasanābādī refers to a vaqf deed dated 957/1550 as one of the first instances where reference to Shāh Ṭahmāsp as nominal and honourary guardian (mutavallī) of the shrine was made: only from then on mention of the shrine’s administrative mutavallī in vaqf deeds bestowed on the shrine became a regular feature.47 Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s attachment to the shrine can be gathered from various indications, thus he not only sent his fourth son, Sulaymān Mīrzā, to be educated in Mashhad, he also gave him a position as head of the shrine’s servants (manṣab-i khādimbāshīgarī-yi rawża-yi Imām al-jinn va-l-uns).48 The sources mention personalities having held the position as mutavallī of the Mashhad shrine, such as Amīr Abū al-Valī and Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Shushtarī, but their terms of appointment and functions remain vague. None of these early personalities mentioned were sayyids from Mashhad, and the only early Rażavī mutavallī, Sayyid ʿAlī Rażavī, came in fact from Qum.49 To return to Amīr Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn ʿAzīz, the naqīb and paramount head of the newly arrived Rażavī sayyids in Mashhad: he had (at least) two sons, one known

45 Ṣifatgul 1381/2002 on Safavid religious policy, Abisaab 2004 on conversion, Newman 2006 on the idea of a Safavid project. 46 Several lists of the shrine’s acting mutavallīs can be found in the literature: Muʾtaman 1348/1969: 227-234, Morikawa 1997, more detailed for the Safavid and Afsharid periods Ḥasanābādī 1385/2006. The most recent and detailed compilation is Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī/Naqdī 1397/2018. 47 Ḥasanābādī 1385/2006: 75-76. 48 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: I, 133. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: I, 215. 49 Ḥasanābādī 1385/2006: 89-91. This is a reminder of the ongoing presence of Rażavī sayyids in Qum.

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as Amīr/Mīr Muḥammad and the other, who was named after his grandfather, Mīr Shams al-Dīn. Both father and sons lived on into the early years of Shāh Ṭahmāsp’s reign. The change to Safavid rule and the Shi’ite conversion does not seem to have caused any problems for the family and they apparently were able to consolidate their standing and economic position quietly and discreetly. For a while, we know little about their activities, as neither Mīr Muḥammad, nor Mīr Shams al-Dīn feature prominently in the sources (see Table 1). From here on we have to follow two descent lines separately.50 The first is composed by the descendants of Mīr Muḥammad, i.e. the Family of Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib [hereafter: Family I], who is mentioned as one of the most prominent sayyids of Khorasan during the reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp: A considerable number of Reżavī and Mūsavī seyyeds were employed in the service of the shrine of the Imam Reżā at Mašhad. They included Mīrzā Abū Ṭāleb Reżavī and his son Mīrzā Abu’l-Qāsem, who were generally acknowledged to be among the leading seyyeds of Khorasan by virtue of their exalted rank and station, and on account of the amount of their property, private estates, and workshops.51 Qāżī Aḥmad Qumī in his Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh stresses Abū Ṭālib’s role as urban notable of Mashhad on several occasions. In 967/1559-60, Shāh Ṭahmāsp sent the young Georgian prince ʿĪsā Khān b. Lawand Khān Gurjī, who was rather a ‘royal hostage’ than a ghulām, to Mashhad to receive an education. The accompanying decree sent to the governor Abū al-Fatḥ Sulṭān Ibrāhīm Mīrzā includes quite naturally the leading sādāt of Mashhad, namely Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib Rażavī and Amīr Sharīf Mūsavī, in its list of addressees, in addition to the military emirs Qanbar Beg Āsāyish Ughlī Ustajlū, Sulaymān Beg Malkan Ughlī Ẕū al-Qadr and Aḥmad Beg Afshār.52 And when four years later Pīr Muḥammad Khān b. Jānī Beg Sulṭān, the local ruler of Balkh, threatened Mashhad, the leading sayyids were sent out to meet him on a peace mission, again including Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib Rażavī.53 His private residence must have been a landmark in the town even after his death, and on another occasion he is remembered as one of the great naqībs of Khorasan.54 This prestige was passed on directly onto his son, Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim, who continued to be in the service of the Safavid royal house and was highly successful in striking further alliances.55 When the nobles and grandees from the Guarded Domains

50 The enclosed genealogical table is of course a very condensed and schematic representation, as is the emphasis on these two branches. 51 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: I, 151-152. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: 1, 241. 52 Qumī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh: I, 410. On the young Georgian nobleman who later on was to be appointed king of Kartli by Shāh ʿAbbās I, see Kortepeter 2011: 67. 53 Qumī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh: I, 422, together with Mīr Ghīyās̱ al-Dīn Muḥammad and Mīr Sharīf Mūsavī, addressed together as siyādat panāhān niqābat dastgāhān). 54 Qumī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh: II, 750. In 991/1589-90 his private living quarters are used to indicate the location of daulatkhāna-yi mubāraka and he is referred to as having been among the aʿẓam-i nuqabā-yi ān vilāyat. 55 See below on the marriages contracted by him.

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Table 1. Selective genealogical table of the Rażavī sayyids.

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(mamālik-i maḥrūsa), i.e. the Safavid controlled realm, were summoned to Qazvīn, the naqībs of Mashhad, Amīr Sharīf Mūsavī and Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim also had to pay their respects at the court of Shāh Ṭahmāsp in 974/1567. Both of them died on their return to Khorasan, which — while sad news — provides us with a clear date that marks the end of Mūsavī and Rażavī sayyids jointly holding positions as naqīb and of the first period of Safavid cooptation and shi’itisation of sayyid families with a background of Timurid patronage.56 The mentioned process of shi’itisation does not feature prominently in the available sources and is — I would suggest — best be seen as a gradual development of alignment with the Safavid religious policy. In the case of Mashhad, this policy is expressed most visibly through the architectural and ideological support for the shrine of Imām Riżā, a cause to which the Rażavī sayyids rallied quite naturally. The second, and perhaps the most prominent family among the Rażavī sayyids is the Family of Ulugh Beg, the grandson of Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad [hereafter: Family II]. This branch is known both for their immense and long-lasting family endowments as well as for their administrative positions related to the shrine of Imām Riżā, most notably the office of tawliyat or guardianship of the shrine that they held repeatedly.57 Whereas Mīrzā Ulugh has been mentioned as the kilīd-dār-i żarīḥ, the guardian of the keys to the inner sanctuary, and as khādim, official servant to the shrine,58 it is his son who for the first time amid the emerging Rażavī sayyids was officially appointed as mutavallī of the shrine of Imām Riżā in 1026/1617. Mīrzā Ulugh passed away in 1030/1621 and his son Mīrzā Muḥsin in 1055/1645-46.59 Both father and son cultivated close relations with Shāh ʿAbbās, especially Mīrzā Muḥsin who was his son-in-law, and both were involved in the management of Shāh ʿAbbās’ endowments for Mashhad and the shrine.60 This rough sketch that is limited to the mentioned two families should not distract us from the fact that many side-lines of other Rażavī sayyids existed, both in Mashhad and beyond. There is a natural tendency to focus on the more prominent individuals whose presence is documented in the narrative sources. Especially recent archival work has shown that beyond the narrow circle described above, a great number of further Rażavī individuals played both minor and major roles inside the town and the growing shrine complex. Another family that is not directly linked to the two Rażavī families characterised by their high standing and administrative positions is the scholarly family line of Muḥammad Jaʿfar Rażavī. Several members of this line, he himself included, are said to have held positions as mudarris related to the shrine on the level of a mujtahid, or independent jurisconsultant, from the time of Shāh ʿAbbās I.61

56 Qumī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh: I, 461. 57 More on both aspects below. 58 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 54-55. 59 Ḥusaynī Khātūnābādī, Vaqāyiʿ al-sinīn: 504. 60 See below. 61 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 43-52, on Muḥammad Jaʿfar Rażavī, his descendants and a genealogical draft.

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The difficulty in reconstructing such family lines are obvious: references in the sources are often spurious or contradictory. For example, a certain Muḥammad Bāqir Rażavī was appointed mutavallī of the shrine by Shāh ʿAbbās II after Mīrza Muḥsin in 1055/1646.62 Prior to his appointment he was resident in Qazvīn where he is said to have been shaykh al-islām. He was succeeded after an intermission by his son Mīr Shāhī Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad.63 To be mentioned is also Muḥammad Taqī Rażavī, mutavallī from 1141-1143/1728-1731, who is featured in archival documents for the beginning of Afsharid rule, but about whose exact affiliation and lineage we cannot be certain.64 Whether Muḥammad Bāqir belongs to the lineage of Muḥammad Jaʿfar Rażavī or rather forms a lineage of his own is not altogether clear.65 An additional difficulty, not restricted of course to Mashhad or the Rażavī sayyids, is the often confusing repetition of similar names inside one family. II.3. Diversification and Institutionalisation of Rażavī sayyid Families in Mashhad up to the Nineteenth Century

The reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp and of Shāh ʿAbbās I saw the rise and establishment of the Rażavī sayyids as an undisputed presence in Mashhad, closely intertwined with the fate of the shrine and sanctuary of Imām Riżā. The ensuing transition in their role and position occurs slowly over the second half of the seventeenth century and towards the end of the Safavid and throughout the Afsharid period. It is characterized by a reduced alliance with the Safavid court and the loss of a guaranteed access to the office of tawliyat over the shrine. At the same time, we witness the constantly increasing presence of the Rażavī sayyids within the expanding administrative sphere. Their decreased visibility in leading positions actually strengthened their actual grip on the Āstān-i Quds as a whole and provided a livelihood for the growing number of descendants and family units. The sinecures the shrine provided grew with the increasing number of pilgrims and continuing patronage to the shrine. We also notice a diversification in the professional field with Rażavī sayyids active in both administration and in madrasa teaching positions. Smaller family units became known under the name of hereditary professions their members exercised within the shrine or positions and offices they occupied. The differentiation of professions and positions, closely linked to the development of a system of rotating shifts of guards and servants (kishīk) and of various departments dealing with both the pilgrims’ and the organisation’s needs contributed to this development.66 Thus the descendants of Mīrzā Abū Ṭalib, our first family 62 Thus Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, Maṭlaʿ al-shams: II, 333. 63 Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī/Naqdī 1397/2018: 44-45. 64 Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī/Naqdī 1397/2018: 54-55, suggest he is the son of Mīrzā Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Mīrzā Badīʿ b. Mīrza Abū Ṭalib II. A large number of orders (taʿlīqajāt) from his time in Shahīdī 2018. 65 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 52, lists him together with the family of Muḥammad Jaʿfar Rażavī. 66 An overview in Ḥasanābādī 1372/2003. The system of kishīk (initially a Mongol term relating to the imperial guard corps) was adopted from Timurid administrative praxis. There were five kishīks of guards and servants, working in shifts and with a corporate identity, headed by a khādimbāshī or sar-kishīk.

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(see Family I), became known as the Nāẓirān (‘supervisors’) or the Taḥvīldārān (‘treasurers) from positions they held in the financial administration of the shrine, or as the Khādimbāshīhā (‘head servants’) or Mushrifhā (‘accountants’),67 while amongst the descendants of Mīrzā Ulugh, our second family (see Family II), some families became known as the Sarkishīks (‘head of guards’).68 We must always be aware of the fluid and shifting understanding of offices, positions, professions and titles, but the overall lesson to be drawn is that by the eighteenth and certainly in the nineteenth century, Rażavī sayyid families had become inseparable from the shrine’s affairs and administration. A small and randomly selected example might illustrate this development. In one of the numerous registry entries, recorded on small single sheets of paper, we find the summary of a decree issued by the last Safavid Shāh Sulṭān-Ḥusayn in favour of Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Rażavī, dated Ṣafar 1115 ( June 1703). The overall affair is rather simple, Shams al-Dīn takes over the position of his deceased brother Mīr Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad as khādim (‘servant’) of the third kishīk (‘guard’) of the shrine with a salary of five tuman, to be paid from the shrine’s endowment income. Interesting is the complicated bureaucratic procedure and the individuals involved. With the approval (taṣdīq) of the shrine’s mutavallī, here the Marʿashī Sayyid Mīrzā Dāvud al-Ḥusaynī, the appointment has actually already been effected earlier on 28 Ẕī-ḥijja 1114 (4 May 1703). The process is only completed with the registration by the mustawfī of the shrine on 27 Ramażān 1115 (13 February1704), roughly a year later.69 From the name Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Rażavī we can guess that the beneficiary of this appointment was among the descendants of Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib (Family I) where this name appears frequently. We also see that the positions held by the Rażavī sayyids inside the shrine had by now become hereditary, only to be confirmed by the mutavallī, who as a Marʿashī sayyid and a maternal grandson of Shāh ʿAbbās II clearly was an Iṣfahānī outsider to Mashhad.70 Further original appointment decrees from the Afsharid period show similar patterns for the offices of sarkishīk.71

III. Tools and Strategies of Transmission From the time of their arrival in Khorasan during the Timurid period, the Rażavī sayyids were highly successful in establishing themselves as the most prominent sayyid family-network in Mashhad, to the point that their allegiance to and close association 67 On the position of khādimbāshī Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 161-164, of taḥvīldārī: 164-167. 68 Best depicted in the genealogical tables in Sayyidī 1380/2001: 93, 97. 69 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 322-324, document 19. An excellent discussion of the term parvāncha in Shahīdī 1397/2018: 25-30. On the mutavallī Sayyid Mīrzā Dāvud al-Ḥusaynī, see Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī/Naqdī 1397/2018: 47-48. 70 The Marʿashī sayyids were among the most prominent and infuential lineages from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in Iran with different locations, one of them Iṣfahān, see Calmard 1999. 71 Mudarris Rażavī 1378/1999, the appendix contains several documents, edited by Īraj Afshār.

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with the shrine of Imām Riżā merged with their overall identity as Mashhadī sayyids into a single ‘trademark’ name. They also managed — despite some setbacks — to maintain this singular status right up to the twentieth century. Over time, the Rażavī sayyids multiplied to such a degree that what had begun in the fifteenth century with a handful of easily identifiable individuals, towards the end of the Safavid era had grown into a large number of separate family units, in modern times with distinct family names and often clear-cut professional traditions. What further tools and strategies, beyond the mentioned professional diversification, did the Rażavī sayyids employ to advance their goals and attain this unique standing? III.1. Political Alliances, Patronage and Migration

Crucial for the longterm success of the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad were their close relations with the political powers of their time, whether Timurids, Shaybanids, Safavids or Afsharids (r. in Mashhad until 1798). The political alliances the Rażavī sayyids entered are inseparable from the patronage they received in the form of positions, offices and grants, the latter regularly in the form of suyūrghāls or tax exemptions for landholdings under their control. The ancestor of the two depicted Rażavī sayyid lineages, the naqib of the later Timurid period Sayyid Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn Mīrzā Abū Ṣāliḥ, had the tax immunities (suyūrghāl), granted already to his father, reconfirmed by the Shaybanid ʿUbaydallāh Khān in the year 935/1529.72 In a similar vein, Shāh ʿAbbās granted Mīrzā Muḥsin Rażavī the taxes of the village Shādkān near Mashhad in the year 1036/1627.73 Muḥsin’s father, Sayyid Ulugh Mīrzā, had already received similar grants from Shāh ʿAbbās I, as shown in a document dated 1023/1614, confirming his suyūrghāl over properties from the districts of Mashhad.74 These suyūrghāls remained in the family and were renewed for the benefit of his descendants long after the death of Mīrzā Muḥsin.75 On the other hand, it is obvious that the Rażavī sayyids were well aware of the dangers inherent in getting too closely involved with one dynasty or one political ruler.76 The close alliance of some members of the Rażavī sayyids with the Safavid rulers Shāh Ṭahmāsp and Shāh ʿAbbās I appear not always to have been completely voluntary. So we read about extended travels by Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib Rażavī in the company of Shāh ʿAbbās I and the secretary and famous historian Iskandar Beg Munshī to Baghdad and the ʿAtabāt. His official function as mutavallī of the shrine and long-term recipient of the Shāh’s favours probably left him little choice. Only after they had returned to Qazvīn was he allowed to take his leave and return to Mashhad. That he died on route, reportedly after eating an enormous amount of

72 See also above. The decree with edition and facsimile, dated 10 Shavvāl 935 (27 June 1529) in Mudarris Rażavī 1378/1999: 242-243, document 1. 73 Mudarris Rażavī 1378/1999: 242-243, document 3, dated Ẕī-ḥijja 1036 (August1529). 74 Simsār 1347/1968: 83, document dated Jumādā I 1023 ( June 1614). 75 Mudarris Rażavī 1378/1999: 252-253, by Shāh Sulaymān Ṣafavī in Rajab 1098 (May 1687). 76 In this regard sayyid households are comparable to Sufi lineages, Potter 1994.

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fruit, might well be interpreted symbolically.77 The close association of these high ranking Rażavī individuals with Shāh ʿAbbās made them suspicious to his successor, Shāh Ṣafī. For a while, the Rażavī sayyids were excluded from positions close to the court and from the tawliyat of the shrine, furthermore, two sons of Mīrzā Muḥsin — actually grandsons of Shāh ʿAbbās I — were killed or as other, more credible reports have it, his son Mīrzā Maʿṣūm was blinded, in order to eliminate any possible threat to the throne.78 The option of migration and geographical dispersion was consequently always available. In their capacity as trans-local family, Rażavī sayyids were often more mobile than other notables: they could migrate easily and they also enjoyed a certain immunity in times of political crisis or war. During the difficult decades of the second half of the sixteenth century, when Khorasan was under constant threat by Uzbek invasions, it was less problematic for members of the established sayyid families to take up residence and office elsewhere, for example in Isfahan, and return at a later time. It is thus not surprising that we find branches of the Mashhadī Rażavī sayyids in both Transoxania and in India.79 One of the sons of Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim, Mīr Ṭāhir, migrated voluntarily to Samarkand where he was appointed to a position similar to that of a ṣadr and created a Rażavī lineage known as the Khvāja Mīrkānī.80 From our second major Rażavī family (Family II), a brother of Mīrzā Muḥsin reportedly went to India and became known as Rażavī Khān.81 The question of Sunni-Shi’i confessionalism apparently did not limit the Rażavī sayyids’ choices for either migration, political alignment or marriage alliances.82 III.2. Marriage

The sources at our disposal usually do not mention marriages among members of the Mashhad urban elite and in particular within the sayyid families of Mashhad and Khorasan. Still, extraordinary marriages were noted and recorded. These examples allow us to catch a glimpse of the importance marriage alliances had, as both a tool and a long-term strategy to consolidate, increase and expand the status and authority of the Rażavī sayyids as a corporate family network.

77 This is the ‘second’ Abū Ṭālib, son of Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim (who also died during his travels). Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: III, 1058. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: II, 1282. Iskandar Beg records the death of Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib for the year 1035 (1625-26). 78 Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 56; Sayyidī 1380/2001: 91, without references. Vāla Iṣfahānī, Khuld-i barīn: 108, and Ḥusaynī Savāniḥ-nigār Tafrishī, Tārīkh-i Shāh Ṣafī: 63, mention that Mīrzā Maʿṣūm and his two sons were blinded, an account which appears more credible than spilling the blood of sayyids. As they were Safavids by their mother, they were included among ‘dangerous’ possible prince-rivals. 79 The migration of Hadhrami sayyids from Yemen to India in the sixteenth century and their networks offers interesting parallels, see Khalidi 2004 with further literature. 80 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 89. 81 Mentioned without further details by Ḥusaynī Khātūnābādī, Vaqāyiʿ al-sinīn: 515-516. There, he also provides a genealogical list that is not always congruent with other sources. 82 McChesney 1996, questioned the Sunni-Shi’i divide.

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One of the marriages noted as being of particular importance during the reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp was the alliance contracted and arranged by the above mentioned Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib Rażavī for his son Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim with a daughter of Mīr Shams al-Dīn ʿAlī Sulṭan Mukhtārī. Mīr Shams al-Dīn of the Banū Mukhtār has been depicted as the head of the Mukhtārī sayyids of Sabzavār, perhaps the wealthiest of all sayyid families of Khorasan. His grandfather, by the same name, had arrived in Khorasan from Najaf under the Timurids — similar to the arrival of Amīr/Mīr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad who had migrated from Qum — and he had been able to amass an enormous fortune in a very short time. This alliance was considered noteworthy during the reign of Shāh Ṭahmāsp because of its strategic value that alleviated competition in the region between two very powerful sayyid families, who were both influential landowners.83 Other marriages can be considered marriages of convenience that emphasize status rather than strategic alliances. The author of Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh describes in great detail the marriage between Shāhzāda Sulṭān-Ibrāhim Mīrzā b. Bahrām Mīrzā, a nephew of Shāh Ṭahmāsp, and Gawhar Sulṭān Khānum, daughter of Shāh Ṭahmāsp and the extended festivities that took place in Mashhad in 967/1560.84 Among the retinue of the bride was another woman, the former wife of the renegade prince Alqās Mīrzā, Khadīja Sulṭān, who expressed her wish to stay in Mashhad and lead a life of pious devotion.85 As she could not possibly stay there as a single, widowed woman, she was looking for a husband and the choice fell on the above mentioned Abū al-Qāsim Mīrzā. This was a marriage clearly designed to offer a woman associated to the royal household a place to stay in Mashhad without further obligations on either side. It demonstrates, however, that Sayyid Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim Rażavī had both the means and the social status to accommodate and host a prominent widow such as Khadīja Sulṭān. Another alliance with the royal Safavid household, but on a considerably higher level and carrying copious prestige, was the marriage between Mīrzā Muḥsin Rażavī, son of Mīrzā Ulugh, and Fakhr al-Nisā Begum or Shāhzāda Begum, a daughter of Shāh ʿAbbās I.86 Together with his prominent position as the guardian (mutavallī) of the shrine of Imām Riżā, this marked the pinnacle of the political liaison of one of the Rażavī lineages with the Safavid royal house. How this marriage came about and who arranged it, is unfortunately not known. On a very different level, we can look at another marriage that depending on the sources can be read as an arranged or an enforced marriage, or even as a story

83 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: I, 151-152. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: I, 241. On the Mukhtāri sayyids, see Muḥtashamī 1383/2004. There were also later marriage alliances between the Rażavī and the Mukhtārī sayyids, at time leading to renewed inheritance conflicts, see Sayyidī 2001: 91. 84 Qumī, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh: I, 416-417. On the princely marriage between Sulṭān-Ibrāhīm Mīrzā and Gawhar Sulṭan Khānum, see Szuppe 1994: 236. Also Sayyidī 1380/2001: 88. 85 On Khadīja Sulṭān in the context of Alqās Mīrza, see Posch 2013: I, 271-272. 86 Mentioned in passing in Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: III, 928. Eskandar Beg Monshi/ Savory 1978: II, 1146. Rażavī 1352/1973: 227 (here Fakhr al-Nisā Bēgum). Shāmlū, Qiṣaṣ al-Khāqānī: I, 205 mentions her as Shāhzāda Bēgum, the first of six daughters of Shāh ʿAbbās I. Also Sayyidī 1380/2001: 89.

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of abduction and rape. The modern historian Mahdī Sayyidī narrates the story as follows: In the heat of the plunder and looting of the city of Mashhad by Uzbek troops that took place in 998/1589-90, the son of the above Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim, Mīrzā Abū Ṭalib Rażavī [II.] suggested to one of the Uzbek Khans named Yatīm Sulṭān, later and better known as Dīn Muḥammad to marry his daughter (actually his half-sister) Shahrbānū. They were to have a son together called Nādir or Nadr/ Naẕr Muḥammad. This ‘proposal’, thus the interpretation by Sayyidī based on one variant manuscript of the Taẕkira-i Muqīm Khānī, was among the reasons why the Rażavī sayyids were able to maintain their status and wealth even during the Uzbek incursions that took place between 997 and 1007 (1589-1599).87 Bleaker, and perhaps closer to reality, is the main story line offered by the author of the Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khānī who reports that during the general massacre brought to the city of Mashhad, a beautiful and pretty girl fell into the hands of the Shaybanid Dīn Muḥammad Khān (son of Jānī Muḥammad). Enquiring about her circumstances, they realised that she was a descendant of the prophet and from the Rażavī family (az khānadān-i nabavī va dūdamān-i Rażavī). Following the prescriptions of the sharīʿa he took her in legal matrimony, her name being Shahrbānū Begum, and she later bore him his son Sayyid Nadr Muḥammad Khān. This is the reason, states the author of the Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khānī, why the honour of being a sayyid was bestowed on the Khān and his lineage. Never before, he points out, had the Shahs of Iran paid this kind of attention to the Khans of Turan.88 Iskandar Beg Munshī provides us with a vivid account of the massacre, looting and abduction of women and children that took place in Mashhad in this year of 998 (1589-90). While he does not mention the marriage on this occasion, we understand that this union was certainly concluded under duress and that the fate of Shahrbānū Begum was substantially not so different from that of other women abducted to Transoxania, many of them sold into slavery.89 Iskandar Beg does, however, mention this alliance twice in a later context, stressing the important political role played by her as the stepsister of Mīrzā Abū Ṭalib in trying to arbitrate between competing Shaybanid factions and in the peace negotiations with Shāh ʿAbbās.90

87 Thus Sayyidī 1380/2001: 88. Muḥammad Yūsuf, Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khāni: 164, note 9, variant B, which introduces Shahrbānū Begum as a daughter of Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib: “Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib petitioned to Dīn Muḥammad, saying, ‘Oh, noble prince, I have a daughter, that from behind the curtain of chastity I gift to you, guard the honour of my family today and conserve the well-being of my sons’. Dīn Muḥammad alighted at his house and protected them from the looters.” 88 Muḥammad Yūsuf, Taẕkira-yi Muqīm Khāni: 164-165. See the introductory citation at the beginning of this article. For more details on the different Uzbek political lineages and groups, see Burton 1997 and McChesney 1983. 89 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: II, 412-413. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: I, 589. On the abduction of sayyids of Rażavī descent from Mashhad also Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: II, 629. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: I, 820, with the hint that the Uzbegs had adopted this heinous practice from the Ottomans. 90 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī: II, 865 and III, 962. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: II, 1078 and 1184, referring to the quarrels between Rostam Muḥammad Khān and her son Nadr Muḥammad Sulṭān and the diplomatic efforts of the year 1030 (1620-21).

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For Muḥammad Yūsuf Munshī, writing from a Central Asian perspective, the fact of Nadr Muḥammad Sulṭān being a sayyid is of primary importance in this episode, as discussed above in the preface. This is also evident in the treatment he receives in another historical work from Central Asia, the Muḥīṭ al-tavārīkh, that equally stresses Nadr Muḥammad Khān’s status as sayyid on the occasion of him acceding to the rule over Balkh in the year 1015/1606.91 There is no question here that the status of sayyid could be transferred matrilineal, thus connecting the Uzbek Khan through the Prophet with the Safavid Shah and providing him with an additional trans-regional identity as Rażavī and Khurāsānī sayyid. In this context McChesney points out that it was a Sunni-Shi‘i political marriage.92 III.3. Guardianship of the Shrine of Imām Riżā

Controlling the shrine through an official appointment to the tawliyat (guardianship) of the Sarkār-i fayż-ās̱ār-i rażavī (‘the grace- and bountiful estate of Riżā’), the name under which the shrine is known in the documents, had become a major objective for members of the Rażavī family network. Especially under the Safavids, the guardianship over the shrine was regarded as a state office that entailed further obligations and was recorded together with other high-level state functions in the chronicles and administrative manuals.93 Both major lineages of the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad were able to occupy this position, despite strong competition from other sayyid families, from both Khorasan and outside. While Shāh Ṭahmāsp had appointed mutavallīs from outside, i.e. sayyids from Isfahan, Shushtar or Astarabad and of various backgrounds, this changed when Shāh ʿAbbās I replaced Qāżī Sulṭān, a Mūsavī sayyid from Turbat-i Ḥaydarīya who had held the office for approximately twenty years, with his son-in-law Mīrzā Muḥsin b. Mīrzā Ulugh in 1026/1617.94 Five years later, Mīrzā Muḥsin was succeeded by the representative of the other major Rażavī lineage, Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib II (1031/1621-1035/1625). After the above-mentioned short intermezzo, following the regnal change from Shāh ʿAbbās to Shāh Ṣafī, the office of mutavallī was again held by Rażavī sayyids from Mashhad, first by Muḥammad Badīʿ al-Zamān, a son of Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib II, in 1073/1664 for four years. Then again after an interval, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Rażavī,95 a grandson of Muḥammad Badīʿ, took over the position.

91 Muḥammad Amīn Sūfīyānī, Muḥit al-Tavārīkh: 190 (Ẕikr-i julūs-i Sayyid Nadr Muḥammad Khān dar Qubbat al-Islām Balkh). 92 McChesney 1991: 74, “The alliance of Chingizid and Imami genealogies would produce a line of descendants with both khanly and shaykhly legitimacy. For the offspring and posterity of this union, the shaykhship or sayyidship would be placed in a Sunni context, by giving it the label “Husayni” rather than “Ridawi.” In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mawarannahr, the adjective “Husayni” did not carry a Shi’ite connotation.” Ibid.: 253. 93 Thus i.e. in the Dastūr al-Mulūk, see Rafīʿ Anṣārī/Kondo 2018: 8-10; Marcinkowski 2008. 94 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Abbāsī: III, 928. Eskandar Beg Monshi/Savory 1978: II, 1146. 95 He was murdered in a major dispute over the family’s endowments, Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī/Naqdī 1397/2018: 46.

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The pattern that emerges, is that the Rażavī sayyid families tried to hold on to the position as guardians of the shrine, but were rarely able to establish a longer hereditary continuity. In fact, the dominant mutavallīs of the later Safavid period under Shāh Sulṭān-Ḥusayn were Mīrzā Muḥammad Dāvud Ḥusaynī, a Marʿashī sayyid with close contacts to the court in Isfahan, and his sons from 1108/1696 until the fall of the Savavid dynasty. Only then, with Mīrzā Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Rażavī in 1135/1722, were the Rażavī sayyids again able to retake the position of mutavallī, however, with much less political prestige and influence under the Afsharids. It certainly helped that they were ‘in place’ and that the previous competition from other regions and sayyid families did not play a role anymore. Under the Qajar dynasty, who had ousted the last Afsharid ruler from Mashhad in 1802, the position of mutavallī became primarily a political office, often in combination with the governorship over Khorasan. Mutavallīs of the shrine were first and foremost members of the Qajar nobility or high-ranking officials and we do not find members of the major Rażavī lineages at the top of the shrine’s administration anymore. III.4. Capital Accumulation and Estate Preservation through Endowments

The spectacular economic rise of certain sayyid families of Khorasan and the way they became wealthy landowners with large estates over a rather short period of time from the late fifteenth to the early sixteenth centuries is highly impressive. This has been noted for both the Mukhtārī sayyids of Sabzavār and the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad, echoed by Iskandar Beg in his statement that the sayyids of Mashhad enjoy lavish times living of the income from their fiefs (suyūrghālāt) and the revenues from their inherited properties and estates (amlāk va raqābāt-i mawrūs̱ī).96 Patronage explains only part of this growth, a spirit of entrepreneurship and a clear cognizance of how to build a fortune from carefully managed landownership must equally be credited to them. The close interaction with the shrine of Imām Riżā certainly heightened their awareness of the opportunities provided by the institution of vaqf to secure and safeguard family properties over multiple generations.97 Their intimate familiarity with both the legal and practical aspects of establishing and overseeing endowments must have been of utmost advantage. It seems not far-fetched to assume that the major family endowments created on behalf of at least two branches of the Rażavī sayyids went far beyond the normal practice of their own time.98 The first of these was established by Mīrzā Ibrāhīm, son of Mīrzā Abū al-Qāsim, in Shavvāl 1038 (May/June 1629) for the benefit of all Rażavī sayyids resident in Mashhad, both male and female. A huge number of villages (mazāriʿ), but also real estate in Mashhad, provided a solid basis and regular income. This endowment apparently

96 Iskandar Beg Turkamān, ʿĀlam-ārā-yi Abbāsī: I, 151. 97 On vaqf as an institution, Werner 2015. A concise description of Rażavī endowments in Ḥasanābādī 1387/2008: 219-294 (chapter 5). 98 Sayyidī 1380/2001 discusses them in detail.

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incorporated properties or previous vaqfs established by his grandfather Mīrzā Abū Ṭālib, already known to us as leading Rażavī naqīb during the time of Shāh Ṭahmāsp. Attested by all the major representatives of Rażavī sayyids from both branches and acknowledged by prominent ulamā, it demonstrates both a clear awareness of an overarching family identity and the necessity to make provisions for the Rażavī families resident in Mashhad.99 The close proximity of the recorded endowment deed to the death of Shāh ʿAbbās I hints at the uncertainty the families faced and the questions on whether the previous close political alliance to the Safavid court could be maintained. To be emphasized is the exclusive purpose as a family endowment, it is not in any way attached to other social or religious aims, nor is it aligned to the shrine of Imām Riżā. The enormous wealth set apart in this endowment and the fact that Mīrzā Ibrāhīm left behind only his daughter Salīma Begum, led to prolonged disputes over the administration of this vaqf.100 How the close involvement with the endowment activities of Shāh ʿAbbās I might have inspired the establishment of the second major Rażavī family endowment, can be gleaned from the commitment of Mīrzā Ulugh. Shāh ʿAbbās had made him and his descendants the hereditary administrators of one of his early endowments, dated Jumādā I 1023 ( June 1614), securing the water supply to Mashhad.101 This had been part of a larger project intended to strengthen and extend the infrastructure of the shrine area and the role of Mīrzā Ulugh therein is documented as early as Rabīʿ II 1017 ( July 1608).102 His son Mīrzā Muḥsin was confirmed in this function in Ramażān 1042 (March 1633) by Shāh Ṣafī and in Jumādā I 1055 ( July 1645) by Shāh ʿAbbās II.103 This confirmation, effected in Isfahan on his return from his Mecca pilgrimage and shortly before his death, occurred at exactly the same time as a renewed recording of the vaqf deed of his family endowment, also dated Jumāda I 1055.104 Originally established by Mīrza Muḥsin in Mashhad two years earlier, the indirect confirmation by Shāh ʿAbbās II now further enhanced the inviolability of this vaqf. Again, a large number of (primarily) landed properties in Khorasan was endowed for the benefit of the male descendants of the founder, generation after generation. The difference with the earlier large family endowment established by Mīrzā Ibrāhīm Rażavī is that this vaqf only benefited the descendants of Mīrzā Muḥsin, that is only his own lineage and not that of all Rażavī sayyids resident in Mashhad. We also realize that in this deed female descendants are not treated equally and only become beneficiaries in 99 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 89-90 provides a list of properties, exclusively based on Rażavī 1352/1973: 75-89. The author of Shajara-yi Ṭayyiba summarizes and quotes from a copy (savād) of the original tūmār; it is not always clear where he cites the original wording of the deed and where he recapitulates the contents. 100 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 91; Rażavī 1352/1973: 72-75. The provisions in the deed explicitly authorize female descendants to take up the administration (tawliyat); the division of the proceeds also does not distinguish between male and female family members. 101 Morikawa/Werner 2017: 130, documented in the catalogue of vaqf deeds entitled Ās̱ār al-Rażavīya. Full text in Rawshanī (Zaʿfarānlū) 1369/1990. 102 Rażavī 1352/1973: 229-230, includes a decree by Shāh ʿAbbās. 103 Rażavī 1352/1973: 231. With facsimiles and edition Mudarris Rażavī 1378/1999: 248-251, document 4 and 5. 104 Full text and notes in Anzābī-nizhād 1388/2009: 107-117.

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the rare event of the overall extinction of male descendants. The definition of family is thus clearly narrowed down from a more inclusive understanding of Rażavī sayyids to a patriarchal and lineage-based descent group model. A small glimpse on the later development of Mīrzā Muḥsin’s family vaqf in the Qajar period is offered by a decree (raqam) issued by Ḥasan-ʿAlī Mīrzā Shujāʿ al-Salṭana as the governor of Khorasan, dated Rabīʿ I 1243 (September 1827). The decree orders the return of the illegally occupied village Isfandiyān (Ṭūs), that is listed in the original endowment deed, to the family of his descendants, by then known and addressed as Mīrzāyān-i Sarkishīk-i Sarkār-i Rawża-yi Rażīya-yi Rażavīya, or short as the Mīrzāyān.105 We see here that the distinct professional lineages (in this case the sarkishīks or ‘heads of the guards’) continued to control certain family endowments, thus strengthening their identity and standing further. Both these family endowments are still extant, though with the large number of entitled descendants, the individual financial benefit today is rather insignificant. Disputes over the still lucrative administration of the endowments however remained rampant throughout the last century.106

Conclusion Mashhad is a prime example of how the Family of the Prophet diversified in a regional context, with several sayyid families in Khorasan competing with each other and transmitting authority from one to another. Beyond the rising supremacy of the Rażavī sayyids over their Mūsavī predecessors, we are witness to the Rażavī sayyids splitting up into different lineages and numerous smaller families. At the same time, being a sayyid family in Mashhad or Khorasan did not create automatic loyalties to other sayyid families in a wider Iranian context. To the contrary, the rivalry between the sayyid families of Khorasan, and the Rażavī lineages in particular, with other sayyid families such as the Marʿashī sayyids of Isfahan or the influential Astarābādī sayyids was probably more intense than that with other elite groups.107 Transmitting sayyid status alone was certainly not sufficient anymore to guard and maintain the influence and standing of one’s family over several generations. In the early modern context families had to look beyond the confines of urban society, and in particular create new identities. To forge an identity of being a Rażavī sayyid, resident at the shrine and sanctuary of Imām Riżā, linked place, function and descent into a unique combination that no other sayyid lineage could claim. The application of the Rażavī nisba and its preferential use over the equally possible attributes as Ḥusaynī, Mūsavī or Mashhadī created an exclusive and recognizable family name. The origins of the main Rażavī branches clearly lie in their tradition of urban notables that they brought to Mashhad and further developed in place under

105 Karīmzāda-yi Tabrīzī 1350/1971: 185-186, 192, document 6. 106 Sayyidī 1380/2001: 96, 98. 107 Calmard 1999. Also Mitchell 2009: 108-109, on the branches of Marʿashī sayyids.

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the Timurids. Their natural acceptance of the role or position of naqīb and their mediation on behalf of the city in times of crisis clearly demonstrate this, as well as their systematic investment into landed estates in the hinterland of Mashhad. They enjoyed Timurid patronage, but were also quick in joining the Safavid project and exploiting it successfully to their own advantage. Their close and intimate alliance with the ruling Safavid household provided them with the prestigious and financially rewarding control over the shrine and its endowments. Contrary to other sayyid families, however, they did not display Sufi leanings, nor did they develop any higher political ambitions beyond Mashhad and the shrine complex itself. Consequently, in the later Safavid period, and in particular after the demise of Safavid rule, they acquiesced into a more passive role and retreated into the administration of the shrine while enjoying the sinecures secured by their ancestors. Sayyid families were able to transmit status and authority over generations. They were equally successful in passing on wealth and estates and they were able to transfer professional expertise and administrative knowledge. The hereditary transmission of professions and positions inside a safe and closed environment was certainly crucial, as was the highly successful appeal to ruling authorities to regularly and automatically confirm these positions. That this was increasingly achieved not through individual appeals and petitions — as was usually the case for other administrative families, but through an independent administrative apparatus at their disposal, must have made an important difference. The ability to hide behind the shrine’s institutional appearance, was certainly an advantage and allowed the individual households a high degree of flexibility in their later dealings with political authorities. The strategies and tools employed went hand in hand with marriages, professional diversification and the ingenious use of endowments. Combined, it made the Rażavī sayyids of Mashhad to one of the most successful families within a family.

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Sulṭān Hāshim Mīrzā, Zabūr-i Āl-i Dāvūd: sharḥ-i irtibāṭ-i sādāt-i Marʿashī bā salāṭīn-i Ṣafavīya, (ed.) ʿAbd-al-Ḥusayn Navāʾī, Tihrān: Mīrās̱-i Maktūb, 1379/2000. Vāla Iṣfahānī, Muḥammad Yūsuf, Irān dar zamān-i Shāh Ṣafī va Shāh ʿAbbās duvvum, 1038-1071 h.q. (Ḥadiqa-yi shishum va haftum az rauża-yi shishum-i Khuld-i barīn), (ed.) Muḥammad Riżā Naṣīrī, Tihrān: Anjuman-i Ās̱ār va Mafākhir-i Farhangī, 1382/2003. 2.

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Abisaab, Rula Jurdi, Converting Persia: Religion and Society in the Safavid Empire, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004. Arjomand, Said Amir, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shiʿite Iran from the Beginning to 1890, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984. ʿAṭārudī, ʿAzīzallāh, Tārīkh-i Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī, 2 volumes, Tihrān: Vizārat-i Farhang va Irshād-i Islāmī, 1371-72/1992-93. Aube, Sandra, and Maria Szuppe, (eds.), with the collaboration of Anthony T. Quickel, Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East, special issue of Eurasian Studies 15/2 (2017). Bernheimer, Teresa, The ʿAlids: The First Family of Islam, 750-1200, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Bernheimer, Teresa, “The Rise of sayyids and sādāt: The Āl Zubāra and Other ‘Alids in Ninth- to Eleventh-Century Nishapur,” Studia Islamica 100-101 (2005): 43-69. Bulliet, Richard W., The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1972. Burton, Audrey, The Bukharans. A Dynastic, Diplomatic and Commercial History, 1550-1702, Richmont: Curzon Press, 1997. Calmard, Jean, “Une famille de sādāt dans l’histoire de l’Iran: les Mar’ašī,” Oriente Moderno, n.s. 18 (79)/2 (1999): 413-428. Canbakal, Hülya, “The Ottoman State and Descendants of the Prophet in Anatolia and the Balkans (ca. 1500-1700),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52 (2009): 542-578. DeWeese, Devin, “The Descendants of Sayyid Ata and the Rank of Naqīb in Central Asia,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995): 612-634. Dirakhshān, Mahdī, “Pīrāmūn-i kalima-yi Shaikh va Saiyid: baḥs̱ī dar bāra-yi siyādat-i khānadān-i Ṣafavīya,” Revue de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Téhéran) 21 (1975): 153-162. Drechsler, Andreas, Die Geschichte der Stadt Qom im Mittelalter (650-1350): politische und wirtschaftliche Aspekte, Berlin: Schwarz, 1999 [Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 224]. Farhat, May, “Islamic Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: The Case of the Shrine of ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riḍā in Mashhad (10th-17th Century),” PhD thesis, Harvard University, 2002. Farhat, May, “Shiʻi Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: Mashhad under the Early Safavid Shahs,” Iranian Studies 47/2 (2014): 201-216. Fischer, Michael M. J., Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1980.

t h e r ażavī say y i d s o f mashhad

Goto, Yukako, “Der Aufstieg zweier Sayyid-Familien am Kaspischen Meer: “Volksislamische” Strömungen in Iran des 8/14. und 9/15. Jahrhunderts,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 89 (1999): 45-84. Goto, Yukako, Die südkaspischen Provinzen des Iran unter den Safawiden im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Eine Analyse der sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2011 [Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 302]. Gustafson, James M., “Geographical Literature in Nineteenth-Century Iran: Regional Identities and the Construction of Space,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 59 (2016): 793-827. Ḥasanābādī, Abū al-Fażl, “Tārīkhcha-yi tashkīlāt-i idāri-yi Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī dar dawrayi Ṣafavī”, Kitāb-i māh: Tārīkh va jughrāfiyā 70-71 (Murdād-Shahrīvar 1372/2003): 35-43. Ḥasanābādī, Abū al-Fażl, “Mutavallīyān-i Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī az dawra-yi Ṣafavīya tā Afshārīya,” Daftar-i asnād: jild-i du va sih, (ed.) Zuhrā Ṭalāyī, Mashhad: Sāzmān-i Kitābkhāna-hā, Mūza-hā va Markaz-i Asnād-i Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī, 1385/2006: 73-142. Ḥasanābādī, Abū al-Fażl, Sādāt-i Rażavī dar Mashhad az āghāz tā pāyān-i Qājārīya, Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhūhish-hā-yi Islāmī, 1387/2008. Hasanabadi, Abol Fazl, and Elaheh Mahbub, “Introducing the Safavid Documents of the Directorate of Documents and Publications of the Central Library of the Holy Shrine at Mashhad (Iran),” Iranian Studies 42/2 (2009): 311-327. Hermann, Denis, “Aspectos de la penetración del shiismo en Irán durante los periodos Ilkhâní y Timurí: El éxito político de los movimientos Sarbedâr, Mar’ashi y Musha’sha’yân,” trad. Vania Galindo Juárez, Estudios de Asia y África 39/3 (2004): 673709. Ḥusaynī, Sayyid Ḥasan, Aṭlas-i tārīkhī-i sādāt-i Īrān, az āghāz-i vurūd tā pāyān-i qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī qamarī: Sādāt-i Iṣfahān, Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhūhish-hā-yi Islāmi-i Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī, 1397/2018. Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl, Tārīkh-i tashayyuʿ dar Īrān: az āghāz tā pāyān-i qarn-i nuhum-i hijrī, 2 volumes, Tihrān: Nashr-i ʿIlm, rev. edition, 1395/2016. Khalidi, Omar, “Sayyids of Hadhramaut in Early Modern India,” Asian Journal of Social Science 32 (2004): 329-352. Kortepeter, Carl Max, “Complex Goals of the Ottomans, Persians, and Muscovites in the Caucasus, 1578-1640,” in Mitchell, Colin, (ed.), New Perspectives on Safavid Iran. London/New York: Routledge, 2011: 59-83. Mancini-Lander, Derek J., “Subversive skylines: local history and the rise of the Sayyids in Mongol Yazd,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 82 (2019): 1-24. Marcinkowski, M. I., “Custodians of Sacred Ground: The Mutawallis of Safavid Iran’s Major Shi’a Shrines in the Administrative Handbook Dastur al-Muluk,” Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 1/2 (2008): 96-116. Mauriello, Raffaele, “Sub-centres of power in Shiʿi Islam: women of ʿAlid descent in the contemporary Near East,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 45/1 (2018): 79-94. McChesney, Robert D., “The Amirs of Muslim Central Asia in the XVIIth Century”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26 (1983): 33-70. McChesney, R. D., Waqf in Central Asia. Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480-1889, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

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McChesney, Robert D., “‘Barrier of heterodoxy?’ Rethinking the Ties Between Iran and Central Asia in the 17th century”, Pembroke Papers 4 (1996): 231-267. Mitchell, Colin P., The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric, London: Tauris, 2009 [I. B. Tauris & BIPS Persian Studies Series, 1]. Morikawa, Tomoko, “Safavichō shikaika no seichi Mashuhado: 16 seiki iran ni okeru Shiaha toshi no hen`yō”, Shirin [史林] 80/2 (1997): 167-207. Morikawa/Werner 2017, see Sources: Ismāʿīl Khān Hamadānī Morimoto, Kazuo, “The Formation and Development of the Science of Talibid Genealogies in the 10th & 11th Century Middle East,” Oriente Moderno, n.s. 18 (79)/2 (1999): 541-570. Morimoto, Kazuo, “Putting the Lubāb al-Ansāb in Context: Sayyids and Naqībs in late Saljuq Khurasan,” Studia Iranica 36 (2007): 163-183. Morimoto, Kazuo, “The Earliest ʿAlid Genealogy for the Safavids: New Evidence for the Predynastic Claim to Sayyid Status,” Iranian Studies 43 (2010): 447-469. Morimoto, Kazuo, (ed.), Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies: The Living Links to the Prophet, London: Routledge, 2012 [New Horizons in Islamic Studies]. Morimoto, Kazuo, “Keeping the Prophet’s Family Alive: Profile of a Genealogical Discipline,” in Savant, Sarah Bowen and Helena de Filipe, (eds.), Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014: 11-23. Morimoto, Kazuo, “Sayyid Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd: An Iraqi Shiʿi Genealogist at the Court of Özbek Khan,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 59 (2016): 661694. Mudarris Rażavī, Muḥammad Taqī, Sālshumār-i vaqāyiʿ-i Mashhad dar qarnhā-yi panjum tā sīzdahum, (ed.) Īraj Afshār, Mashhad: Āstān-i Quds-i Rażavī; Bunyād-i Pazhūhish-hāyi Islāmī, 1378/1999. Muḥtashamī, Muḥammad Riżā, “Sarnivisht-i Kitāb-i Mukhtārī,” Kitab-i Māh: Tārīkh va jughrāfiyā, no. 84 Mihr māh (1383/2004): 44-47. Muʾtaman, ʿAlī, Rāhnamā yā tārīkh va tawṣīf-i darbār-i vilāyatmadār-i rażavī, Mashhad: Āstān-i Quds, 1348/1969. Newman, Andrew, “The Role of the Sādāt in Safavid Iran: Confrontation or Accommodation?,” Oriente Moderno, n.s. 18 (79)/2 (1999): 577-596. Newman, Andrew J., Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, London: Tauris, 2006. O’Kane, Bernard, Timurid Architecture in Khurasan, Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1987. Posch, Walter, Osmanisch-safavidische Beziehungen 1545-1550: Der Fall Alḳâs Mîrzâ, 2 volumes, Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013 [Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik, 71]. Potter, Lawrence G., “Sufis and Sultans in Post-Mongol Iran,” Iranian Studies 27 (Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era, 1994): 77-102. Rawshanī Zaʿfarānlū, Qudratallāh, “Vaqfnāma-yi āb-i khiyābān-i Mashhad,” Farhang-i Īrānzamīn 28 (1369/1990): 320-325. Sayyidī, Mahdī, Tārīkh-i shahr-i Mashhad: Az āghāz ta mashrūṭa, Tihrān: Shahrdārī-yi Mashhad/Intishārāt-i Jāmī, 1378/1999. Sayyidī, Mahdī, “Nigāhī ba vaqfhā-yi aulādī-yi sādāt-i rażavī-yi Mashhad,” Vaqf: Mīrās̱-i jāvīdān 35-36, 9/3-4 (1380/2001): 85-98.

t h e r ażavī say y i d s o f mashhad

Scarcia Amoretti, Biancamaria and Laura Bottini, (eds.), The Role of the Sādāt/Ašrāf in Muslim History and Civilization / Il Ruolo dei Sādāt/Ašrāf nella Storia e Civiltà Islamiche, Proceedings of the International Colloquium / Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Roma, 2-4/3/ 1998), special issue of Oriente Moderno, n.s. 18 (79)/2 (1999). Ṣifatgul, Manṣūr, Sākhtār-i nahād va andīsha-yi dīnī dar Īrān-i ʿaṣr-i Ṣafavī: Tārīkh-i taḥavvulāt-i dīnī-yi Īrān dar sada-hā-yi dahum ta davāzdahum-i hijrī-yi qamarī, Tihrān: Khadamāt-i Farhangī-yi Rasā, 1381/2002. Simsār, Muḥammad Hasan. “Farmān-nivīsī dar dawra-yi Ṣafavī: qismat-i duvvum,” Barrasīhā-yi tārikhi 3/1 (1347/1968): 61-83. Subtelny, Maria, Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran, Leiden: Brill, 2007 [Brill’s Inner Asian Library, 19]. Sūhānīyān Ḥaqīqī, Muhammad, and Riżā Naqdī (gurūh-i farhang va sīra-i rażavī), (ed.), Āstān-i quds-i Rażavī: Mutavallīyān va Nāyib al-tauliya-hā, Mashhad: Bunyād-i Pazhūhish-hā-yi Islāmī, 1397/2018. Szuppe, Maria, “La participation des femmes de la famille royale à l’exercice du pouvoir en Iran safavide au xvie siècle,” Studia Iranica 23 (1994): 211-258 (part 1), and 24 (1995): 61-122 (part 2). Ṭalāyī, Zahrā, “Siyāsat-i maẕhabī-i Ṣafavīyān va payāmad-i ān bar tausiʿa-i mauqūfāt-i Ḥaram-i Imām Riżā (ʿ),” Pazhūhish-hā-yi tārīkhī (Iṣfahān), Year 54, New Series year 10/1 (1397/2018): 129-152. Welsford, Thomas, Four Types of Loyalty in Early Modern Central Asia: The Tūqāy-Tīmūrid Takeover of Greater Mā Warā al-Nahr, 1598-1605, Leiden: Brill, 2013. Werner, Christoph, Vaqf en Iran: Aspects culturels, religieux et sociaux, Paris: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes, 2015 [Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 56]. Werner, Christoph, “The Kujujī Poets: Families, Poetry and Forms of Patronage in Azerbaijan and beyond (Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries),” Eurasian Studies 15 (2017): 250-279. Winter, Michael, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517-1798, London: Routledge, 1992.W

267

Maria Szuppe

Documenting the Barnābādī Estate Establishment and Growth of a ‘Saintly’ Family in Fifteenth to Eighteenth-Century Herat

In the fifteenth century, members of the Timurid dynasty (1405-1507) extended their patronage activities over Central Asia and parts of Eastern and Central Iran, in which they followed the practices well established under their predecessor dynasties. In Khurāsān and especially in Herat, their main capital city after Samarkand, these activities were flourishing on a quite unprecedented scale. In particular, the Timurids distinguished themselves by their active promotion of local saintly sites such as tombs (sg. mazār) of venerated religious figures — Sayyids, Sufi sheikhs, etc. This politics favoured not only the expansion of pre-existing pilgrimage sites, such as Gāzurgāh hosting the tomb of the ‘patron saint’ of Herat (also known as pīr-i harāt, the Old Man of Herat), the Hanbalite mystic ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī (d. 481/1089), but also the profusion of pilgrimage places (ziyāratgāh), both in Herat city intramuros and in the Herat oasis.1 Local families of sheikhs, often linked to Naqshbandi, Kubravi or other Sufi orders of the time, were habitually attached to particular mazārs. They tended to progressively broaden their social and economic — and sometimes political — bases; in result, some of these families would play leading parts in the region not only in the fifteenth century but also during the following centuries after the Timurid dynasty lost its power in Central Asia and Iran. Recent case studies of individual families of importance from the Eastern Persianate world in late medieval and early modern periods, conducted by scholars such as Bakhtyar Babajanov, Devin DeWeese, Lisa Golombek, Robert McChesney, Jürgen Paul, Florian Schwarz, and others, brought to light much new material on the nature of social and political networks created by these families, as well as on economic ties that linked them to particular mazārs.



1 Different aspects of the Timurid patronage activities have been quite well researched; for recent contributions, see articles assembled in Golombek & Subtelny 1992; also, Golombek & Wilber 1988; O’Kane 1987; O’Kane 1995; Subtelny 1988; Subtelny 1991; Subtelny 2002; Subtelny 2007; and others. On the religious and social situation in Herat, see Manz 2007. On the history of the ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī’s shrine at Gāzurgāh in particular, see Saljūqī 1962, and Golombek 1969. Maria Szuppe  •  CNRS, Centre de Recherche sur le Monde iranien – UMR 8041 Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 269-305 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122939

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One can quote here, for example, the network created by Khwāja ʿUbaydallāh Aḥrār of Samarkand,2 the social-political involvement of the Jūybārī khwājas of Sumitān or Chār Bakr (near Bukhara),3 the social-religious agenda of the Pārsā khwājas emigrated to Balkh from Bukhara,4 or the family known as the Anṣārīs who were in charge of the management of the Gāzurgāh shrine in the Timurid and later periods.5 However, there still remains a lot to be done for the assessment of the role and place occupied by local families of Herat area attached to particular shrines, especially after the establishment of the Safavid rule in Khurāsān, in 914/1510.6 Under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722), who were Twelver-Shi’ites in contrast to the Sunni Timurids, the large province of Khurāsān continued to play a predominant role from many points of view — political, economic, cultural — and maintained its strategic importance as a border area between the Safavids and their rivalling neighbours in the East. Considered one of the key provinces, Khurāsān was traditionally ruled by a Safavid royal prince under the supervision of a court appointed military governor. The province not only sheltered Herat, the renowned royal capital of the now gone Timurids, and their cultural centre, but also Mashhad, not far from the ancient town of Tus (thus sometimes referred to in the sources as Mashhad-i Ṭūs). Mashhad was a steadily growing major pilgrimage city centred on the grave of the 8th Shi’i Imam, ʿAlī Riżā (d. 818), central to the Safavid religious policy. From the very start of Safavid rule in Khurāsān, offices of civil central and regional administration, especially on the intermediate and higher-intermediate levels, were frequently entrusted to influential members of local families whose good fortune was generally depended on their ability to conciliate their relationship with the Safavid government officials, of Twelver-Shiite obedience, and the local population, predominantly Sunni. The seminal study by Martin B. Dickson in 1958 devoted to the Safavid-Uzbek confrontation in the first part of the sixteenth century (since then known as ‘the battle for Khurāsān’),7 gave a particular impulse for later research on Timurid, Uzbek and Safavid political traditions and mechanisms of the formation of local loyalties, networks of family and partisan groups, and transmission of political and spiritual heritage. Only some of these have been the object of research since the early twentieth century, such as the abovementioned over-powerful Jūybārīs, a family and Sufi lineage of Naqshbandi obedience, whose members played not



2 3 4 5 6

Paul 1991b. Babajanov & Szuppe 2002. See also below for some basic references on the history of the Jūybārīs. McChesney 2001. See also Paul 1991a; Paul 1996; as well as DeWeese 1996a; DeWeese 1996b. On the sheikhs of Herat, and esp. on the Anṣārīs, see Manz 2007: 228-238; Subtelny 2007: 217-219. After the fall of the Timurids in Central Asia (c. 1500) and in eastern Iran (about 1507), the control of the Khurāsān province became an object of dispute between the Safavids and the Uzbek regimes, the Shībānids then the Astrākhānids; as a result, the province suffered a series of military campaigns throughout the sixteenth century. See Dickson 1958; also, Szuppe 1992. All in all, the Safavid political rule over Khurāsān and Herat extended for two centuries, from 1510 to 1716, the date when the province was captured from them by the ʿAbdālī Durrānī Afghans. Later it fell under the control of Nādir Khān Afshār (1729), and was then again retaken by the Durrānīs (1747). Throughout the century it was disputed by Durrānī, Afshārid and Qājār powers. See Noelle-Karimi 2013, and Noelle-Karimi 2016. 7 See Dickson 1958.

D o cu m e n t ing t he B arnā bā dī E stat e

only chief spiritual and economic but also political roles in connection with the Shaybānid and Astrākhānid Uzbek dynasties, and other powers in Transoxiana (Māwarā’ al-nahr) and in Eastern Khurāsān between the fifteenth and up to early twenty centuries.8 However, there exist other families who to this day attracted much less, or close to none, attention of modern academic research, and who certainly are worthy of detailed investigation in respect to strategies employed for securing status, wealth and influence through the control of several key economic and professional activities. Among families and/or spiritual lineages still totally understudied for the apparent lack of sufficient source material, two examples stand out. One is the Barnābādī family who is precisely the object of the present chapter. The other lineage worth of mentioning, and future investigation, has been known in contemporary sources as the ‘Masters of Ziyāratgāh’, in reference to their place of origin, at about 20 km south of Herat, which had been an important religious pilgrimage site (ziyāratgāh) for centuries.9 The Ziyāratgāhīs clearly played a prominent role in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when three khwājas headed a serious anti-Safavid revolt in Herat and its area.10 The fact that they have remained little known in scholarly literature is most certainly due to the scarcity of systematic source material.11 In addition, while architectural and archaeological remains of mosques, madrasas and khānaqāhs of the Ziyāratgāh village have been documented and described as such,12 they nevertheless still remain understudied in larger historical context. Unlike the Ziyāratgāhīs, the family history of the Barnābādīs, or ‘Masters (khwājas) of Barnābād’, west of Herat, was brought to light by the discovery of a unique narrative source in the second half of the twentieth century.



8 See Ivanov 1954. Recently, Paul 1997; Schwarz 2000; McChesney 2009, who studied in depth the corpus of documents commonly known as the Jūybārī archive including methodological problems pertaining to it. See also Babajanov & Szuppe 2002, for the study of Jūybārī funerary inscriptions from the family necropolis at Chār Bakr (Bukhara) as independent source of information. 9 See Allen 1981, no. 391; Golombek & Wilber 1988: I, no. 124. The renowned Sufi master Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn Khwāfī (d. 838/1435) was particularly associated with Ziyāratgāh, and a close-by village of Darvishābād, see Manz 2007: 226-238 and passim; Subtelny 2007: 235-237, for the text (in English translation) of his vaqf endowment for the religious complex in Darvishābād. Also, Szuppe 1992: 105-109, on several prominent Ziyāratgāhī Khwājas, in the sixteenth century Safavid Herat: Aḥmad Ziyāratgāhī, and his two brothers Mubārak and Qāsim. 10 Cf. Szuppe 1992: 151-155. Some glimpses of their history are visible in Persian narrative sources referring to the period around 942-943/1535-37, namely Khwāndamīr’s classic Ḥabīb al-siyar, but also, and more detailed, in contemporary local accounts such as Amīr Maḥmūd b. Khwāndamīr’s Tārīkh-i (or Jangnāma-yi) Shāh Ismāʿīl-i avval va Shāh Ṭahmāsp (published as Īrān dar rūzgār-i Shāh Ismāʿīl va Shāh Ṭahmāsp-i Ṣafavī, ed. Ghulām-Riżā Ṭabāṭabāʿī, Ṭihrān 1370/1991). 11 No ‘archive’ of documents is available to us comparable to the one at our disposal for the family history of the Jūybārī sheikhs or the Rażavī sayyids from Mashhad, for example. 12 In general, they date from the Timurid period even if sometimes they have been restored or rebuilt later (for example, Allen 1984, n° 436, n° 522; O’Kane 1987: cat. n°49; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I, n° 123, n° 124).

27 1

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I.

Writing the History of a ‘Saintly’ Lineage from Khurāsān

I.1. Remembrances (taẕkira) in order to “preserve the family from oblivion”

The Khwājas of Barnābād would have shared the same fate as the Ziyāratgāhīs were it not for the scholarly discovery and subsequent publication, in the 1960s and 1980s, of a specific account of their family history. These Khwājas came to light following researches conducted by Najīb Māyil Haravī and Natalia N. Tumanovich who independently from each other investigated a text known as Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, also referred to as Yād-dāshthā-yi Barnābādī.13 It was written in Persian, in the early nineteenth century, by Khwāja Muḥammad Riżā Barnābādī (1751-1815), son of Khwāja Muḥammad Kāẓim (1726-1792) the Vazīr-i khāliṣa (main official in charge of the royal domains) that is the chief civil dignitary of Herat under the Durrānī dynasty.14 Notwithstanding the fact that the text is obviously an inside account written by a member of the family, the source is highly valuable and in many aspects quite unique. It enables us to follow the history of the Barnābādīs in longue durée, namely over ten to eleven generations that is more than 350 years, from the mid-fifteenth century to the years 1222-1225H./1807-1811, when the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī was composed. Also, it is not easily classified, as it falls into several typological categories of historical writing (see infra). At the time of its composition in the early nineteenth century, the long influential Barnābādī family had just undergone a sudden reverse of fortune, due to a change in the political circumstances in Khurāsān, and was being subject to vexations and persecutions from their rivals at the Herat court.15 Muḥammad Riżā Barnābādī states that his father was removed from office, the family fortune was being partly (unlawfully) confiscated, partly directly robbed by rival parties, and overall in the rapid process of disintegrating. Because of all these difficulties he set to compose his work in order to “preserve the memory of the family from oblivion”. Three manuscript copies of the text have been reported extant in modern times. The one kept in the Library of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint-Petersburg (ms. C 402), most probably an autograph, was published in facsimile and with a Russian translation by Natalia Tumanovich in 1984.16 Another one, found in the holdings of the Institute of History in Kabul, was analysed by Najīb Māyil Haravī and published as a study under the title of Mīrzāyān-i Barnābād in 1969.17 The third manuscript copy is reported by Māyil Haravī in a private collection

13 Māyil Haravī 1969; Tumanovich 1968, Tumanovich 1989; TB ed. 1984. For a short preliminary version of this paper, see Szuppe 2017. 14 Durrānīs (ʿAbdālīs), r. 1747-1842. 15 Numerous references in the text, for example: TB Ms. f. 2a/TB ed. 1984: 31, TB Ms.: f. 22a/TB ed. 1984: 43-44, TB Ms.: ff. 122-124/TB ed. 1984: 69b-70a and passim. 16 TB ed. 1984. The manuscript is listed in the printed catalogue of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, see Miklukho-Maklaï 1964: I, no. 518. 17 Māyil Haravī 1969. For the first mention of the Kabul manuscript, see Nayyar Haravī 1962.

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in Afghanistan, but it remains not accessible at the moment. The scholar adds that, all in all, six copies of the Taẕkira were produced during the author’s lifetime, and dispatched among the author’s “true friends and family members” for safekeeping.18 I.2. Who were the Khwājas of Barnābād?

Basically, the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī appears to be a historical chronicle dedicated to a prominent family of Herat province, their members alternatively styled as khwāja or mīrzā.19 One of their lineages maintained particular spiritual authority: several among the leading Khwājas, especially in their older years, are clearly presented as religious, ascetic, and reclusive figures.20 Other members sought prominence in alternative fields of activity such as district and province administration, as well as cultural and artistic endeavours.21 As remarked above, the text is not easily classified: should it be considered a local chronicle of Herat province, a collection of biographies — with an important auto-biographic component — , or rather an anthology of poetical compositions of different members of the family, or even maybe a hagiographical account of the life of several ‘main’ Khwājas on whom the text seems to focus attention? Importantly, the Taẕkira contains not only information on political, social and economic history of the region22 through narratives of lives and activities of prominent Khwājas. Indeed, it includes copies of legal family documents — several royal farmāns or raqams, one endowment deed (vaqf-nāma), and one private donation (hiba-nāmcha)23 — , as 18 Māyil Haravī 1969: 55. 19 Khwāja (pers., litt. master [of the house]) is a title, and a form of address of respect, referring here to a religious Sufi figure of authority. 20 For example, Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir, retired from worldly activities several years prior to his death, as well as Khwāja Abū Ṭālib in his later life; Muḥammad Arshad [II], the elder son of Abū Ṭālib, was so involved with spiritual occupations that he ceded all worldly duties and transferred the leadership of the family to his younger brother, Khwāja Abū’l-Fatḥ; there are other examples. 21 The artistic dimension of Barnābādī history has particularly attracted the attention of Māyil Haravī 1969. Among numerous calligraphers and poets, the best known was Khwāja Muḥammad Arshad [I] known as Mīrzā Arshad, whose poetic penname (takhalluṣ) was Māyil. The eldest son of Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar b. Muḥammad Tāhir, Mīrzā Arshad was born on Tuesday 12 Ṣafar 1025/2 March 1616, and died on 29 Ẕū’l-ḥijja 1114/16 May 1703. (See TB Ms.: f. 22b /TB ed. 1984: 44; also quoted by Saljūqī 1968: 95. On him, see Tumanovich 1989: 206-214; also, see infra for complementary information). Other noteworthy artistic figures were: Mīrzā Arshad’s nephew Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [I] b. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (d. 1130/1718), who also occasionally used the takhalluṣ of Māyil, and his son Muḥammad Arshad [II] (d. 1183/1769-70), as well as a grandson of Mīrzā Arshad’s second brother, Maḥmūd b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. Maḥmūd b. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (fl. early eighteenth century). The author of the Taẕkira and his father wrote verses, too, some of which are quoted in the chronicle. 22 The final parts of the text contain much information on economic conditions, for example giving information on market prices for particular goods, or the amount of money that the family was made to pay to placate its enemies: TB Ms.: f. 71a/TB ed. 1984: 127. 23 These Barnābādī documents are dated between 988/1580 and 1184/1770 (see Tumanovich 1989: 251-264 for their Russian translations), and all but two have been issued by the successive Safavid and Durrānī administrations. The private hiba (i.e. donation inter vivos) document issued by Khwāja Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [I] Barnābādī and his spouse in 1125/1713, is analysed in Szuppe 2019. Also see infra.

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well as copies of correspondence between head Khwājas and different contemporary political and religious personalities, showing the Barnābādī involvement in local and regional affairs from the sixteenth century onwards. The author, Muḥammad Riżā, specifically claims that he had the originals of these documents in front of him at the moment of writing and he copied them into his narrative account; he adds that they were the only ones remaining in his possession, having escaped destruction and theft by the family political enemies.24 Thus, he insists, they only represent a small sample of the totality of documents, royal orders, nominations and privileges that had been granted to the Barnābādī family over centuries. The Khwājas originated from Barnābād, a large village in the Harī-Rūd valley, some 80 km west of Herat, in the Fūshanj (Pūshang) province (vilāyat); from the sixteenth century onwards the town of Ghuriyān progressively replaced the medieval Fūshanj as the chief administrative centre, and the province became referred to more and more frequently as Fūshanj-and-Ghuriyān or Ghuriyān.25 Known in the sources since at least the early Timurid times, in the sixteenth century Barnābād was already an important borough, with own fortifications and a fortress (qalʿa) mentioned in several documents. Sitting on the left bank of the Harī-Rūd, it derived its main water supply from the river through a network of canals (jūy).26 The whole area was under intensive cultivation, as it is specified in different Timurid, Safavid and Uzbek sources. The classical geographical description of Khurāsān by Ḥāfiẓ Abrū (early fifteenth century), the chapter on water distribution from a treatise on agriculture by Qāsim-i Yūsuf (early sixteenth century), or the travel account written by Maḥmūd Ibn Amīr Valī (early seventeenth century) all indicate that the vilāyat of Fūshanj was especially known for its plantations and exploitation of cereals, vineyards, pistachios, pine, juniper (ʿarʿar) trees, and other crops.27 The Barnābādī documents especially insist on the cultivation of pine (nāzhū) and mulberry (tūt) trees, but also raisin (kishmish) in the village and its close area.28 Additionally, the location of Barnābād appears as particularly attractive as the village lies not only by the river but also by the main road linking the oasis of Herat, in the east, with Western Khurāsān and, especially, with several main economic and religious and Sufi centres such as Tāybād, Khwāf,

24 TB Ms.: f. 3b, 4b, 5a, also 26a and passim /TB ed. 1984: 34, 36, 37, also 50 and passim. Szuppe 2019: nn. 9 and 10. 25 For Barnābād, see Adamec 1975: III, 50, 139; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: no. 62. For Ghuriyān, Adamec 1975: III, 139-143 (entry “Fūshanj”) and 139 (information on Ghorian); Bosworth 2000. 26 HA: I, 39; Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82. In addition, Adamec 1975: III, 50 (entry “Barnabad”), based on Maitland’s report of 1903, indicates that 500 families were reported living in Barnābād, while the same Adamec 1975 III: 139, also quoting Maitland’s report (1904) states that about 350 families inhabited the village, of which 260 families were “Tajik”, 40 were “Parsiwans” [pārsīvān, who according to Adamec 1975: III, 329, “maybe defined as Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin. According to Maitland, there are approx. 90,140 families in the province of Herat”], 30 families were “Kainis” [or “Ghainis”, see n. 41 below], and 20 “Tahiris” [a subdivision of the Jamshidī tribal group, cf. Adamec 1975 III: 386; more on the Barnābādī-Jamshidī relations, see also n. 65 below]. 27 HA: I, 39 (for Fūshanj); Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 81-83; Maḥmūd Ibn Amīr Valī: 85-86, mentions the town in its arabicized form of “Būshanj”; Rāzī, Haft Iqlīm: II, 133sqq. 28 Szuppe 2019.

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Ṭurbat-i Jām, and, ultimately, Mashhad the importance of which steadily grew from the Safavid period onwards. The Taẕkira makes it clear that the origin of the Barnābādī Khwājas’ good fortune, from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, came from the hereditary control of the guardianship (tawliyat) of a local shrine dedicated to a person known as Pīr, or Mawlānā, Vaḥīd al-Dīn Muḥammad (*d. early fifteenth century). This saintly figure was reputed to have been a disciple of the renowned ascetic Sufi Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn Tāybādī (d. 791/1389), and thus, through him, could claim a connection to the influential sheikhs of Jām.29 From this early period of the Barnābādī history, very little information came down to us, but the author of the Taẕkira claims that the ancestor of the family, named Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī, came to Khurāsān from Mecca and established himself in the entourage of Pīr Vaḥīd al-Dīn.30 Soon, the family received favours and benefices from at least two Timurid rulers of Herat: Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā (r. 14521468) and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bāyqarā Mīrzā (r. 1468-1506);31 by the end of the eighteenth century, however, the corresponding farmāns have had been lost or stolen through the actions of the family’s enemies, especially one Ibrāhīm Ghuriyānī.32 He and his people are also accused of having robbed books from the Barnābād family library, which reportedly counted about 700 volumes,33 of which many were lost forever, including manuscripts copied by the hand of several Barnābādī Khwājas who were also calligraphers of renown.34 The origin of the family remains quite obscure, but it seems clear, however, that since the fifteenth century the Khwājas were fully in the process of an ‘upward mobility’. By the sixteenth century they must have attained a certain status, as this is the moment when, under the leadership of Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir (1509-1582), son of Jalāl al-Dīn Arshad, the family engaged in various patronage activities: Muḥammad

29 On the Jāmī sheikhs, their network in the Kartid and Timurid periods, and their patronage, see Golombek 1971; Manz 2007: 224-228; Mahendrarajah 2016, Mahendrarajah 2017. A preliminary study on this particular legitimating link of the Barnābādīs has been presented at the International Conference Dynamics of Transmission: Families, Authority and Knowledge in the Early Middle-East in Paris, March 2018 (Maria Szuppe, “Connections and Timurid Legitimacy in Safavid Herat: Issues of the ‘Family Memoirs’ of the Khwājas of Barnābād” (abstract, see: https://dyntran.hypotheses.org/2084). 30 TB, Ms.: f. 3a-b; TB ed. 1984: 33. 31 The author of TB states that the son of Sirāj al-Dīn, named Jalāl al-Dīn Arshad, was a contemporary of both Timurid rulers; TB Ms.: f. 3b/TB ed. 1984: 34. 32 The author of TB calls this enemy “a slave merchant”; TB Ms.: f. 3b, 5a/TB ed. 1984: 34, 38. 33 TB Ms.: f. 26a/ ed. 1984: 50. The number of 700 items might seem quite an extravagant amount, indeed, for a family library even if the books must have certainly been collected over many generations. It compares with the family library of the Pārsā Khwājas of Bukhara (functioning as vaqf since the end of the fourteenth century until the early nineteenth century when it was dispersed). On the Pārsā library, see the recent Muminov, Nekrasova & Ziyodov 2009, and their bibliographic references to numerous earlier studies. 34 TB Ms.: ff. 34b-35a /TB ed. 1984: 57, and passim. In particular, some of the volumes were calligraphed by Muḥammad Arshad Māyil (see Tumanovich 1989: 206-214; also, Māyil Haravī 1963). Saljūqī 1349/1970: 95 and n. 3, includes the name of “Mīrzā Arshad Barnābādī” in his list of calligraphers and mentions a folio with a rubāʿī inscribed by him among the private papers left by Saljūqī’s father, Ḥusayn Vafā Saljūqī, later transmitted to the Herat Museum (mūza-yi Harāt).

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Fig. 1. Barnābād. Pīr Vaḥīd al-Dīn shrine, locally known today as Mullā Kalān (© Photo courtesy of Bernard O’Kane, own archive, late 1970s).

Ṭāhir and all the successive khwājas, as well as some of their wives and daughters, were patrons and founders of buildings and public establishments in Barnābād and in the Herat oasis, of which some examples will be quoted below. Their roots seem to have been firmly linked to the Barnābād shrine, and the source notes that many members of the family, men and women alike, had been buried in the cemetery surrounding the Pīr Vaḥīd al-Dīn shrine.35 See Fig. 1. In the twentieth century, the shrine and attaining cemetery with its small congregational mosque (Masjid-i Jāmiʿ) and khānaqāh, north of Barnābād village, are referred to as dedicated to ‘Mullā Kalān’ Vaḥīd al-Dīn, now locally thought a

35 Among others, such major figures as Muḥammad Ṭāhir b. Jalāl al-Dīn Arshad (d. Ramażān 990/ September-October 1582) [TB Ms.: f. 5a/TB ed. 1984: 37]; Muḥammad Arshad [I] “Māyil” b. ʿAlī Akbar (d. 30 Ẕū’l-ḥijja 1114/16 May 1703) [TB Ms.: f. 22b /TB ed. 1984: 44]; his brother Muḥammad Ṭāhir [II] b. ʿAlī Akbar (d. 26 Shaʿbān 1099/26 June 1688) [TB Ms.: f. 23b /TB ed. 1984: 44]; his other brother Mīrzā Maḥmūd b.  ʿAlī Akbar (d. Muḥarram 1087/March-April 1676) [TB Ms.: f. 24ab/TB ed. 1984: 45-46]; and still another brother, Abū’l-Fatḥ b. ʿAlī Akbar (d. 1114/1702-03) [TB Ms.: f. 24a /TB ed. 1984: 46]. Also, Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ b.  ʿAlī Akbar (d. 1130/1718) [TB Ms.: f. 34a-b /TB ed. 1984: 56], and his son Muḥammad Arshad [II] b. Abū Ṭālib (d. 1183/1769-70) [TB Ms.: f. 35a/ TB ed. 1984: 57]; and some others. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar is one of the few important Barnābādīs not to be buried at the shrine: he died while travelling back from Mecca on 21 Shaʿbān 1084/1 December 1673 [TB Ms.: f. 6a/TB ed. 1984: 40]. Among female burials, the Taẕkira mentions two daughters of Muḥammad Arshad [II] b. Abū Ṭālib: one who died in 1190/1776-77, and the other, the author Muḥammad Riżā’s own mother, who died on 21 Rajab 1212/9 January 1798 (TB Ms.: ff. 35b-36a/ TB ed. 1984: 59).

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brother — and not anymore a disciple — of Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn Tāybādī.36 These buildings are documented in several publications and, in particular, described in several archaeological and architectural surveys, such as the one conducted in the late 1970s by Rafi Samizay, and others.37 Their stylistic similarity with religious structures dating from around the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century in Ghuriyān and Ziyāratgāh, as well as in Tāybād, has also been noticed.38 Samizay’s survey registers about forty tombstones in the Barnābād cemetery, many of which the author identifies by their “flourish design” as dating from the Timurid period, and belonging to the “members of the Mirza family who were poets and artists”.39

II. Upward Mobility, Public Career, and Social Connections The steady growth of the Barnābādī family was manifestly concomitant with the improvement of their social status, which culminated in the eighteenth century. Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir b. Jalāl al-Dīn Arshad (1509-1582), grandson of the ‘original ancestor’ and first guardian of the Barnābād shrine, Sirāj al-Dīn ʿAlī (supposedly arrived from Mecca in the early fifteenth century, as we have seen above), had been considered as the actual founder of the family’s grandeur. He was the main benefactor of numerous buildings and constructions of public utility in Barnābād village and its surroundings. The oldest document found in the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī is precisely a royal farmān issued by the Safavid Shāh Muḥammad Khudābanda (r. 1578-1587) in the name of Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir’s main heir, his young grandson ʿAlī Akbar.40 In later generations, Muḥammad Ṭāhir’s descendants through ʿAlī Akbar divided into several branches and diversified their occupations. Some remained in the family domain in Barnābād as guardians of the shrine, while some others moved to the capital city of Herat and entered the service of successive political regimes, and that independently of the Sunni-Shiite religious shift that occurred over the long period during the Timurid then Safavid then Durrānī regimes.41 See Fig. 2. By the end of the eighteenth century, the lineage could boast at least three high administrative dignitaries who belonged to two different family branches. One of them, 36 The cemetery is described in Māyil Haravī 1969: 3-5. 37 Māyil Haravī 1969; Samizay 1981: 38-41; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: cat. no. 62, 67, and II: plates 141-146 and 150-153. 38 See Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: cat. no. 67. 39 Samizay 1981: 40, says that thirty-one of these tombstones are black. The expression “Mirza family” picks up Najīb Māyil Haravī’s term “Mīrzāyān-i Barnābād” in reference to the Khwājas (cf. Māyil Haravī 1969). 40 For the copy of the document, see TB Ms.: f. 4b. More on this document, infra. 41 The question of the religious allegiance adopted by the Barnābādīs under the Timurid, Safavid and Durrānī rulers is one of the pending issues that remain to be investigated. In his entry on Barnābād, Adamec 1975, III: 50, says that “the population is Mashadi Sayyid, also known as Ghainis (i.e. people from Ghain or Qain), having last come from that place” (based on Maitland report, 1903). Interestingly, some European nineteenth- and twentieth-century reports still mention Barnābād as a major pilgrimage site (ziyāratgāh) in the area and note the presence of a lineage of Pīrs (Sufi Masters) whose local influence remained considerable (cf. Artamonov 1895).

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Fig. 2. The Khwājas of Barnābād (mid-15th-beg. 19th c.). Simplified genealogy (after Taẕkera-yi Barnābādī).

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Khwāja, or Mīrzā, Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] b. Abū Ṭālib (d. 1740), accompanied by ten members of his own family, attached himself to the court of Nādir Khān Afshār, nominally in the service of Safavid puppet Shahs, and followed Nādir Khān’s armies during his military campaigns across Khurāsān; in reward he was promoted head administrator, or vizier, of the Bādghīs province (vazīr-i vilāyat-i Bādghīs), in 1729.42 Bādghīs, north of the Harī-Rūd, was a rich and fertile land, well known for its agricultural products as well as for its abundant pastures where not only livestock but also army horses could easily be provided for.43 Later, his son Muḥammad Kāẓim b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] (d. 1792) — the father of the author of the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī — rose to one of the highest offices in Khurāsān becoming head of the princely chancellery and the administrator of the royal estate in Herat (bi-vizārat-i khāliṣajāt-i dār al-salṭana-yi Harāt ishtighāl dāshtand).44 Another member of the family, Muḥammad Mahdī b.  Ṣāliḥ, descending from the abovementioned Khwāja Muḥammad Tāhir in five generations through a different branch, held the office of the vizier of the city of Herat (bi-amr-i vizārat-i dār al-salṭana-yi Harāt manṣūb būdand) in the later part of the eighteenth century;45 in fact he was a distant cousin from a collateral branch, but Muḥammad Riżā, the author of the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, refers to him as “my deceased paternal uncle” (marḥūm-i ʿamūyam) which indicates that he clearly belonged to an older generation than himself. II.1. Network of Marriage Alliances

The information scattered in the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī shows that the family marriage policy included both traditional cousin marriages and outside alliances with members of other lineages of comparative importance. This latter type of matrimony is especially well documented for the later period, i.e. the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the position of the Barnābādī Khwājas was clearly on its peak. In general, our source does not give much direct or systematic details on marriage unions, but rather disperses them all over the text. Some amount of information, however, can be collated through a close reading of the chronicle. Not surprisingly, most of the references to higher-rank marriages and important social connections pertain to Muḥammad Riżā’s own family branch; the author goes there to a certain level of detail. Obviously, over generations, the Khwājas were able to create kin ties with other local families; in consequence, by the end of the eighteenth century they were related to several families of civilian and religious dignitaries of Herat, including at least one lineage claiming sayyid descent. A closer scrutiny of Barnābādī alliances demonstrate their ability to create a complex network of interrelationship within a group of families, that appeared both intricate and multigenerational. The examples

42 TB Ms.: f. 36a-b /TB ed. 1984: 60. 43 The province is described in HA: I, 31; Rāzī, Haft Iqlīm: II, 128sqq. In the early modern period, the Bādghīs directly bordered the Ghuriyān province. 44 TB Ms.: f. 44b and passim for other mentions of his offices /TB ed. 1984: 72 and passim. 45 TB Ms.: f. 23b, 47a /TB ed. 1984: 45, 75-76.

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following below illustrate some aspects of the Barnābādī marriage network in relation to Khwāja Abū Ṭālib — the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī author’s grandfather — , his sons and grandchildren in the eighteenth century. II.2. Administrative Dignitary Families

According to biographical information on the life of Abū’l Fatḥ [II] b. Abū Ṭālib, the Khwāja had two spouses each of whom belonged to a distinguished family of Herat. One was the mother of his eldest and youngest sons, Muḥammad Riżā (d. 1747) and Muḥammad Kāẓim (the author’s father, d. 1792), while the other was the mother of his middle son, Muḥammad Bāqir (d. 1768). See Fig. 3. - The Munshī relations

The first spouse, Muḥammad Riżā’s and Muḥammad Kāẓim’s mother, was a sister (hamshīra) of a head dignitary of the city administration named Muḥammad ʿAlī Munshī (‘the Secretary’), who belonged to a rich and well-established family of Herat. Among other properties, he owned houses and residences situated in the centre of the city, not far from the Friday Mosque.46 After the disruption of the Safavid political regime and the ensuing troubles in the 1720s and 1730s, Muḥammad ʿAlī Munshī and his two sons Muḥammad Ḥasan and Muḥammad Ḥusayn emigrated to Astarābād where they prospered under the Qajar local government for at least two generations.47 About the same time, Abū’l-Fatḥ Barnābādī joined the court of Nādir Khān Afshār, before being granted the office of the vizier of Bādghīs (see supra). Subsequently, the Barnābādīs maintained over many years close contact with their kin Munshī family of maternal cousins, especially with Muḥammad Ḥusayn and his two sons, exchanging political information and family gossip through correspondence and visit.48 - The Shahriyārī Relations

The middle son of Khwāja Abū’l-Fatḥ [II], named Muḥammad Bāqir, was born from a lady belonging to another high-ranking family of Herat. She was a daughter of Mīrzā Jaʿfar b. Mīrzā Mīrak b. Mīrzā Manṣūr Shahriyārī (‘the city Mayor’).49 The Shahriyārīs

46 TB Ms.: f. 37a /TB ed. 1984: 61-62. On Herat Mosque, documented since the fourth/tenth century, see Allen 1981: no. 428; also, Mélikian-Chirvani 1970; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: no. 78. The mosque is situated in the north-eastern quarter of the city intramuros, close to the bazaar. 47 The Taẕkira explains that, having emigrated to Astarābād in the service of the Qajar khans, the sons of Muḥammad ʿAlī Munshī built beautiful multi-storey houses in the Sabz-Mashhad quarter of that city, namely in the Sūkhta-chinār street. TB Ms.: f. 37a /TB ed. 1984: 61-62 and n. 118. 48 Several of these letters are copied into the text of the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, such as, for example, the one addressed by two grandsons of Muḥammad ʿAlī Munshī to Muḥammad Kāẓim Barnābādī, son of Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] (TB Ms.: f. 37a-b /TB ed. 1984: 62). 49 TB Ms.: f. 43b /TB ed. 1984: 71, also Ibid. f. 40a, where she appears as a sister, hamshīra, of Mīrzā Jaʿfar Shahriyārī (translated in TB ed. 1984: 64 as “milk sister”, молочная сестра).

D o cu m e n t ing t he B arnā bā dī E stat e

were seemingly very rich and locally influential: not only our source states that the civil administration of Herat (amr-i kalāntarī-yi Harāt) was hereditary in this family, but it also indicates that already the grandfather of Mīrzā Jaʿfar, named Mīrzā Manṣūr (fl. mid- and second half of the seventeenth century), had held this office and had been referred to as shahriyārī.50 Among other possessions, the Shahriyārīs owned beautiful tall houses situated in the north suburban Khiyābān quarter of Herat, which was the richest and most fashionable part of the city since the Timurid period, as well as residences inside the city walls in a neighbourhood known as the Mazār-i Naw.51 Interestingly, the kin relationship of the two families dates back well before the times of Khwāja Abū’l-Fatḥ [II]. The Taẕkira reveals that already two generations earlier, the abovementioned Mīrzā Manṣūr Shahriyārī and Khwāja Muḥammad Arshad “the Elder” [I]52 were first cousins on the maternal side.53 Also, according to the well-established tradition of cousin marriage, Mīrzā Manṣūr took for wife a sister (hamshīra) of Muḥammad Arshad, thus consolidating the connection between the two families.54 This example typically illustrates multiple alliances between the same families over long periods of time: here marriages were being contracted between these two Herati lineages since the end sixteenth/early seventeenth century. - The Kalb-ʿAlī Relations

Later, Muḥammad Bāqir Barnābādī, the son of Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] by his Shahriyārī wife, wed a notable lady who was a daughter of Mīrzā Kalb-ʿAlī, a highly respected local figure famous for his wealth and various riches (bi-kas̱rat-i asbāb va amlāk mashhūr va maʿrūf-and). This union has a particularly interesting social-historical reference: the bride’s father, Mīrzā Kalb-ʿAlī, reputedly descended directly from the “celebrated Mīrzā Aḥmad nicknamed Najm-i S̱ ānī who had held the office of vakīl under Shāh Ismāʿīl al-Ṣafavī”.55 The person meant here is Yār Aḥmad Iṣfahānī ‘the Second Star’ (d. 918/1512) who acted as Royal plenipotentiary (vakīl) during the reign of Ismāʿīl I (r. 1501-1524), and was an important State dignitary and a major historical figure of the early Safavid period.56 The Taẕkira emphasizes the great extent of Najm-i S̱ ānī’s original estate (amlāk) — three hundred zawj of land in different places situated in the vilāyats of Farāh, Isfizār and Herat — and goes on to specify that most of these “still remain nowdays”,57 thus implying that these riches were at that time in 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57

TB Ms.: f. 40a /TB ed. 1984: 64. TB Ms.: f. 40a /TB ed. 1984: 64. That is Mīrzā Arshad ‘Māyil’ (1616-1703). See n. 21 above. The text reads: “in relation to Muḥammad Arshad the Elder (buzurg), Mīrzā Manṣūr was a son of his maternal uncle (pisar-i khālū)”, TB Ms: f. 40a /TB ed. 1984: 64. Also, Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] b. Abū Ṭālib’s grandfather, that is Abū’l-Fatḥ [I] b. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (1621-1702), was a younger brother of Khwāja Muḥammad Arshad [I]. TB Ms.: f. 40a /TB ed. 1984: 64. TB Ms.: f. 43b /TB ed. 1984: 70-71. His surname Najm-i S̱ ānī, ‘The Second Star’, refers to the first vizier of the young Shāh Ismāʿīl, Najm-al-Dīn Zargar. TB Ms.: f. 43b /TB ed. 1984: 71.

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Fig. 3. Marriage network of the Barnābādīs with Herat families, in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (simplified) (after Taẕkera-yi Barnābādī).

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the possession of Najm-i S̱ ānī’s offspring, namely Kalb-ʿAlī and his lineage. Clearly, this family connection appeared of outmost importance and of highest prestige to the author. This is probably why the Taẕkira carries on explaining, in quite some detail, how the marriage between Muḥammad Bāqir and Kalb-ʿAlī’s daughter came about to be concluded. Thus, the union was made possible because of a pre-existing relationship formed among the members of the older generation and, interestingly, this link passed through the Shahriyārī parentage of the Barnābādī Khwājas. It appears that the bride and the groom were first cousins on the maternal side, as their mothers were both daughters of Mīrzā Jaʿfar Shahriyārī (see supra): one of them married Kalb-ʿAlī and the other Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] Barnābādī. Indeed, it was Mīrzā Jaʿfar Shahriyārī, maternal grandfather of Muḥammad Bāqir and Bint Kalb-ʿAlī, who arranged the marriage alliance between the children of his two daughters.58 It is worth mentioning as well that kinship bonds between these three families — Shahriyārī, Kalb-ʿAlī, and Barnābādī — were truly multifold, as Mīrzā Jaʿfar Shahriyārī had himself wed a sister of Mīrzā Kalb-ʿAlī.59 II.3. Religious Dignitary Families - Sayyid Relations

The Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī contains also quite interesting biographical information about the life of Khwāja Muḥammad Arshad ‘the Younger’ [II] b. Abū Ṭālib (d. 1183/1769-70), that is a brother of Abū’l-Fatḥ [II]. The source testifies that he had also been married twice. His first wife was a daughter of a respected person named Mīr Muḥiy al-Dīn who came from a “true born” sayyid family (az sādāt-i ṣaḥīḥ al-nasab), while his second wife was a Barnābādī lady from a parallel branch of the family, the eldest daughter of Khwāja ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. Mahmūd b. ʿAlī Akbar Barnābādī.60 Unfortunately, the Taẕkira does not give more information on Mīr Muhiy al-Dīn. It adds, nevertheless, that from these two marriages, Muḥammad Arshad [II] had two daughters, each by one of the two wives, but no male descendant. The elder daughter (d. 1190/1776-77), by his Sayyid spouse, acquired renown for her piety and intense patronage activities. For example, she donated twelve tūmān in cash for the renovation of the public bath in Barnābād village; she also bought a woman slave and her child for the amount of seven tūmān with the purpose of setting

58 TB Ms.: f. 43b /TB ed. 1984: 71. Muḥammad Bāqir (who was a paternal uncle of the author of the Taẕkira) had three children from this marriage: one son and two daughters. The elder daughter married his cousin Muḥammad Riżā, the author — they had two sons together — , while the younger daughter was wed to Muḥammad Riżā’s younger half-brother, named Muḥammad ʿAlī (on him, see the following paragraph, “Sayyid relations”). 59 TB Ms.: f. 43b /TB ed. 1984: 71. 60 See TB Ms.: f. 35a-b /TB ed. 1984: 57-58. The second wife, i.e. Khwāja ʿAbd al-Ṣamad’s daughter, was buried in Mashhad at the Shrine of Imām Riżā (Ibid. f. 35b /58).

283

Fig. 4. Sayyid and Jāmī marriage network of the Barnābādī Khwājas in the eighteenth century (simplified) (after Taẕkera-yi Barnābādī).

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them free, a pious action par excellence.61 The younger daughter, by his Barnābādī wife, was the mother of Muḥammad Riżā, the author of the Taẕkira; she died on 21 Rajab 1212/9 January 1798 in Herat, and was buried in the family cemetery at Barnābād.62 (See Fig. 4). - The Jāmī Sufi Relations

Finally, a major Sufi connection appears in the family tree during the eighteenth century. The Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī indicates that the eldest son of Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] by his Munshī wife, named Muḥammad Riżā,63 married a daughter of Khwāja Abū’l-Ḥasan who belonged to one of the many lineages of Jāmī sheikhs.64 Through this marriage, the family could claim a link — stronger than the original reference of the early fifteenth century — with the much venerated spiritual figure of Shaykh Aḥmad-i Jām (d. 536/1141). After Muḥammad Riżā b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] was killed in 1160/1747 defending Barnābād against raiders, his Jāmī widow was taken as wife, according to the custom, by his younger brother, Khwāja Muḥammad Kāẓim (father of the author of the Taẕkira); they had a son together, named Muḥammad ʿAlī.65

III. The Economic Expansion of the Barnābādīs The development and the extent of the Barnābādī estate, and especially their landed properties, can be assessed from the copies of documents included in the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, as well as from some random references scattered along the pages of the family chronicle. As already mentioned above, the earliest available document copied into the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī relates to securing the passage of authority and property from Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir — in the event of his death — to his minor grandson ʿAlī Akbar (see infra). The later Safavid farmāns authenticate other family possessions in the seventeenth century, while a family endowment (vaqf-i awlād) draft, from the late seventeenth, and a gift donation document (hiba-nāmcha)

61 See TB Ms.: f. 35a / TB ed. 1984: 57-58. She was buried in the Barnābād cemetery, “next to Mawlānā Vaḥīd al-Dīn Muḥammad” (Ibid.). 62 TB Ms.: f. 35a-36a /TB ed. 1984: 58-59. 63 Distinct from his nephew Muḥammad Riżā b. Muḥammad Kāẓim b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [II], the author of the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī. 64 TB Ms.:42b/ TB ed. 1984: 69. See also above, n. 29. 65 TB indicates that the raiding party was composed of about one hundred-and-fifty Jamshidī (sic) and Hazara tribal horsemen; one of them, a person named Shukūr, fired a bullet and killed Khwāja Muḥammad Riżā, see TB Ms.:42b/ TB ed. 1984: 68-69. The Jamshīdīs are mentioned in Adamec 1975, III: 184, as “one of the four tribes collectively known as Chahar Aimak”, who adds that they inhabited the central part of the Bādghīs province (Ibid.). Interestingly, the Ṭāhirīs — a ‘subdivision’ of the Jamshidīs — are reported among the families populating Barnābād at the very start of the twentieth century (Adamec 1975 III: 139, 386), while 50 Hazara families are listed among the inhabitants of the village of Rūj/Rūch at the same time (Adamec 1975 III: 139). On Rūj, see n. 81 below.

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from the early eighteenth century, bring to light the stages of the formation and the topography of the larger Barnābādī estate. All in all, these documents show that by the eighteenth century their properties were concentrated in two main areas of the Harī-Rūd valley. See Map 1. III.1. Building the Estate: Barnābād and Surrounding Localities

The information on the early period is provided by a series of references found in the narrative of the Taẕkira. Some of these can be independently verified through other sources and data provided by various field surveys conducted during the second half of the twentieth century. While describing the past splendour of the family or the spoliation its members suffered at the end of the eighteenth century from the hands of their political enemies, the author Muḥammad Riżā Barnābādī repeatedly refers to emblematic foundations and properties of Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir b. Jalāl al-Dīn Arshad, the actual founder of the grandeur of the Barnābādīs in the sixteenth century. Among other activities, the construction (or rebuilding) of the Barnābād mosque and khānaqāh, reputedly founded by Mawlānā Vaḥīd al-Dīn Muḥammad, was achieved by Muḥammad Ṭāhir.66 Indeed, the modern investigations of the extant structures point to the presence of late Timurid architectural and stylistic features, and tend to date them to the beginning of the sixteenth century.67 In addition to these two major religious buildings, Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir was as well the founder of a public bath (ḥammām) and a water basin (ḥawż).68 In 970/1562-63, he constructed an open air canal (jūy) bringing the waters of the Harī-Rūd into the village living quarters; he also erected several houses.69 In addition, Muḥammad Ṭāhir is considered to have established a large endowment (vaqf) for the benefit of Vaḥīd al-Dīn’s shrine (mazār).70

66 TB Ms.: f. 4a / TB ed. 1984: 35. 67 On Barnābād and its monuments documented in different surveys in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Adamec 1975: III, 50; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: no. 62, and II: Pl 141-144 and Fig. 68; Samizay 1981: 38-40. Modern specialists agree that these buildings display architectural and decorative features similar to constructions documented in Ziyāratgāh village, south of Herat. For Ziyāratgāh and its Timurid monuments, see Allen 1981: no. 391; O’Kane 1987: no. 33, 44, 45, 49; Golombek & Wilber 1988, I: no. 122-124, and II: pl 307-316, 318, and Figs 101-103. 68 The bath and the water tank were precisely known under the name of ṭāhirī, and both are described in detail, see TB Ms.: ff. 3b-4a /TB ed. 1984: 34-35. The bath, especially, was renovated several times, including by a female member of the family, in the second half of the eighteenth century (see above). 69 The foundation of the Barnābād canal, see TB Ms.: f. 4a /TB ed. 1984: 35-36. The canal is also listed in Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82. 70 TB Ms.: f. 4a /TB ed. 1984: 35, specifies that the vaqf consisted of about 70 jarībs of wall-enclosed land, planted with fruit trees or shrubberies (būstān) in the middle and with pine trees (nāzhū) along the sides. (See McChesney 1997: 100, on the specific occurrence of the term būstān in Central Asian economic sources). In periods of war and epidemics the vaqf suffered destructions when local people cut down the pine trees and damaged the walls; it was ultimately restored by Muḥammad Ṭāhir’s descendant, Mīrzā/Khwāja Abū Ṭālib [b. Abū’l-Fatḥ (I)] together with a person known as Shaykh Bilān (i.e. Ḥājjī ʿAbd al-Khāliq Bilānī), around the early eighteenth century (the Taẕkira says: “one hundred years ago”,

D o cu m e n t ing t he B arnā bā dī E stat e

Landed Property according to Two Safavid Documents

The earliest extant Barnābādī document is a farmān issued by the Safavid ruler Shāh Muḥammad Khudābanda (r. 1578-1587) in Rabīʿ I 988/May 1580 for the benefit of  ʿAlī Akbar (1579-1673), son of Muḥammad Hāshim b. Khwāja Muḥammad Tāhir.71 The document was obtained from the Safavid chancellery during the lifetime of Khwāja Muḥammad Tāhir, and certainly at his request, given the particular circumstances of the family at that moment: the Khwāja’s son, Muḥammad Hāshim, had recently died leaving only a baby son, ʿAlī Akbar, while Khwāja Muḥammad Tāhir himself had grown “old and feeble”.72 The purpose of the farmān was to confirm the young ʿAlī Akbar’s rights to property belonging to his grandfather Khwāja Muḥammad Tāhir, and to prevent any ambiguity or possibility of further contestation. The document was thus clearly seen as a necessary guarantee for securing the only grandson’s heritage. The farmān enumerates a series of agricultural possessions and the revenue they generate, and specifically orders the financial officers that their payment should benefit ʿAlī Akbar, Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir’s grandson.73 The assigned revenue is noted as follows: from the village of Barnābād, 4 dāng74 of the total (az tamām chahār dāng); the arable lands of Minguvān(?),75 in total (tamāman); from the village of Ruzanak,76 half of the total (az tamām niṣf); from the village of Dihrān,77 half of

71 72

73 74 75 76

77

cf. Ibid.). For jarīb as surface measurement unit, see: Hinz 1955: § 4.6; in Central Asia, Davidovich 1970: 129, and McChesney 1997: 100. According to Tumanovich (TB ed. 1984: 202 note 30), the economic data drawn from the source point to a rather close relationship of Herat and Bukhara economic organisation. TB, Ms.: f. 4b / TB ed. 1984: 36-37. TB Ms.: f. 4b /TB ed. 1984: 36. Indeed, Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir was born in 915/1509-10 and died during the month of Ramażān 990/September-October 1582, and so he was about 73 years old at the time when the farmān was issued. His son Muḥammad Hāshim was born in 941/1534-35 and died in 987/1579-80 (TB Ms.: f. 5a /TB ed. 1984: 38). The child ʿAlī Akbar was born on 9 Jumādā I 987/4 July 1579 (TB Ms.: f. 6a /TB ed. 1984: 39), and was thus just over one year old when the document was issued. TB, Ms.: f. 4b /TB ed. 1984: 36-37. Dāng is a unit of surface measurement corresponding to one sixth of a total property, so normally it is not a precise but a relative measure. McChesney (1997: 100) indicates that in the early modern Central Asia the dāng was considered a subdivision of the ṭanāb (= jarīb). See also n. 70 above. TB Ms.: f. 4b /TB ed. 1984: 37 (the Russian translator spells it as “Miskaran”, Мискаран). This is most probably the village of Minguvān, north of Ghuriyān, already mentioned in the fifteenth century by HA: I, 39. Rūzanak (Ruzhanak), on the right bank of the Harī-Rūd, is a large village already mentioned in HA: I, 39; also in Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82. See also Adamec 1975: III, 341, who specifically indicates (after Maitland’s report, 1903) the presence of two water-mills and three wind-mills, “a large amount of cultivation”, goats, sheep and cattle, good grazing grounds and abundance of water brought there by a canal. On the left bank of the Harī-Rūd, Dihrān (Dih-i Rān) is quoted as a qaṣaba (borough) in HA: I, 39 and HA: II, 36, 80]; Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82 and editor’s n. 21. Adamec 1975: III, 100 (“Dīrān”). According to Adamec 1975: III, 141 and 341, it was alternatively known as “Roshanu”, but this might be a confusion with Rawshanak (?), cf. n. 79.

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the total; the arable lands of Jangān,78 in total; from the villages of Rawshanān79 and Kalātaja ]‫]کالتجه‬,80 4 dāng of the total; from the village of Rūj,81 half of the total; from the village of Jiza [‫]جزه‬,82 half of the total; and from the underground canal (qanāt) of Chaghmāq,83 in total. The document concludes by confirming all the enumerated properties as having become the rightful property of Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar. They are all situated in the vilāyat of Fūshanj-Ghuriyān, not far from Barnābād itself, on the left and right banks of the Harī-Rūd river. About sixty years later, another royal order (ḥukm-i jahān-muṭāʿ) was issued by the Safavid court of Shāh Ṣāfī (r. 1629-1642), bearing the date of Muḥarram 1048/ May-June 1638. Its beneficiary was again the most influential of the Barnābādī Khwājas of the period, Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ [I] (d. 1130/1718), grandson of Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar.84 Similarly, the purpose of this order was to reconfirm Khwāja’s ownership of all property that had belonged to him from the old, as well as to reconfirm their

78 Could not be identified on contemporary maps, the village (qariya) of Jangān is listed in the fifteenth century by HA: I, 39, and in the sixteenth century by Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82 and editor’s n. 7 (which gives its location at about one farsakh to the north of the town of Ghuriyān). 79 Probably Rawshanak, situated on the left bank of the Harī-Rūd, see Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82 and n. 11 where the editor adds that the people (ahālī) call it Rashnaw/Rashnū [‫]رشنو‬. Adamec 1975: III, 341 (“Roshanu”) says (after Maitland’s report, 1903) that this locality was constituted of “three forts on the left bank of the Hari Rud, below Rozanak.”; he adds the variant reading of the name: “Rushnu”. 80 The name of this village, well identified on the left bank of the Harī-Rūd, can vary in different sources but is always quoted in association with Dihrān and/or Rawshanak/Rashnaw (see above n. 77 and 79). See HA: I 39; Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82, quoted as “Kalāta-qūrī” in the text, with a variant name given in the n. 22 as “Kalāta-qāżī”. Adamec 1975, III: 141, in the Table of villages of the Guriyān district, indicates “Deh-i-Ran (Roshanu) and Kala Jaohar”. 81 Facing Barnābād on the right bank of the Harī-Rūd, Rūj (Rūch) is listed by HA: I, 39, and, together with its canal, by Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82. Rūj remains one of the principal villages of the province at the beginning of the twentieth century (Adamec 1975: III, 141) when it was populated by 50 Hazara families, 10 Tajik families and 20 “Zarbi” families [on these, see Adamec 1975: III, 432, ,‫ ;]رضبی زربی‬the village was fortified, and counted 140 cattle and 700 sheep (Adamec 1975: III, 341). See also n. 88, below. 82 HA: I, 39, under the form of Giza. Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 83, gives “Jizū” [‫]جزو‬, and ft. 3 an alternative name of Giza. Adamec 1975: III, 132 (“Gaza”). At the end of the eighteenth century, Jiza or Jiza Maḥāll will still count among the Barnābādī family holdings, when a water-mill is specifically mentioned (see infra). 83 The identification of this toponym is very uncertain, as there are several places bearing this name. Among them, “Qarye-ye Chaqmāq” (Allen 1981, no. 179) seems to be situated too far from other localities mentioned in the document (cf. Szuppe 2019, n. 46, not identified). Similarly, the Chaqmāq village which appears in Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 74, is located in a totally different area of the Herat oasis. However, GeoNames geographical database lists a small populated place called Chāqmāq (N 34°07′07″ E 61°26′29″) at c. 995m. on the slopes of the Siāyh Kuh mountains (see https://www.geonames.org/1466376/chaqmaq.html, last accessed 01/08/2019). Images from GoogleEarth (2019) show the presence of numerous lines of qanāts there, clearly visible. The toponymy of other localities on the same mountain slope typically includes elements of name such as kāriz/kārez (i.e. qanāt), chāh (well), chashma (spring), etc. It cannot be excluded that the Chaghmāq canal from the 988/1580 Barnābādī document could have been situated in this nearby mountainous area. 84 TB Ms.: f. 26a-b / TB ed. 1984: 50-51. There is however an important problem concerning either the actual beneficiary or the date of the document copied here. The Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī dates the birth of Khwāja Abū Ṭālib to the year 1051/1641-42 (TB Ms.: f. 34a / TB ed. 1984: 56), clearly not compatible with the date of the issue of the farmān, three years prior to Abū Ṭālib’s birth. Another difficulty is that the Taẕkira

D o cu m e n t ing t he B arnā bā dī E stat e

Map 1. Barnābād and its area relevant to the sixteen and seventeenth century Barnābādī documents (© CeRMI - CNRS. Drawing E. Giraudet, 2020).

tax exemptions, in accordance with previous documents (amlāk-i ṣābiq-i ū-rā bi-mawjib-i arqām-i ṣābiq). These dispositions were also specifically to apply to his newly acquired possessions — which evidently have not been listed in these ‘earlier documents’ — , and in particular to eleven zawj85 of land recently bought by him. The royal order also states that nobody should be allowed to take residence in these places without Khwāja’s permission (aḥadī bī riżā-yi ū sukūnat na-nimāyad, f. 26b), and nobody should interfere with his peasants (zāraʿīn-i ū). This new enlargement of the estate is quoted as follows: four zawj of land in Barnābād, one zawj in Shāda, and six zawj in Kundraw. These new possessions were specifically destined for crop-growing purposes. Shāda, on the right bank of the Harī-Rūd, remains one of the principal agricultural villages in the area, still today;86 Kundraw (litt. ‘rapid flow’ or ‘running [water]’) could not be specifically identified,

omits the period of the reign of Shāh ʿAbbās II (r. 1642-1666) in its list of the Shahs contemporary to Khwāja Abū Ṭālib, and quotes only Shāh Ṣāfi and Shāh Sulaymān (r. 1666-1694). These inaccuracies are impossible to solve at the moment. 85 Zawj (or zawj-i avāmil), ‘a pair’, is a surface measurement unit; it refers to a stretch of land that can be cultivated with a pair of oxen, cf. Ivanov 1954: 10, 52; TB ed. 1984: note 53; McChesney 1997: 100. The term zawj is not listed in Hinz’s manual (Hinz 1955, English tr. 2003). 86 Shāda is listed by Ḥāfiẓ Abrū among the qaṣabas, boroughs, of the vilāyat-i Fūshanj (HA: I, 39). Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82, mentions also its canal (jūy). Adamec 1975: III, 359, lists “Shada (‫)شاده‬, a village 15 miles northeast of Ghorian”, and III, 360, “Shahdeh (…) a long straggling village (…) a mile from the river”, mentioning the presence of cattle, sheep and goats, as well as large annual grain production.

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but it most probably refers to lands situated by a river or canal in the area, and was thus certainly well irrigated and particularly suited for farming. Not surprisingly, during the early period the documented family property seems to concentrate in Barnābād and its immediate area, bordering the Harī-Rūd, and to extend progressively towards other places of the Fūshanj-Ghuriyān province (vilāyat). Indeed, this core property seems to have remained in their hands throughout the centuries. The main village, Barnābād, but also several other places counting among family properties since the early period, such as Rūj, Ruzanak, Jiza, Jangān and others, appear in successive documents of the following centuries, and thus were consequently passed down as family heritage. Plots of land and other properties were owned by both male and female members of the family as it can be explicitly seen from references found in a family donation document (hiba-nāmcha) of 10 Shaʿbān 1125/1st September 1713 established by Khwāja Abū Ṭālib and his wife who was also a Barnābādī.87 Thus, Rūj appears as one of the key Barnābādī villages: it is still mentioned in the early eighteenth century as a part of the inherited (irs̱iya) estate belonging to Khwāja Abū Ṭālib’s wife — a daughter of his paternal uncle, the poet and calligrapher Muḥammad Arshad [I] b. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar.88 As seen above, Barnābādī women disposed of personal sources of revenue and used it according to their own wishes, including patronage activities. Also, the tradition of cousin marriages, although not an exclusive marriage policy among the Barnābādī Khwājas, was nevertheless very present and reinforced the concentration of their estate. In fact, the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī brings forward several interesting instances of this ‘inherited’ family property that continued to pass down across generations. After a while, a property could end up being owned by several people who sometimes belonged to separate branches of the extended family.89 One such example is the private property (milk) of a water mill (ṭāhūna) situated in the village (qarya) of Jiza Maḥāll90 in the Ghuriyān province. According to the text, at the very beginning of the nineteenth century when Muḥammad Riżā composed his family chronicle, two-thirds of the mill were the property of Muḥammad Kāẓim Barnābādī (i.e. Muḥammad Riżā’s father) and his brother Muḥammad Bāqir, and one-third belonged to Muḥammad

87 See Szuppe 2019, for the contents and analysis. The Persian text of the document is given in TB Ms.: ff. 27b-28b; Russian translation TB ed. 1984: 53-55, and Tumanovich 1989: 258-259. 88 Interestingly, Rūj is the place of birth of a prominent fifteenth-century Naqshbandi sheikh from Herat, Mawlānā Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūjī, a disciple of Saʿd al-Dīn Kāshgharī (d. 860/1456), see Kābulī, TT: 208-209, for the precise dates of his birth in 820/1417 and passing in 904/1498-99, and the indication that he was buried in the prestigious Khiyābān quarter of Herat before being transferred to the Gāzurgāh shrine by his disciples. Also, see Manz 2007: 202. On the Naqshbandi mystic Saʿd al-Dīn Kāshgharī and his circle of disciples, see Algar 2011: 675-677 (however, the date of death indicated here for Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūjī, “circa 960/1553”, should be corrected). 89 For a quite similar example of land ownership division among heirs in the Jūybārī family documents from Bukhara, see Paul 1997. 90 See n. 82 above.

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Mahdī b. Ṣāliḥ Barnābādī, who previously had been the vizier (vazīr-i ṣābiq) of Herat.91 This statement is interesting as the author seems to make a distinction between the shares owned by two close relatives (who were half-brothers) and the share owned by another Barnābādī who was a quite distant relative of the other two; in practice, the ownership of the water-mill was perceived as divided, of sorts, between two branches of the family even if there were three legal owners. Nevertheless, the author of the Taẕkira uses the same term, “my (paternal) uncle”, amūyam, while referring to his paternal uncle, Muḥammad Bāqir, and to his distant cousin, Muḥammad Mahdī; in this second case, the term denotes a polite form of address towards an older relative.92 III.2. Consolidating the Family Holdings: Transmission Strategies of Khwāja Abū Ṭālib

Later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Barnābādī documents add another set of information to the picture. While they confirm the original holdings in the Fūshanj-Ghuriyān province, and the continuing interest of the Khwājas in their enlargement and improvement,93 they also indicate that the estate extended now to other areas of the Herat oasis and that the family owned properties located in the especially well-watered and fertile Sabqar district (bulūk) of Herat, south-east of the city.94 The Harī-Rūd river bordered the Sabqar in the south while the Khiyābān district (bulūk) of Herat adjoined it in the west. The latter district, crossed by many large and small open-air canals (jūy), was a particularly important and prestigious neighbourhood as it constituted a privileged setting where princes and high-ranking officers of the State and their families owned residences, parks (bāghs), and numerous other properties. The main road known as ‘the Avenue’ (khiyābān) linking Herat to the Kūh-i Mukhtār piedmont area, north of the city, was additionally bordered by series of public buildings such as mosques, madrasas, hospitals or baths, but also shrines

91 The details are important, as at this precise moment, the ownership of the mill was being disputed by the enemies of the Barnābādī Khwājas (all but one of the three owners were deceased at that time), and Muḥammad Riżā was anxious to precisely reaffirm the family rights to it. TB Ms.: f. 47a /TB ed. 1984: 75-76. 92 They shared a common ancestor, Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (d. 1673), in four generations. 93 For example, Khwāja Abū Ṭālib built a large chahārbāgh (park, garden) in Barnābād where he took up residence in his later years in order to retire from worldly life; he spent last seven years of his existence there, see TB Ms.: f. 27b / TB ed. 1984: 52. 94 On the Sabqar district, see Allen 1981, no. 3 (“Bolūk-e Sabakār”) indicating that the district is generally irrigated by the water of the Jūy-i Naw, or Jūy-i Sabqar, except for its upper part which derives its water from the Jūy-i Injīl. This bulūk is of course listed in HA: I, 27, and in Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 67-68. Ḥāfiẓ Abrū states that Sabqar is known for its gardens (bāghāt) and fields (mazāriʿ), and that it is situated “north of the river”. According to the editor of HA, Dorothea Krawulsky, two terms synonymous of bulūk were also in use: nahr and nāḥiyat (HA: II, map 2). This equivalence of terms denotes the overall importance of water administration for the economy of a ‘société hydraulique’ in the medieval Persianate east, such as it has been analysed and theorized by Maria E. Subtelny (see Subtelny 2002: 29-49, with an English summary on p. 49-52).

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and burial places of people of renown attracting pilgrims and visitors from all over the region, and beyond it, and adding to the economic prosperity of the capital city.95 As mentioned above, some families allied by marriage to the Barnābādīs owned houses in this neighbourhood. The Taẕkira also indicates that Muḥammad Riżā Barnābādī had built a house for his own family in Barnābād, but he possessed a residence house in Herat itself as well, which he claims was taken away from him by the governor of the city when the family fell out of favour, in the 1790s.96 In his research on the historical topography of Herat and its oasis, Terry Allen demonstrated that numerous vaqfs existed in this area under the Timurids, many of which were documented already since the Kartid period (fourteenth century).97 The data at our disposal shows that the Barnābādī estate in the suburbs of Herat was mainly constituted of properties endowed as vaqf by Khwāja Abū Ṭālib (1641-1718) in the second half of the seventeenth century. These later documents refer to a time-span of about twenty-five years, between 1687 and 1713, and are, in chronological order, a draft of a family vaqf endowment, a royal confirmation order (raqam) and a private donation (hiba-nāmcha). Khwāja Abū Ṭālib’s family vaqf, 1687

The author of the Taẕkira underlines that the text of the vaqf inserted into the pages of his chronicle was not taken from the original, but transcribed after a rough copy of the document which was in his possession at the time of writing.98 The draft document bears the date of 11 Rajab 1098/23 May 1687, and the endowment was established by the then leading Barnābādī Khwāja Abū Ṭālib. Technically, the donation constituted a private or family bequest (vaqf-i awlād) and not a public charity endowment (vaqf-i khayrī, or vaqf-i ʿāmm),99 as it was made for the benefit of the vāqif’s tomb supposed to be located in Mashhad (Mashhad-i muqaddas-i muʿallā). The endowed property was not huge but nevertheless quite important, and seemed to be mostly composed of well-irrigated agricultural villages of substantial revenue.

95 On Khiyābān, its buildings, residences and endowments, as well as its economic importance, see Allen 1981, no. 5 (“Bolūk-e Ḫiyābān”). 96 TB Ms.: f. 35b/ TB ed. 1984: 58. 97 Examples quoted in Allen1981: no. 3, 5, 29 and passim. 98 The author of the Taẕkira (whose father was a grandson of the donor, Abū Ṭālib) adds that the text of the rough copy was written by the hand of his eminent ancestor Mīrzā Arshad, certainly Muḥammad Arshad [I] b. ʿAlī Akbar Barnābādī (1616-1703), Abū Ṭālib’s paternal uncle and a renowned calligrapher (TB, Ms.: f. 40a/ TB ed. 1984: 64). For the full text of this preparatory document, see TB, Ms.: ff. 40a-42a/ TB ed. 1984: 64-68, and esp. f. 41a-b/ TB ed. 1984: 66-68, for the mention of the endowed localities. 99 See Subtelny 2007: 150 and nn. 13 and 14, on the prevalence of different types of vaqf in late medieval and early modern Central Asia, including Timurid Herat, and the use of separate formularies for each type. The Jūybārī sheikhs of Boukhara, likewise, founded numerous family vaqfs in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of which many original documents are extant, see Babajanov & Szuppe 2002: Appendice I, 117-125. Despite the intention announced in the document, it seems that Abū Ṭālib was in fact buried at the Barnābād shrine’s cemetery, cf. TB Ms.: f. 34a-b/ TB ed. 1984: 56. For vaqf in Iran, including Mashhad, see Werner 2015.

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The document states that the major part of the bequeathed estate is constituted of two expanses of arable land at Nahr-i Qulzum and Afżalābād, to which is appended a water-mill known as the Great Mill (ṭāḥūna-yi mihtar) set in motion by the force of the running water from these two localities. All plots endowed are contiguous and connected to each other. They are situated in the Sabqar district (bulūk) of the capital city of Herat.100 Their boundaries are of elongated shape and are outlined by rural allotments of Firk and Ar.t.khān.101 [They are all] donated together with necessary household equipment, cattle, seed, and tools for cultivation, in accordance with the law. The endowment document gives further precisions on the boundary limits of Abū Ṭālib’s vaqf: on the eastern side, it borders the arable land of the Nūsān village;102 in the west, it is delimited by the lands belonging to the village of Firk; in the north, by a plot (qiṭʿa) of irrigated land crossed by the water of the Khiyābān canal;103 and on the southern side, it touches the public road. See Map 2. The text continues with the enumeration of legal conditions (sharāyiṭ-i sharʿīya) and the management rules for the donation. Thus, the administration of the vaqf — namely the supervision of harvesting, and collecting and management of the annual revenues — is to be entrusted to the eldest (arshad) and most honourable (aṣlaḥ) of the donator’s descendants (awlād-i vāqif). If the vāqif should pass away without posterity, the charge is to be assigned to descendants of his sister (awlād-i

100 According to Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 68 and n. 6, in the early sixteenth century the village of Qulzum depended on the water of the Nawbādān canal (jūy). For Qulzum, also see Allen 1981: no. 328. Qulzum apparently is somehow attached to the bigger village of Nawbādān (today Now Bādām). See Adamec 1975 III: 316 (“Naobadam”). Afżalābād could not be identified more precisely. 101 These two places are also listed together under the name of “Firk va Ar.t.khān” by HA: I, 27, and Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 68 and n. 2. The localization of Ar.t.khān has not been precisely identified. Firk, or Pirk (Perk), is a large village in the Sabqar district, and Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 68, specifically indicates the vocalization of its name with the kasra (i/e) as “Firk”. Also, see Adamec 1975: III, 331 (“Perk”); Allen 1981: no. 195. Interestingly, Allen mentions the existence of other vaqfs in the region, among which one constituted of 27 plots of land and a chahārbāgh endowed in 905/1499-1500 by Amīr Shujāʿ al-Dīn to the benefit of the Gāzurgāh shrine (Ibid., quoting after Saljūqī [1962]: 20-22); see below n. 102 for another example of vaqf in the area. 102 For Nūsān (today: Nīsān), see HA: I, 27. Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 68, says that waters of Firk and Ar.t.khān flow into the Nūsān canal. He adds that the Nūsān canal had been restored and enlarged by the Kartid ruler Ghiyās̱ al-Dīn Muḥammad (r. 1307-1329) and his successors, thus significantly improving the quality of fields in the area, especially for the villages of Nūsān and the close-by Ghasha (Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 36-37); further, the ruler had donated 4 dāng of his private land (milk) while the village peasants (raʿāyā) had given 2 dāng of their own land for the endowment of a public vaqf for the benefit of the Great Mosque and the Madrasa Ghiyās̱īya of Herat. Nūsān is also listed in Adamec 1975: III, 315 (“Naisan”); and Allen 1981, no. 308. For Ghasha, see Allen 1981: no. 207. 103 Most probably the canal mentioned here is the Jūy-i Naw (New Canal), the main water of the Khiyābān district. According to Allen 1981: no. 29 (“Ǧūi-ye Nou”), its upper course, precisely in the vicinity of the villages of Ghasha, Nūsān and Badallū, was commonly called Jūy-i Sabqar; it is documented already in the Kartid period (fourteenth century). The neighbouring district of Khiyābān is described in HA: I, 27, and its waters are listed in Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 63-66. Allen 1981, no. 5 (“Bolūk-e Ḫiyābān”), indicates that the area is located to the west of Bulūk-i Sabqar, and that the frontier between the two districts passed by the village of Badallū. In the early sixteenth century, Badallū is defined as royal possession (khāliṣa), see Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 63; it is recorded in Allen 1981, no. 149 (“Qarye-ye Badallū”).

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Map 2. Localities in the Sabqar district of Herat quoted in Khwāja Abū Ṭālib’s vaqf draft document, dated 11 Rajab 1098/23 May 1687 (© CNRS, CeRMI. Drawing E. Giraudet, 2019).

ẕukūr-i hamshīra) and to other relatives (sāyir-i aqrabā) in accordance with their degree of parentage and the legal order of inheritance.104 It is further indicated that the properties composing the endowed estate could not be rented out for a period longer than three consecutive years, they could not be sold nor mortgaged, neither could they be divided among the family members. Further, the document stipulates the obligations and salaries of the legal administrator (mutavallī-yi sharʿī). Once his work is accomplished and the conditions of the vaqf fulfilled, the mutavallī will receive one tenth of the total revenue, after the deduction of all land and royal taxes, of unpredictable losses, of the proper amount of seed (for next year’s sowing), and of the funding necessary for repairs and all current costs of agricultural work. As for the remaining revenue, it will be distributed as follows: the amount of one tūmān and five thousand dīnārs for the living expenses of one Koran reciter (ḥāfiẓ) and for the lights (rawshanāʿī) at the graves of the vāqif’s father, sister, wife, and uncle’s wife (zawja-yi ʿamm), who are all buried by “the dome (junbad) of the tawḥid-khāna known as Junbad-i Mīr ʿAlī-Shīr”,105 in order that the

104 TB Ms.: f. 41b / TB ed. 1984: 67. 105 Mīr ʿAlī-Shīr Navā’ī (1441-1501) was a major patron; Khvāndamīr lists his charities and numerous buildings he sponsored during his life in his Makārim al-akhlāq, a work entirely dedicated to him (cf. Khvāndamīr, MA). His patronage of the Mashhad shrine included the commissioning of a large courtyard (Ṣaḥn-i ʿatīq), the south portico of which was later known as Ṭalā-yi Mīr ʿAlī Shīr or Īvān-i Ṭalā. Possibly this place is meant in the document. However, elsewhere the Taẕkira says that the graves of Khwāja Abū Ṭālib and his father Abū’l-Fatḥ [I] were situated in the Barnābād cemetery (TB Ms.: f. 24a/ TB ed. 1984:

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Koran be recited every morning and every evening there, and that their graves be continuously illuminated.106 Also, a separate amount of three tūmān will be paid to the ḥāfiẓ who will stay by the graves and take care of the following duties: spreading carpets, lighting, and recitation. And, a small amount of the remaining revenue will be paid to a reliable man who will prepare bread and khalva every Friday evening and distribute it to the people at the grave (sar-i maqbara), so that they help the vāqif (’s soul) with their prayers in return for the food.107 All these stipulations, conditions and payments are established on a yearly basis. As such, the present draft document presents all usual elements of a typical endowment deed in early modern Central Asia and Iran.108 Royal Confirmation of an Earlier Vaqf Foundation, 1688

Khwāja Abū Ṭālib’s foundation in the Sabqar district was not the first vaqf endowed by a member of the family. It has been mentioned above that already Abū Ṭālib’s ancestor, Khwāja Muḥammad Ṭāhir, established a large vaqf in Barnābād about one hundred-and-twenty years earlier. In addition to these two specific foundations, the Taẕkira includes a copy of an imperial order (raqam-i khāqānī) issued by Shāh Sulaymān Ṣafavī (r. 1666-1694) in Rajab 1099/May 1688, the purpose of which was the reconfirmation of all holdings and privileges of the same Khwāja Abū Ṭālib.109 The actual text of the raqam appears quite vague in its wording and, unfortunately, does not enumerate these lands and possessions. It is however of interest in our perspective because it mentions the existence of an earlier vaqf established by the grandfather of Abū Ṭālib, Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (d. 1084/1673). The document states that the original founder, i.e. the late Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar, endowed his private property as family vaqf for the benefit of his descendants in the male line (amlāk-i khud-rā vaqf-i awlād-i ẕukūr-i khud karda), prohibiting anybody but his descendants and their offspring from buying and selling it.110 See Fig. 5. Thus, Shāh Sulaymān’s raqam of 1099/1688 confirms this initial endowment as well as privileges attached to it in regard to lands, cattle, and other possessions. It seems that Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar’s vaqf concerned mostly rural property: the Safavid raqam reconfirms, among others, the freedom of pasture for cattle and sheep belonging to

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46). Abū Ṭālib’s wife was his cousin, a daughter of his paternal uncle Muḥammad Arshad [I] (surnamed Māyil), cf. TB, Ms.: f. 34b/ TB ed. 1984: 57. His “uncle’s wife” mentioned here probably refers to the wife of Muḥammad Arshad [I]; if so, she was also the mother of Abū Ṭālib’s spouse. ʿAlī-Shīr Navā’ī himself was buried in Herat in a mausoleum situated in the Ikhlāṣīya complex, a huge vaqf endowment in the Khiyābān area (Subtelny 1991). TB Ms.: f. 41b/ TB ed. 1984: 67-68. On the importance of lightening foundations in Mashhad, see also Werner 2015: 93-113. TB Ms.: f. 42a/TB ed. 1984: 68. On medieval and early modern vaqf formularies in Central Asia and Eastern Khurāsān, see Kazakov 1999; also, Isogai 2003. The text is given in TB Ms.: f. 26b-27b / TB ed. 1984: 51-53. Also, Tumanovich 1989: 256-257. TB Ms.: f. 27a/ TB ed. 1984: 52. The text of this earlier vaqf document is not included in the Taẕkira.

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Fig. 5. Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, Ms. C-402, f. 26b (detail). Opening lines of the raqam issued by Shāh Sulaymān Ṣafavī (1666-1694) in favour of Khwāja Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ Barnābādī dated Rajab 1099/May 1688 (© Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St-Petersburg).

the endowed land.111 The royal order further specifically extends the confirmation of those privileges to all other vaqf properties that were newly added to the original endowment by the “present donor” (i.e. Khwāja Abū Ṭālib).

111 TB Ms.: f. 27a/ TB ed. 1984: 52.

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The available information is not precise enough in order to ascertain how the Safavid royal raqam relates to Abū Ṭālib’s endowment in the Sabqar district drafted in 1098/1687, and described above. Especially, it is not possible to state, at present, if these two documents pertain to the same endowment, or, rather, to two separate foundations. Private Donation within the Family, 1713

Muḥammad Riżā quotes the text of still another document, jointly issued by Khwāja Abū Ṭālib and his wife (daughter of Muḥammad Arshad [I] b. ʿAlī Akbar) on the 10th Shaʿbān 1125/1st September 1713. The document represents an inter vivos donation deed (hiba-nāmcha) for the exclusive benefit of their three children, prior to the parents’ demise; according to it, private property of the parents is legally transferred to their two sons, Muḥammad Arshad [II] (d. 1769-70) and Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] (d. 1740), and one daughter, unnamed (hamshīra-yi farzandān).112 See Fig. 6. The estate subject to this donation consists of land and other property in the village (qariya) of Barnābād and its close vicinity, the Rūj village, and the fields (mazraʿa) of Jangān. Originally, it had been inherited by the two parents, and especially it includes some zawj of land in Rūj which the donation deed explicitly identifies as the heritage of the children’s mother (vālida-yi farzandān).113 The 1713 hiba-nāmcha is witness to the fact that land ownership in their native area around Barnābād and Rūj still remained in the hands of the family; both these localities appear in the very earliest available Barnābādī document drawn in the second half of the sixteenth century (see supra). According to the present deed, in addition to land and fields, other property was also transmitted to the three children, among which residential buildings with their dependencies (bath, stables, guest-house, etc.) situated inside the walls of the Barnābād village. The document also records plots of gardens, mulberry orchards, vineyards and pine woods, as well as a dyers’ shop (dukkān-i ṣabbāghī) and a water-mill.114 The enumeration of the transferred property demonstrates that although the Barnābādī economic basis remained mostly agricultural, as per tradition, it had nevertheless acquired, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, a certain degree of diversification. Other Sources of Revenue: Government Salaries

Additionally, those of the Khwājas who held management or secretarial offices in the Herat administration received regular salaries that went with such occupations. The Taẕkira hints at these complementary sources of income, but only rarely gives

112 See Szuppe 2019. The text of the hiba-nāmcha is given in TB Ms.: ff. 27b-28b/ TB ed. 1984: 53-55. In this document Abū Ṭālib states that, having become very old and tired, he decided to withdraw from worldly life, and to divide his possessions among his children during his lifetime (dar ḥīn-i ḥayāt). 113 For details of the division, see Szuppe 2019: 184-186. 114 Szuppe 2019: 184-186.

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Fig. 6. Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, Ms. C-402, f. 28a (detail). Extract from Khwāja Abū Ṭālib b. Abū’l-Fatḥ Barnābādī’s donation document on behalf of his children, dated 10 Shaʿbān 1125/1st September 1713 (© Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg).

more specific information. When in the 1740s Khwāja Abū’l-Fatḥ [II] b. Abū Ṭālib was appointed to the office of vizier of Bādghīs by Nādir Khān Afshār (1747), his salary was assigned to him in the form of a ṭiyūl appanage. His income was equivalent of two zawj of land, together with the rights to the appropriate irrigation water to cultivate it, located in the village of Sabūl in the vilāyat of Ghuriyān.115 As Sabūl is not far from Barnābād, Khwāja Abū’l-Fatḥ’s appanage was thus conveniently situated 115 TB Ms.: f. 36b/ TB ed. 1984: 60. For historical mentions of Sabūl, see HA: I, 39; Qāsim-i Yūsuf: 82. See also Adamec 1975: III, 342.

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in the area where the Barnābādīs had been settled from old, and where they owned many other lands already. See Map 1.

Conclusive Remarks The copies of documents, several of which are discussed above, not only outline the rise of the family within the administrative hierarchy of Khurāsān under successive political regimes, but they also illustrate the stages of expansion of their landed property and family wealth. Taking advantage of Barnābād’s favourable geographical location — just off the main road linking eastern (Herat) and western ( Jām and Mashhad) Khurāsān — , the family primarily gained income from the economy of pilgrimage activities at the Pīr Vaḥīd al-Dīn shrine, its mosque, and its khānaqāh. The family chronicle declares that their original holdings in Barnābād and in the neighbouring area were acquired through gift and donation by Timurid rulers in the later fifteenth century.116 The landed estate progressively developed owing to privileges bestowed on them by the Safavids, since the sixteenth century, and later political powers, especially the Durrānīs, but also through direct purchase as it is hinted at in several documents. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Khwajas suddenly fell out of royal favour, thus losing their offices, influence and fortune. However, throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the Barnābādīs remained immensely rich, owning multiple residences and perceiving income from land and livestock, gardens, canals, mills and workshops. Consequently, they became able to invest part of their revenues in active patronage in their home village as well as in other localities in the area.117 Some of them devoted themselves to cultural and literary activities: the family counted several poets and calligraphers, including such a major figure as Khwāja (Mīrzā) Muḥammad Arshad ‘the Elder’ (1616-1703) who signed his works with the penname of Māyil. The extent of the family wealth, on one hand, and their commitment in the cultural field, on the other hand, is vividly illustrated by the mention of a large library in Barnābād. Assembled by successive khwājas and passed down the generations, the library was seriously diminished in the early nineteenth century as a result of repeated acts of confiscation, and even looting, of Barnābādī properties.

116 The existence of these lost original Timurid farmāns issued by Sulṭān-Abū Saʿīd Mīrzā and Sulṭān-Ḥusayn Bāyqarā Mīrzā is mentioned by Muḥammad Riżā (TB Ms.: f. 3b/ TB ed. 1984: 34). 117 For example, Muḥammad Ṭāhir [II] (Aug.1620-1688), son of Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar, founded a water basin (ḥawż) on a public road about four-and-a half farsakh from Herat, by the village of Dihpada, ‫( ده پده‬TB Ms.: f. 23b/ TB ed. 1984: 44). Based on a chronogram given in the text, Natalia Tumanovich establishes the date of this construction to 1082/1671-72 (TB ed. 1984: 205 n. 70). The ḥawż was repaired in 1170/1756-57 by Muḥammad Ṭāhir’s [II] great-grandson, the vizier of Herat Muḥammad Mahdī b. Ṣāliḥ b. Ismāʿil (TB Ms.: f. 23b/ TB ed. 1984: 45). Another ḥawż was built by Mīrzā Maḥmūd b. Khwāja ʿAlī Akbar (Dec.1620-1676) on a main public road leading to cultivated lands by the village of Shabash, ‫( شبش‬TB Ms.: f. 24a/ TB ed. 1984: 45, and n. 72 situating Shabash on the Herat-Mashhad road). Shabash is listed in Adamec 1975 III: 358 (“Shabash or Shahbash”, ‫)شاه باش‬, on the right bank of the Harī-Rūd.

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Professional diversification within a family is not an uncommon feature in the Persianate world, and it can be observed among many prominent lineages of the early modern period, including Sufi and religious ones. Among other examples, one relates to the early history of the Safavids in Ardabīl: from the fourteenth century onwards, one line of the Safavid family — that of Shaykh Ṣafī al-Dīn Ardabīlī (d. 1334) and his direct descendants — was involved in ascetic Sufi activities, while members belonging to other branches of the extended family pursued careers in long-distance trade and large-scale agricultural activities.118 The preservation and long-term transmission of property was normally supported through establishment of unalienable endowments (vaqf), especially family endowments (vaqf-i awlād), ensuring that their management remained in the hands of Barnābādī descendants. However, as not all possessions would be transformed into vaqf, the private property (milk) was unavoidably subject to the process of division among heirs at every generation, in accordance with the law. This state of affairs could be partly countered by the overall traditional practice of cousin marriage between collateral lineages as well as, often, among representatives of more distant branches. The Barnābādī Khwājas actively adopted these strategies across generations, as these proved instrumental for the preservation of estate within the boundaries of the extensive family unit. The constant growth of their economic importance and spiritual dignity as ‘saintly’ guardians of the Barnābād shrine, enabled them to enhance their social status and to progressively connect their family through marriage to other influential and venerable houses of the area. Since the early seventeenth century already, marriage alliances linked the Khwājas to several important lineages of Herat. Once contracted, these alliances continued over several generations creating an intricate network of kin and social interdependences. Interestingly, these network connections remained viable not only across time but also across space, following geographical mobility, as illustrated by the correspondence between the Barnābādīs and their Munshī kinsmen who had emigrated from Herat to Astarābād, in Māzanderān. The information drawn from the Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī illustrates how different local lineages move within the same social circles, and how, periodically, they are mobilized to form or to re-form ever closer ties between various families. The Taẕkira-yi Barnābādī, a biographical chronicle by Muḥammad Riżā Barnābādī, shows that the Barnābādī extended family was quite diversified and divided in several branches, and well socially established. During the period from the fifteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, some of their members were engaged in different professional activities around the larger Khurāsān region — Herat province and city, the Bādghīs province, Mashhad — while some of the senior khwājas permanently dwelled in their native Barnābād, thus ensuring distinguished spiritual guidance and the supervision of the Pīr (Mawlānā) Vaḥīd al-Dīn shrine. The village sheltered a family cemetery and many Barnābādī burials are documented there.

118 On these aspects of the early Safavid history, see Aubin 1991.

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Over the period of nearly four centuries, the Barnābādī Khwājas were able to secure several simultaneous sources of income: profits generated by the custody of the Barnābād shrine; revenues from land and other estate situated in and around Barnābād, in Herat city and province; government wages for fulfilling administrative duties in Herat and Bādghīs. The Barnābādīs not only achieved certain economic and political influence, but they also enjoyed a form of religious prestige, proceeding originally from their alleged connections with the Naqshbandi Sufi order, reinforced by later Jāmī and Sayyid family alliances. This aspect is clearly accentuated by their honorific title of khwāja usually applied to spiritual Masters or ‘saintly’ family lineages in early modern Central Asia and Eastern Iran.

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Naofumi Abe

Creating a Family Property in Early Modern Iran Socioeconomic Activities of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī of Tabriz in the Eighteenth Century*

The issue of how local notable families created family properties and how they preserved them across generations remains understudied in Iranian history. Looking particularly at the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under the rule of the Zand and Qajar dynasties, we observe that a number of notable families, including some with tribal origins, such as the Ardalāns in Kurdistan, the Qavām family in Shiraz, the ʿAlam family in Bīrjand, the Muḥammad-Taqī Khān family in Yazd, the Afshārs in Urumiya, and the Muqaddams in Maragha,1 maintained their power, influence and wealth — particularly large landed properties — over decades, and some even for a century. Local notables in the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been studied more intensively in comparison. As for the Arab provinces, Albert Hourani argues for the linkage between the Ottoman-Arab local notables and the rise of Arab nationalism during the mandate period,2 and his analytical overview of the Arab local elites has been well received, though partially revised, by later scholars.3 Japanese Ottomanist Yuzo Nagata analyzes the Karaosmanoğul family of Manisa in Western Anatolia in an important case study of Anatolian notables (ʿāyān), pointing out the çiftlik (big farm), tax farming (iltizām)







* This is a revised version of a part of my research previously published in Japanese as “Zaisan to sozoku kara mita 18-19 seiki Tabriz no Najafqolī Khān Donbolī ichizoku [Najafqolī Khān Donbolī’s Lineage in 18-19th Century Tabriz from the Viewpoint of Property and Inheritance],” Seinanazia kenkyu 70 (2009). I wish to express my gratitude to Christoph Werner, Stephen Kuehler and Jessica Nguy for reading earlier versions of this article and for their insightful comments. I also express my thanks to Han Hsien Liew for his kind advice on this article. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 19H05032. 1 There are a number of articles on eighteenth and nineteenth century local notables: for the Ardalāns, Nikitine 1922; for the Qavām family, Royce 1981; for the Muḥammad-Taqī Khān family, Kondo 1993 (in Japanese) and Kondo 1999; for the ʿAlam family, Hara 1997 (in Japanese); for the Afshārs, Kondo 1999; for the Muqaddams, Good 1981. 2 Hourani 1968. 3 Toledano 1997; Gelvin 2006. Naofumi Abe  •  Ochanomizu University, Tokyo Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, ed. by Christoph U. Werner, Maria Szuppe, Nicolas Michel and Albrecht Fuess, Turnhout, 2021 (Miroir de l’Orient Musulman, 10), p. 307-334 © FHG10.1484/M.MOM-EB.5.122940

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system, and vaqf endowments in the city of Manisa as crucial for the socioeconomic background of this family.4 Previous scholarship on Iranian notable families, primarily based on narrative sources, has discussed the continuity of Iranian notables, pointing out a family’s long-term social influence or the hereditary occupation of a specific provincial office by members of one notable family. However, with the exception of vaqf endowments, scholars rarely report on these families’ socioeconomic activities.5 While James Gustafson’s very recent monograph frequently refers to local notables’ landholdings in nineteenth century Kirman, which were increasingly connected to the global economy, his research overlooks details of landholdings, mainly due to his limited source base.6 Following Christoph Werner’s pioneering study An Iranian Town in Transition, which introduced a new model for socioeconomic research on nineteenth century Iranian local society, more detailed case studies of local notable families based on sharīʿa documents (asnād-i sharʿī) are required.7 The division of estate (tarika) based on the rules of Islamic inheritance law after the death of a paterfamilias significantly affects property holding. The typical case of inheritance is the following: a male inheritee leaves male (and female) children in addition to his spouse(s). In such a case, based on the Quran, after the payment of debts and funeral costs, and sometimes after deducting a separate testamentary bequest, his spouse(s) receives one-eighth of the estate.8 The remainder is then divided and distributed among the children according to the Quranic principle, “unto the male a share equal to two females.”9 As the Safavid dynasty promulgated Twelver Shi’ism as the state religion following its establishment in the early sixteenth century, Shi’i law (particularly the Jaʿfarī school of law) has become dominant in Iran. In Shi’i law, testamentary bequests to legal heirs are permitted as long as they do not exceed one-third



4 Nagata 2009. 5 For example, Kondo 1999, based on the ninteenth century vaqf report of Yazd, surveys the vaqf endowments by the Muḥammad-Taqī Khān family and their property holdings in that city. Werner 2000 analyses a vaqf related dispute among descendants of the founder in eighteenth and nineteenth century Tabriz (Werner 2000: 99-122). 6 See Gustafson 2016: Chap. 3. 7 “Sharīʿa documents” in this article refer to the following types of documents: contracts (e.g., sale, lease, gift, or marriage, including vaqf-related deeds); legal verdicts/orders/rulings (ḥukm-i sharʿī); legal opinions (fatwā); and written legal statements (nivishta-yi sharʿī) drafted by ulema according to the principles of Islamic law. See further Riżāʾī 2008: 5; Werner 2003: 13-15. 8 “And unto you a half of what your wives leave, if they have no child, but if they have a child, then unto you a fourth of what they leave, after paying any bequest they may have bequeathed or any debt. And unto them a fourth of what you leave if you have no child, but if you have a child, then unto them an eighth of what you leave, after paying any bequest, you may have bequeathed or any debt. If a man or woman leaves no direct heir, but has a brother or sister, then unto each of the two a sixth; but if they are more than two, they share equally a third, after paying any bequest he may have bequeathed or any debt, without harm to anyone — a duty ordained by God, and God is Knowing Clement,” Quran, 4:12. 9 Quran, 4:11.

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of the total estate.10 Since the right of heirs to inherit a share in the estate is defined in the Quran, the estate is necessarily divided if there are several children surviving him or her. Although this is a basic principle in Islamic law, the actual application of this statute in historical Iran has until now been less studied in an empirical manner. Some scholars dealing with inheritance issues in the Sunni legal sphere of Egypt, Palestine, and Central Asia have pointed out that the rules of Islamic inheritance law were generally applied. 11 Boğaç Ergene and Ali Berker, on the basis of a painstaking quantitative analysis of probate inventories of the Anatolian city Kastamonu, explore the intergenerational transmission of wealth to present the general propensity of downward mobility and the differences among groups, i.e. religious, military, merchant, and other groups.12 On the other hand, Kenneth Cuno’s insightful research points out that nineteenth century Egyptian rural notable families tended to avoid estate division after the death of the paterfamilias, constituting joint family households.13 Also, Margaret Meriwether’s study on Aleppine notables points to interesting aspects of their inheritance systems, such as supplemental usage of family vaqf in endowments for female heirs.14 They, however, do not offer an in depth discussion of multigenerational transmission of property or changes in the succession of specific families and the transmission of family properties and the inheritee’s socioeconomic activities during his or her lifetime, as their research has attempted to present the general trend of notable families in the context of the social environment of the period or in relation to the socioeconomic changes due to land tenure reform. In other words, besides the overall analyses, a close examination of respective cases and vivid depiction are crucial to a better understanding of family dynamics in addition to the motives and milieux of wealth transmission. In this article I elucidate how an Iranian notable created a family property and how his or her family’s property was maintained and changed across generations, using the case of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī. This article not only contributes to Iranian history and research on family history in Muslim societies, but also bridges the fields of family history and Islamic law.15 This essay examines the character of a family property and its transmission, focusing on the case of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī and his son Khudādād Khān, who were

10 See Coulson 1971: 239-240. In classical Sunni law, a bequest to a legal heir is not permissible unless the other remaining heirs approve of it. Powers argues for “the Proto-Islamic inheritance law,” which precedes Islamic inheritance law, analysing inheritance verses and bequest verses in the Quran. For further detail on the Sunni prohibition of bequests to an heir, see Powers 1986: 50-52. 11 Little 1998; Kawamoto 1993 and Matsuda 2000 (in Japanese). 12 Ergene and Berker 2009. They also examine the inequalities among Muslim inhabitants in the city, pointing to the probable relationship between wealth accumulation and performing pilgrimage (Ergene and Berker 2008). 13 Cuno 1995. 14 Meriwether 1999. 15 The most prominent work in this regard from the field of Ottoman history is Doumani 2017, which examines the triangular relationship between the sharīʿa court, family, and property in Tripoli and Nablus in Greater Syria.Doumani presents many important features, including the vivid differences in family vaqfs in reference to female inclusion or exclusion in particular based on careful macro and micro analysis of sharīʿa court registries from the 1660s to the 1860s.

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governors (beglarbegīs) of Tabriz in the second half of the eighteenth century, an era of turmoil in the history of Iran. The Najafqulī Khān family, who remained prominent from the middle of the eighteenth century until the Constitutional Revolution in 1905-11, represents a very good example of a long-lasting local notable family in Iranian society. A better understanding of the background and of the continuity of local notable families requires the detailed analysis of changes in their property holdings, based on archival materials. Fortunately, an impressive number of archival documents related to this family have come down to us, collected and archived in two fonds, the Amīrkabīriyān fonds and Zahrā-Ḥasanī fonds.16 In this study the “prototype” of the family property of Najafqulī Khān and his descendants will be explored, enabling us to investigate the changes and developments associated with it in the later period.17 In the following, I will delineate the property holdings in detail of Najafqulī Khān and his successor Khudādād Khān, centering upon their characteristics and the distribution of their estates after their respective deaths, from the middle until the end of the eighteenth century. This article hence argues that the division of estate after the death of a paterfamilias and the subsequent inheritance distribution somehow reflects family consciousness of the need to place emphasis on immediate relatives rather than on collaterals and extended family. This scenario is sometimes different from what is depicted in narrative sources. The case of Najafqulī Khān likewise points to his tacit endeavours to circumvent a principle of Islamic inheritance law in favour of the continuity of the family property. The appendix will provide a basic inventory of the properties owned by this eminent local family.

I.

Najafqulī Khān and his Property

I.1. Najafqulī Khān Assembles Properties

Narrative sources do not provide many details of Najafqulī Khān’s socioeconomic activities and the ways in which he assembled his properties. For instance, the Taẕkirat al-danābila, a chronicle of the Dunbulīs by Muḥammad-Ḥasan Ishtihārdī, only briefly reports: “… he [i.e., Najafqulī Khān] purchased a great number of villages in the vicinity of Tabriz and Marand.”18 On the other hand, at least fifty property 16 These documents are preserved in the North-west Branch as well as in the Central Office of the National Archives of Iran. The former is registered in Persian as “Majmūʿa-yi Amīrkabīriyān,” which was donated by the Amīrkabīriyān family, the descendants of Mīrzā Taqī Khān Amīrkabīr, the most famous prime minister to Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh Qājār. It appears that since the Amirkabīriyān family had a marital relationship with Ḥusaynqulī Khān Dunbulī, the documents related to the Dunbulīs are included in the fonds. Unfortunately, I could not find the provenance of the Zahrā-Ḥasanī fonds. I am very thankful to the former director of the North-west Branch Mr Sayyid Masʿūd Naqīb for his kind support of my research. Documents from the National Archives of Iran are identified in this research as “Asnād.” Some files in these archives contain several documents, while others are comprised of only a single piece of paper. 17 Regarding the property strategy of this family in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Abe 2014. 18 Taẕkirat al-danābila: 693.

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transactions of Najafqulī Khān are mentioned in sharīʿa documents, thus illustrating a part of his property assembling. On the basis of our documentation, we can conclude that his first transaction is dated 18 Muḥarram 1171/2 October 1757 and the last one 4 Jumādā II 1197/7 May 1783. This date shows that Najafqulī Khān already started his purchases prior to the consolidation of Zand rule in Azerbaijan in 1176/1763. In the appendix below, I summarise the characteristics of his property holdings in the “List of Contracts of Najafqulī Khān.” The List of Contracts registers fifty-two transactions of Najafqulī Khān’s property acquisition. Most of these transactions are sales, whose size significantly varies. Najafqulī Khān’s newly acquired properties can be categorised into two groups: urban and rural properties. The urban properties inside of the city of Tabriz include five items, while rural properties amount to forty-seven items. Among the rural properties, twenty-two contracts are related to the acquisition of farmlands and villages, seven are related to orchards or gardens, fourteen concern water rights (ḥaqq-āba), and four multiple contracts include both water rights and farmlands. Urban Immovable Properties

Despite the small number of items, it will be indicative to overview the urban properties owned by Najafqulī Khān in Tabriz on the basis of the information found in the documents. Najafqulī Khān accumulated properties in the urban area of Tabriz, especially in the Khiyābān quarter and the city centre, i.e. the grand bazaar area, which mostly overlaps with the Chahār-minār quarter. Available documents tell us that Najafqulī Khān purchased two items of landed property in Tabriz. Besides the two properties, the biggest acquired property in Tabriz is a set of large landed properties consisting of the late Rustam Khān’s land, a garden with a residence, a bazaar and shops, which Sharaf-Nisā Khānum gifted to Najafqulī Khān in 1174/1761. In the grand bazaar area, Najafqulī Khān purchased a commercial building adjacent to a bakery (dukkān-i khabbāzī) he owned inside the Rāstvān bazaar.19 Furthermore, in that area, a deed of settlement (muṣālaḥa-nāma) dated 1249/1834 records a caravanserai named “the old caravanserai of Najafqulī Khān” (Khān-i qadīm-i Najafqulī Khān), which evidently indicates Najafqulī Khān’s former ownership.20 In short, Najafqulī Khān accumulated a substantial amount of immovable properties around the Rāstvān bazaar in the grand bazaar area. In addition to the properties that were documented in the contractual documents, Najafqulī Khān certainly held two significant immovable properties in Tabriz, i.e., the “new residential garden” (bāgh-i ʿimārat-i jadīd) in the city centre and the “old” counterpart (bāgh-i ʿimārat-i qadīm) in the Khiyābān quarter. These residential gardens, consisting of his administrative seat (dīvān-khāna) and his private resi-

19 The Rāstvān bazaar in the citadel of Tabriz was adjacent to other commercial complexes on all four sides (Asnād 2960-11291). Though this bazaar was certainly located in the grand bazaar of Tabriz, I cannot find the name of Rāstvān in the other sources. This commercial complex might coincide with the famous new Rāsta bazaar (Rāsta bāzār-i jadīd) in the grand bazaar of Tabriz. 20 Asnād 2960-11292.

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dence (ḥaram-khāna), were the bases of Najafqulī Khān’s control over Tabriz. He probably constructed the “new residence” after the devastating earthquake of the late eighteenth century,21 while still holding on to the “old residence” in the Khiyābān quarter. Consequently, it is highly probable that Najafqulī Khān concentrated his immovable properties in the Khiyābān quarter as well as the city centre, namely the Chahār-minār quarter. Rural Immovable Properties

In the following, I will list the geographical distribution of Najafqulī Khān’s rural properties and their ownership shares. Unlike state ownership of land in the Ottoman Empire, rural landed properties were actually sold and bought in Iran. The “d.” hereafter will be used as an abbreviation for dāng, which refers to the unit of “one-sixth” of something and is commonly used to denote ownership shares of immovable properties in Iran. A closer look at the List of Contracts suggests that Najafqulī Khān, in most cases, attempted to acquire as many ownership shares of these villages as possible. Najafqulī Khān held complete ownership (shish-dāng), of eleven villages, including one hamlet (mazraʿa) out of twenty-six villages.22 On the other hand, the number of the villages of which he possessed less than half, i.e., 3 dāng, is only two. In several cases he gained complete ownership of a village through a single transaction. While Najafqulī Khān purchased the large rural villages in the western, north-western, and southern vicinities of Tabriz supposedly for his strategic purpose in the late 1750s, i.e., early in his governorship, slightly later he started to buy villages in the eastern vicinity, namely the Badūstān district. He continued to purchase villages in these areas from then on. Najafqulī Khān’s socioeconomic activities particularly concentrated on the Arvanaq district (the western vicinity of Tabriz) and the southern vicinity of Tabriz. This purchasing tendency points to his effort to place the areas from Tabriz toward Khuy and those from his capital city toward Maragha under his strong influence. His property acquisition was predominantly restricted to Azerbaijan and most of his properties were located within the areas ruled by him.23 The geographic distribution of Najafqulī Khān’s properties indicates his strategy as governor of Tabriz. I argue that Najafqulī Khān held large villages at important

21 For further details on the earthquake in Tabriz, see Melville 1981. 22 Prior to the first national census in the twentieth century (1335sh/1956-57), approximately 23.4% of whole Iranian villages were of the complete ownership type, shish-dāngī, which means a village is owned exclusively by a single landowner. 52.7% of villages were owned jointly, called mushāʿ. See Ṣafīnizhād and Krüger 1375: 10. Yamaguchi argues that ʿAbd al-Bāqī Khān, a prominent Kurdish aristocrat in the late Safavid period, also attempted to own villages exclusively (Yamaguchi 2013: 39-40). 23 Karīm Khān’s decree to appoint Najafqulī Khān as governor of Tabriz, as recorded in the Tarīkh-i Tabrīz, lists the following districts entrusted to him and from which he was to collect taxes: Anzāb, Ālān-barāghūsh, Arvanaq, Mihrānrūd, Sardsaḥrāʾ, Mavāżiʿkhān, Vaydahr, Khānumrūd, Vīrjirūd, Dihkhāriqān, Rūdqāt, Badūstān, Ūjān, Tavābiʿ, Garmrūd, Sarāb, Hashtrūd, Marand, Gargar, and Zunūz. See Werner 2000: 67; Tarīkh-i Tabrīz: 217-218.

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran Table 1. List of immovable properties of Najafqulī Khān in rural areas.

West of Tabriz (mainly Arvanaq district): -The village (qarya) of Shabistar (6d.), Sīs (6d.), Amīrzakariyā (6d.), Harīs (6d.), Bābā Ḥāmid (6d.), Kūshk (3d.), Nawjidih (6d.) -The hamlet (mazraʿa) of Malikzāda (3d.), Dīzajān (3d.), Beygjān Khānum (3d.), Asad Jalāḥ (3d.), Qāżī ʿAbd al-Laṭīfa (3d.) South of Tabriz (the way to Maragha): -The village of Khusrawshāh (6d.), Dihkhāriqān (arable land sown with 95.3 kharvār seed), Kalajāh (6d.), Bāvīl (6d), Dīzaj-i Yāmchī (arable land sown with 4.7 kharvār seed) North-west of Tabriz, near Marand (the way to Khuy): -The village of Margīt (6d.), Kalavān (6d.) East of Tabriz (Badūstān district): -The village of Bīlvīrdī (4.2d. = arable land sown with 28 kharvār seed), Qaraqūnī (5d.), Ṭaraf (5/6d.), Chihraq (3d.), Shāllū (3d.), Yangija(5d.) Other areas: -Kalashān (1d.) (near Salmās)

travel routes, such as Shabistar in the west, Khusrawshāh (today’s Khusrawshahr) and Dihkhāriqān in the south. These were considered crucial from a strategic point of view, as they could provide logistic bases against attacks from neighbouring rivals. The western hinterland of Tabriz leads towards Khuy and Urumiya and the southern areas extend to the centre of the Iranian Plateau via Maragha. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the ruler of Khuy was Aḥmad Khān Dunbulī, a paternal cousin of Najafqulī Khān and the head of the main branch of the Dunbulīs. The Urumiya district was under the control of the Afshārs, the greatest regional power in Azerbaijan at that time, and Maragha was governed by the Muqaddams. It is reasonable to assume that in the period of recurrent wars, the regional powers attempted to secure these larger villages as strategic and defensive bases, not at least in order to supply goods for military activities.24 Properties inside the Villages

In the following I will analyse the property distribution and systematic acquisition of shares inside Najafqulī Khān’s villages from a micro perspective, focusing on the villages of Khusrawshāh and Sīs whose contractual documents survived in relatively 24 In current historical research on Iran we do not yet have enough knowledge about how military activities were related to the socioeconomic conditions, which actually supported them; thus, my argument is hypothetical. In addition to the taxation system, it is necessary to further investigate the relationship between local rulers, rural villages and peasants. Yamaguchi attempts to explain the importance of landholding along trade routes to commercial activities in the western part of Iran, particularly the Hamadan and Kirmanshah provinces (Yamaguchi 2013: 43-47).

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large numbers. I will argue for another aspect that influenced his property purchases, namely his role as a local landlord. Najafqulī Khān also aimed at accumulating water rights after the acquisition of complete ownership of these two villages. In the village of Sīs, which is located near Shabistar in the Arvanaq district, Najafqulī Khān began to buy water rights less than a year after his purchase of that village. On the other hand, in the case of the village of Khusrawshāh in the southern vicinity of Tabriz, he acquired water rights only several years after the purchase of the village itself. Ownership of water rights seems to have been more fragmented than that of villages and to have required further transactions for their accumulation.25 The List of Contracts indicates that Najafqulī Khān assembled shares of water rights through small transactions with various owners. While he often acquired complete ownership (shish-dāng) of a village through a single transaction, he was not able to obtain entire shares of water rights of a qanāt and canal even over the course of several transactions. For instance, he could obtain only 5.5 night-day rotations (shabāna-rūz) out of 15 rotations of water rights of the canal of Sīs through three transactions. In the case of the qanāt of Ṣāḥib-Dīvān (Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān) in the village of Khusrawshāh, he could obtain just 7.75 night-day rotations out of 22 rotations of water rights through five transactions. In sum, the acquisition of water rights in and around a village required more transactions in comparison with the purchase of complete ownership of the village itself. Furthermore, available documentation reveals that Najafqulī Khān never secured entire water rights for a village.26 It is highly likely that Najafqulī Khān purchased water rights in order to lease them out to peasants in an attempt to monopolise the resources within a village and to receive a higher share from the entire harvest.27 Azerbaijan consists in general of districts with unirrigated farming;28 however, irrigation provides better harvest even in such areas.29 In fact, the British traveller John Kinneir, who visited Iran in the early nineteenth century, reports the use of irrigation for cultivation in Azerbaijan, saying that: “[In Azerbaijan] the cultivation of the land is chiefly carried on by irrigation”30 and that: “It (i.e., Tabriz) is seated in an immense plain at the foot of a mountain, on the banks of a small river, whose waters are consumed in the cultivation of the

25 In the case of qanāts in nineteenth century Tabriz, there were a large number of owners (mullāk) of the water rights of each qanāt. See the Tarīkh-i Tabrīz: 55-57. In Iran, the amount of water was traditionally calculated per “shabāna-rūz,” namely, a night-day rotation, e.g., three shabāna-rūz out of 14 shabāna-rūz. 26 The actual distribution of water rights should be also taken into account with regard to a wider area. I am very thankful to Christoph Werner for this point. 27 The landowner who leases out the land watered by qanāts took the highest rates of the share in the vicinities of Tabriz. See Lambton 1969: 309. In the case of the first half of the nineteenth century (1247/1831), Najafqulī Khān’s successor provided the water rights to the peasants in addition to the lease contract of the farmland in the village of Sīs in exchange for the half of the harvest, i.e., niṣfa-kārī (Asnād 2960-09903). This case shows that water rights provide the owner more share than the ordinary lease contract without water. 28 Goto 2002: 19. 29 Okazaki 1988: 24. 30 Kinneir 1813: 158.

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land.”31 According to Lambton, in Hashtrūd, Mihrānrūd and some other vicinities of Tabriz, the landowner’s share is higher in the case of land watered by qanāts than in other types of land.32 Furthermore, Najafqulī Khān purchased various other properties, such as orchards (bāgh) and adjacent farmlands, in addition to water rights. He made efforts to obtain as many properties as possible inside the villages he owned. Consequently, although the available sources are limited, the analysis of Najafqulī Khān’s socioeconomic activities reveals the two major aspects of his property holding: his strategic need as a politico-military leader and governor-general of Tabriz, and his socioeconomic interest as a major landlord, who made an effort to gain the highest profit from his rural properties. I.2. The Distribution of the Estate after the Death of Najafqulī Khān

It appears that Najafqulī Khān died around 1197/1783.33 Later documents mention that the “deed of division” of Najafqulī Khān’s estate, ṭūmār-i taqsīm-nāma-yi amlāk, was draw up on 15 Ṣafar 1199/28 December 1784, presumably a year after his death.34 The document itself is not found in the Amīrkabīriyān or Zahrā-Ḥasanī fonds. According to Riżāʾī, a document of division of estate (taqsīm-nāma-yi amlāk) is a type of sharīʿa document to be drafted at the moment of distribution of the deceased’s estate.35 The published materials of the first half of the nineteenth century also attest to the above points.36 In addition, some of the properties happened to remain undivided and under joint ownership of heirs. The issuance of this document after the death of Najafqulī Khān means that his heirs divided the estate and each of them received a separate inheritance, instead of owning the estate jointly within their legally determined shares.37

31 Kinneir 1813: 151. 32 Lambton 1969: 309. 33 Narrative sources provide two dates of Najafqulī Khān’s death. While the Nigāristān-i Dārā reports 1199 AH, namely 1784/85 (Nigāristān-i Dārā: 285), 1197 AH (1782/83) is recorded in the Taẕkirat al-danābila (Taẕkirat al-danābila: 693). The latest document in which Najafqulī Khān appears is dated 4 Jumādī II 1197/7 May 1783. The document which introduces Khudādād Khān, son of Najafqulī Khān, as governor of Tabriz for the first time was issued by the Ottoman government in Jumādī II 1198/April or May 1784 (Asnād 2960-11285). For further detail regarding this Ottoman edict, see Ṣafīpūr 1385. 34 A written legal statement (nivishta-yi sharʿī), dated 24 Shavvāl 1271/10 July 1855, from the file Asnād 2960-11397 attests to the validity of the deed of division of Najafqulī Khān’s estate. This means that the deed of division was well preserved at least until the middle of the nineteenth century. 35 Riżāʾī 2008: 101. 36 Sutūda 1380: vol. 9, 188-200; Ṭabāṭabāʾī 1376: 72-74. The former document is a contract of settlement regarding the division of estate. The latter is the deed of division of the estate of ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg Dunbulī, son of our Najafqulī Khān. These two documents mainly contain immovable properties; however, movable properties are also recorded in a deed of division frequently. 37 Supposedly, whereas the heirs who were present at the moment of the formulation of the document received the original document, the copies were allocated to the remaining heirs later. The descendants of these heirs sometimes preserved the document across generations in case of necessity.

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Najafqulī Khān’s heirs and their Inheritances

Najafqulī Khān’s heir apparent was his son Khudādād Khān. Since the division deed of Najafqulī Khān’s estate is not available, to the best of my knowledge, the most comprehensive source on Najafqulī Khān’s heirs will be the deeds of sale preserved in the Gulistān Palace, which Werner analysed in his book.38 A series of seven sale contracts were concluded between Najafqulī Khān’s heirs and the Qajar crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā, in 1231-32/1816-17, transferring the famous “[new] residential garden of Najafqulī Khān” to the latter. While this transfer is, as Werner points out, a symbol of “the smooth transition from the Dunbulī rule over Tabriz to the era of ʿAbbās Mīrzā,”39 the sale deeds also illustrate the division of the late Najafqulī Khān’s estate among his eight heirs, i.e. his five sons and three daughters.40 Werner’s research points out the total arable lands shared among eight heirs sown with 114 man seed:41 Table 2. Shares of the new residential garden of Najafqulī Khān.

Male heirs Khudādād Khān 42 man 37 sīr42

Jahāngīr Khān 12 man 37 sīr

Muḥammadqulī Beg 12 man 37 sīr

ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg

Ibrāhīm Khān 12 man 37 sīr

12 man 37 sīr

Female heirs Ḥūrī-Nisā Khānum

6 man 18.5 sīr

Sharaf Khānum 6 man 18.5 sīr

Shāh-Sharaf Khānum 6 man 18 sīr

It appears that their shares of the “[new] residential garden” were calculated in accordance with the Quranic principle of “unto the male a share equal to two females,”43 except for the heir apparent of the deceased, Khudādād Khān, whose 38 Werner 2000: 87. When I visited the Gulistān Palace Archives for my research in October 2008, the aforementioned sale deeds were not available due to a change in reference number. 39 Werner 2000: 88. 40 The number of Najafqulī Khān’s children differs between sources. While the Taẕkirat al-danābila states that Najafqulī Khān had six sons and a daughter including Fażl-ʿAlī Beg, his eldest son who predeceased his father in the 1780 Tabriz earthquake (Taẕkirat al-danābila: 693), the Tarīkh-i Dunbulī points to five sons born to him (Tarīkh-i Dunbulī: 160). I rely more on the sale deeds of the Gulistān Palace which report eight children, namely five sons and three daughters, as the most comprehensive data on Najafqulī Khān’s children. 41 Werner 2000: 87. Until the early twentieth century, the system of weights and measures had not been standardized in Iran (Floor 2008: 62). In the greater Tabriz area, the Tabriz man (man-i Tabrīz) equivalent to approximately 2.9kg, was prevalent. The sīr amounted to one-fortieth of a man and is usually equivalent to about 75g. For further details on weights and measures in Qajar Iran, see Floor 2008. 42 At the moment of the sale, Khudādād Khān had already died. I calculated his share on the basis of his widow’s (ʿIṣmat-Nisā Khānum’s) share (land sown with 30 man seed) and that of his children (12 man). 43 Quran, 4:11.

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share was approximately three times as large as that of his brothers. It is worth noting that his share comprises about 37 percent of the total. Whereas we can assume three scenarios — gift inter vivos; bequest; and arrangement in the total distribution of the estate — , in my view Khudādād Khān received a greater share as part of a testamentary bequest,44 which Shi’i law permits without the consent of the other heirs up to one-third of the total estate.45 The reason of this assumption might lie in, as Coulson claims, the priority of primogeniture in Shi’i legal custom.46 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg, the youngest son of Najafqulī Khān and a famous man of letters at the early Qajar court states that Khudādād became the eldest son (asann-i awlād) after the death of Fażl-ʿAlī Beg because of the devastating earthquake of 1780.47 The large share of Khudādād Khān in the residential garden, the administrative centre of the deceased, suggests that he occupied a distinguished position as successor to the late Najafqulī Khān as beglarbegī. From a different perspective, although Khudādād Khān was nominated as his father’s successor, he was unable to hold the majority of shares in the residential garden. The Form of Inheritance

In the case of the residential garden of Najafqulī Khān, all heirs appropriately received a jointly held share (ḥiṣṣa va rasad bi-l-ishāʿa). In other words, they jointly owned that property until the purchase of ʿAbbās Mīrzā in 1816-17. It is not surprising that there were joint properties even after the division of the estate, as eight heirs received a certain amount of property each. In addition, the heirs were possibly eager to hold a share in the residential garden, without doubt because of its value and importance in the city. On the other hand, as for the rural properties, it appears that the heirs of the late Najafqulī Khān distributed these properties with a much larger ownership share among themselves. One heir chose one village exclusively, or at most two heirs owned one village jointly. For instance, the aforementioned division deed of the late Najafqulī Khān’s estate regulates that “a half of the village of Amīrzakariyā is allocated to Khudādād Khān and another half goes to Jahāngīr Beg (later Khān).”48 The village of Sīs and the hamlet of Yangija were likewise divided between Khudādād Khān and Jahāngīr Beg.49 As the heirs each held 50 percent of ownership over these 44 There is no source material to attest to my assumption. Khudādād Khān’s additional share, i.e., 30 man in the residential garden reaches nearly one-third of the total that implies Khudādād Khān received a bequest from his father. Furthermore, the amount of property that the late Khudādād Khān’s heirs inherited is obviously much larger than the estate of ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg, his younger brother, whose deed of division of the estate is published in Ṭabāṭabāʾī 1376: 72-74 and was presented above (See note 36). 45 Coulson 1971: 239-240. See above. 46 Coulson 1971: 114. 47 Tajribat: vol. 2, 249-250. 48 This information is recorded in the above written legal statement, Asnād 2960-11397. 49 Jahāngīr Beg later gave half of the hamlet of Yangija to his nephew Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg, son of the late Khudādād Khān (Asnād 2960-10335). Two deeds of sale, dated 22 Shavvāl 1189/16 December 1775 and 22 Ẕī qaʿda 1189/14 January 1776, demonstrate that Najafqulī Khān purchased at least 5 dāng of the hamlet from

317

31 8

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rural villages, we can see the different form of distribution of inheritance between rural and urban properties, as in the case of the residential garden, which was divided jointly among eight persons. Joint ownership limits the owner’s right to dispose of his or her share and a joint owner sometimes faces difficulties, since this form of ownership requires other owners’ approval for a major change in administration or cultivation.50 In the case of the sale of the residential garden of the late Najafqulī Khān, Werner assumes that one female heir as well as her late brother were presumably forced later on to sell their share at a relatively low price.51 Thus, it is reasonable that an heir would wish to claim exclusive ownership over a specific property. Since the number of rural properties in Najafqulī Khān’s estate was larger than that of urban properties in accordance with the above discussion, each heir was likely to have more landed property options rather than urban properties. To briefly summarise again the above distribution of Najafqulī Khān’s estate: After his death, a division deed of his estate was drawn up and each of the eight heirs received a share based on the Quranic principle, “unto the male a share equal to two females.” Even though Khudādād Khān, who succeeded to the governorship of Tabriz, was likely to receive a larger portion from the estate than the other siblings, probably through a testamentary bequest, his share amounted to less than half of the total estate. There is no sign of a transfer of a large amount of wealth by gift inter vivos during Najafqulī Khān’s lifetime; thus, the properties he assembled became fragmented after his death. As for the form of inheritance distribution, urban real assets were limited and thus, in the case of the residential garden, owned jointly by all his heirs because of its desirability. Rural landed properties were, on the other hand, owned exclusively or owned jointly with a high proportion of the ownership shares.

II. The Successor of Najafqulī Khān II.1. Khudādād Khān in the Turmoil of Azerbaijan

Khudādād Khān became the successor to the governorship of Tabriz after the death of his father Najafqulī Khān in around 1197/1783. The civil war that ensued after the death of Karīm Khān, the founder of the Zand dynasty, also had great effects on the internal politics of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan at that time was in the midst of uncertainty due to a hegemonic power struggle in the centre of Iran, political intervention from the Ottoman Empire, and tensions with the semi-independent the heirs of the late ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm Beg (Asnād 2960-12480; 2960-12321). See the List of Contracts. This circumstantial evidence suggests that Yangija was also owned jointly by Jahāngīr Beg and Khudādād Khān. A legal acknowledgment (iqrār-nāma) by Ṭayyiba-Nisā Khānum, daughter of Jahāngīr Beg, dated 2 Ṣafar 1254/27 April 1838, states that the village of Sīs was also owned jointly by the aforementioned two brothers (Asnād 2960-11323). 50 Lambton 1969: 267. 51 Werner 2000: 88.

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran

Georgia, in addition to the rivalry among the local rulers themselves. As beglarbegī of Tabriz, Khudādād Khān confronted Aḥmad Khān Dunbulī of Khuy and other neighbouring chiefs.52 In these regional struggles, Aḥmad Khān instigated Jahāngīr Beg against his brother Khudādād Khān.53 Another rival, Ṣādiq Khān Shaqqāqī, taking advantage of the situation, attacked Khudādād Khān, who died relatively young in battle in 1205/1791. Khudādād Khān’s defeat was reportedly triggered in part by his brothers’ support for Ṣādiq Khān.54 Until the conquest of Azerbaijan by the Qajars in 1214/1799, Tabriz was ruled by successive rulers, namely, Ṣādiq Khān who was followed by Ḥusaynqulī Khān Dunbulī, son of Aḥmad Khān (d. 1200/1786), within a short period of time. The confusion in Tabriz ceased following the consolidation of Qajar rule in Azerbaijan under the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā in the early nineteenth century. Actually, Khudādād Khān’s defeat and death in 1205/1791 ushered in the end of the independent politico-military ruling power of the Najafqulī Khān family in Azerbaijan from the early 1760s until 1791 under the nominal sovereignty of the Zand dynasty.55 II.2. Economic Activities of Khudādād Khān

Khudādād Khān, who died young, left a limited number of documents which allow us to somehow grasp a picture of his economic activities in his lifetime. I list the following five cases based on the nine available documents. 1. The purchase of villages near Marand in the northwest vicinity of Tabriz, which took place on two occasions, namely on 18 Ramażān 1190/31 October 1776 and 24 Muḥarram 1193/11 February 1779. The second transaction was on a particularly large scale.56 2. The purchase of the hamlet (mazraʿa) of Sifīd Dirakht for complete ownership (shish-dāng), which took place on two occasions, namely on 9 Ṣafar 1198/3 January 1784 and 26 Ṣafar 1198/20 January 1784.57 3. The purchase of a piece of land with a hemp juice refinement factory (charsdūshāb-pazī) and an enclosure in Shabistar, as well as a vineyard with a piece of land, trees surrounded by the garden of Karbalāʾī Rasūl, 14 night-day rotations of water right of rivers out of 20 rotations and cutting plant and silver burry fields (arāżī-yi qalama-zār va sinjid-zār) in the Ḥukmābād quarter of Tabriz on 26 Rabīʿ I 1199/6 February 1785.58

52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Taẕkirat al-danābila: 693-694. Taẕkirat al-danābila: 694. Tarīkh-i Dunbulī: 161; Taẕkirat al- danābila: 742-743. This is why Werner 2000 and Riyāḥī 1999 do not deal with the Dunbulīs of the later period. Asnād 2960-11389, 2960-10159. Asnād 2960-10334. Asnād 2960-11158. The Ḥukmābād quarter is a part of the Tabriz urban area located in the northwest area. See Tarīkh-i Tabrīz: 94-95.

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4. The purchase of water rights in the village of Khusrawshāh on 26 Muḥarram 1201/18 November 178659 5. The purchase of the market hall (qayṣarīya) of Pīr Būdāq Khān, which was adjacent to the Rāstvān bazaar, and a mint for coinage (żarrābkhāna) on 22 Ẕī qaʿda 1197/19 October 1783.60 While the second case indicates that Khudādād Khān attempted to gain complete ownership of a village (in this case the hamlet of Sifīd Dirakht), cases three and four suggest the accumulation of further properties within the villages of Khusrawshāh and Shabistar. Since case one, i.e., the purchase of villages in the Marand district in exchange for over 1300 tūmān, took place on 24 Muḥarram 1193/11 February 1779 during his time as a hostage in Shiraz,61 this transaction was most likely concluded by his father Najafqulī Khān on his behalf. Prior to this transaction, Khudādād Khān had bought a village named Bār near Marand. Looking at these transactions, we can assume that before the devastating earthquake in 1780, when leaving Tabriz in the hands of his eldest son Fażl-ʿAlī Beg, who predeceased his father in the earthquake, Najafqulī Khān had entrusted the Marand district to Khudādād Khān, to defend the western front of his domain. The above transaction can be understood as a means to bolster Najafqulī Khān’s rule of the Tabriz region. As mentioned earlier, Najafqulī Khān purchased large-scale villages along the main road toward Marand, probably with a strategic purpose and in an attempt to confront Aḥmad Khān of Khuy. It appears that the reason for Khudādād Khān’s military activities against Aḥmad Khān after his succession to the governorship of Tabriz lays in his interest in controlling these strategic villages in Marand. In sum, as limited as the information is, it is reasonable to assume that Khudādād Khān took over his father’s socioeconomic activities in two aspects, namely as a political ruler of Tabriz and as a major local landlord in Azerbaijan. II.3. The Estate of the Late Khudādād Khān

Khudādād Khān left three heirs after his death in 1205/1791: his spouse ʿIṣmat-Nisā Khānum; his son Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg; and his daughter Mihr-Nisā Khānum. The widow ʿIṣmat-Nisā Khānum’s share in the new residential garden was large in comparison with the other heirs.62 If this proportion had been applied to other properties in the same manner, her share in the total estate of the late Khudādād Khān would have

59 Asnād 2960-11272. 60 Asnād 2960-11291. 61 The practice of taking hostage was one of the policies imposed by Karīm Khān to control Azerbaijani local powers. See Tajribat: vol. 2, 41. 62 See note 37.

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran

been significant.63 At the same time, the available documentation reveals that his estate remained undivided. His untimely death exposed his estate to danger. Several documents, such as gift-deeds, legal verdicts, and settlement contracts, all related to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg, Khudādād Khān’s sole male heir, were produced due to ownership disputes. Behind the gift-deed (hiba-nāma) dated 17 Shavvāl 1206/8 June 1792,64 we find an illegal occupation of villages and their subsequent sale by his paternal uncle ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg, which resulted in a series of disputes spanning several decades.65 In Ramażān 1215/ February 1801, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg accepted a ‘reconciliation’ or settlement (muṣālaḥa),66 regarding ownership of the village of Bīlvīrdī in the Badūstān district under adverse conditions.67 In the settlement dated 1236/1820-21, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg formulated a contract which returned to him the illegally occupied property and ordered a compensation.68 In 1228/1813, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg was also struggling with a certain Salmān Beg over shares of water rights of the qanāt of Ghiyās̱ Beg in Shabistar, which was a hereditary property from the era of Najafqulī Khān.69 No doubt some other incidents occurred following the death of Khudādād Khān. These cases demonstrate that the unexpected death of a leading notable, especially at a time of political disorder and turmoil, had a highly unfavourable influence on the transmission of wealth in the transitional period of the late eighteenth century.

Conclusion This article examined the way in which Najafqulī Khān Dunblī and his heir apparent Khudādād Khān created a family property, and investigated the inheritance distribution after their deaths. The precise and detailed data available on the actual items of this family property is noteworthy and exceptional in the history of Iran of this period. Najafqulī Khān, who ruled Tabriz for a couple of decades, combined two aspects in his property acquisition, namely, that of local governor and that of local landlord.

63 In Islamic law, either Shi’i or Sunni, one-eighth of the deceased’s estate goes to his female spouse(s) if there is a child (Coulson 1971: 113; Sharāyiʿ: 1474). In a case where she had a child with her deceased husband, she inherits his landed properties (Coulson 1971: 114). I speculate that the reason for her large share in her late husband’s estate was due to a testamentary bequest or payment of her delayed bride-wealth (mahr). 64 Asnād 2960-11193. ʿIṣmat-Nisā Khānum, widow of the late Khudādād Khān, gifted four villages near Marand in addition to two villages and a garden in Khuy to Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg and Mihr-Nisā Khānum, children of her late husband. 65 This legal dispute will be examined in more detail in my future research. 66 Reconciliation is included in a category of settlement (Riżāʾī 2008: 151). Kondo states that, strictly speaking, distinguishing reconciliation from other types of settlement is somehow difficult but there is a type of settlement that can be regarded as ‘reconciliation’ particularly issued in the case of mediation for a dispute (Kondo 2011: 19). 67 Asnād 2960-11318. 68 Asnād 2960-11267. 69 Asnād 2960-10869.

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Although the period of activity of his heir apparent Khudādād Khān was very short and the information on him remains limited, it appears that he continued his father’s property-holding strategies. Whereas it can be said that the basic principles of Islamic inheritance law were well applied in the transmission of property in the case of Najafqulī Khān in late eighteenth century Iran, his heir apparent received a much larger portion than other heirs. After Najafqulī Khān’s death, the division of his estate, to a certain degree, triggered the fragmentation and outflow of the family’s properties among his heirs. Though Khudādād Khān’s inherited share amounted to less than half of his late father’s estate, he nevertheless received the greatest share of it — around one-third — probably by a testamentary bequest. In sum, the deceased Najafqulī Khān likely attempted to exercise his preference for primogeniture in transferring as much wealth as possible to his heir apparent, although the available documentation does not report other techniques to circumvent Islamic inheritance rules at the moment. In the case of the Najafqulī Khān family, after receiving inheritance, each heir became independent of other siblings from a property-holding point of view. In a logical sense, it is hard to anticipate that the heirs continued cooperating for a common interest solely because of their familial origin. As a matter of fact, just as Khudādād Khān experienced discord with his brothers, his son Fatḥ-ʿAlī Beg experienced long-term disputes with his paternal uncles over the properties that he inherited. Furthermore, the property-related disputes over the collaterals precipitated the consciousness of family, i.e., consciousness of being descendants of the late Khudādād Khān out of the Dunbulīs. Some documents on the disputes recorded the plaintiffs only as “heirs (varas̱a) of the late Khudādād Khān” without referring to their real names.70 This appellation marks a sheer distinction between immediate and collateral relatives among the descendants of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī. Family consciousness changes in different contexts and is also stratified in many layers. Since narrative sources, legal documents, and other materials delineate complex layers of a family, a better understanding of family history requires combination of various kinds of sources. The continuity of premodern Iranian notable families should be reconsidered with reference to the analysis of their family properties based on documentary evidence. As our case has partially suggested an inclination towards primogeniture and an emphasis on the immediate relatives in the Najafqulī Khān family, the detailed analysis of property transmission can provide the picture of how property holdings were reflected in a very basic family institution and its developments.71

70 For example, Asnād 2960-11320, 2960-11368. 71 For further details, see Abe 2014.

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran

323

Appendix List of Contracts of Najafqulī Khān Dunbulī. no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

price counterparty (tūmān)

1

18 Muḥarram 1171/ sale 2 Oct. 1757

village of Sīs

2

20 Muḥarram 1171/ sale 6 Oct. 1757

a piece of land in 0.5 the village of Sīs

3

22 Ṣafar 1171/ 5 Nov. 1757

sale

a vineyard in the 0.8 village of Sīs

4

22 Ṣafar 1171/ 5 Nov. 1757 22 Ṣafar 1171/ 5 Nov. 1757

sale

a vineyard in the 0.6 village of Sīs a vineyard in the 0.6 village of Sīs

6

23 Ṣafar 1171/ 6 Nov. 1757

sale

7

27 Ṣafar 1171/ 10 Nov. 1757

sale

8

12 Jumādā I 1171/ 22 Jan. 1758

sale

5

sale

60

0.24 a vineyard and one-eighth of a nightday rotation (shabāna-rūz) of the Qanāt-i Jamālābād in the village of Sīs complete 200 ownership (6 dāng) of the village of Shabistar complete ? ownership (6 dāng) of the village of Khusrawshāh

kadkhudā and 12 villagers of Sīs

reference note 296010118

11243 Muḥammad Beg Āqā Karīm and 11162 Jān Muḥammad (son of Rasūl Shuṭurbānī) Āqā Karīm 11162

original document; the receipt of the sale original document original document

original document original document

Bābā ?? Naʿlband (son of Rasūl Shuṭurbānī) Abū al-Qāsim Shuṭurbānī

10363

11162

original document

39 owners of the village of Shabistar

11339

copy

landowners and 12537 peasants (91 people)

original document of a power of attorney (vikālatnāma); the title of beglarbegī for Najafqulī Khān

3 24

n ao f u m i a be

no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

9

29 Jumādā II 1171/ sale 10 Mar. 1758

10

5 Rajab 1171/ 15 Mar. 1758

sale

11

16 Rajab 1171/ 26 Mar. 1758

sale

12

24 Ramażān 1172/ sale 21 May 1759

13

5 Rabīʿ I 1173/ 27 Oct. 1759

sale

14

6 Ramażān 1174/ 11 Apr. 1761

gift

15

6 Ṣafar 1179/ 25 July 1765

sale

price counterparty (tūmān)

2 night-day 4 rotations out of 15 rotations of the river of the village of Sīs half of a night-day 1.5 rotation out of 15 rotations of the river of the village of Sīs and 20/46 of a vineyard in the village of Sīs 3 night-day 4 rotations out of 15 rotations of the river of the village of Sīs

one dāng of 12 the village of Kalashān village of 80 Markīdān and hamlet (mazraʿa) of Kalavān

the late Rustam 0.01 Khān’s land, garden and residence, a bazaar and shops in the Khiyābān quarter in Tabriz 3 dāng of the 30 village of Kūshk and the hamlet of Asad Jalāḥ

reference note 2960-

two children of 10343 the late Ḥājjī Tāj al-Dīn Beg

original document

children of the late Fatḥ-ʿAlī Dilchūbī?

10343

original document. The widow of the deceased as their deputy.

ʿAbd al-Javād

10343

original document

and the heirs (a widow and children) of the late MuḥammadZamān Shuṭurbānī Tabrīzī heirs of Salīm 10386 Beg and Yūsuf Khān heirs of the late 11389 Fażl-ʿAlī Khān Yagānlū

Sharaf-Nisā Khānum

11152

original document original document. Attached to the copy of the former transaction copy. In exchange for 100 dinar and 1 man of wheat.

ʿAbd al-Ghaffār National original,

Beg Dunbulī

Library no. 856

preserved in the National Library of Iran (Kitābkhānaye millī-ye Iran)

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

price counterparty (tūmān)

reference note 2960-

16

sale

12

10344

17

18

19

9 Rajab 1180/ 11 Dec. 1766

16 Muḥarram 1181/ sale 14 June 1767

23 Ṣafar 1181/ 21 July 1767

23 Ṣafar 1181/ 21 July 1767

20 27 Rabīʿ II 1181/ 22 Sep. 1767

21

7 Jumādā II 1181/ 31 Oct. 1767

sale

sale

sale

sale

2 night-day rotations out of 20 rotations of the Qanāt-i Dast-ham and a piece of arable land sown with 200 man seed in the village of Khusrawshāh one night-day rotation out of 22 rotations of the Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān in the village of Khusrawshāh 2.75 night-day rotation of the Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān in the village of Khusrawshāh one night-day rotation of the Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān in the village of Khusrawshāh 2,5 night-day rotation of the Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān in the village of Khusrawshāh

a half nightday rotation of the Qanāt-i Ṣāḥib-Dīvān in the village of Khusrawshāh

Ḥājjī Muḥammad-

copy

Hāshim Khusrawshāhī

3

ʿAlī-Naqī (son 12487 of Karbalāʾī Āqā Muḥammad

original document

Ḥājjī Muḥammad

12487

original document

3

Muḥammad Bāqir Khusrawshāhī

12487

original document

9.1

ʿAlī-Akbar (son 12487 of Karbalāʾī

original document

Nawbarī)

10

Beg Khusrawshāhī

1.5

Mīrzā Beg) and Bunyād-ʿAlī and Shukrallāh (sons of Ḥājjī Muḥammad Khān Khusrawshāhī) a wife and a 12317 daughter of the late Mīr Zamān

original document

325

3 26

n ao f u m i a be

no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

price counterparty (tūmān)

reference note 2960-

23

Ḥājjī ʿAbd alSalām ʿAṭṭār

10313

original document

66.71

43 villagers of Dihkhāriqān

10262

original document

20

9 villagers of Bābā Ḥāmid, a villager of Khalkhāl and a villager of Sardrūd

11270

original document

12

Karbalāʾī Āqā Bābā Alqālandīsī

11294

original document

3

Ismāʿīl Beg Turkamān

11162

original document

22

26 Muḥarram 1182/ 12 June 1768

sale

23

22 Rabīʿ II 1184/ 15 Aug. 1770

sale

24 30 Muḥarram 1186/ 3 May 1772

sale

30 Rabīʿ I 1187/ 21 June 1773

sale

26 3 Shaʿbān 1188/ 9. Oct. 1774

sale

25

a shop of a druggist (ʿaṭṭārī) and 3/4 of a shop of a wool coat tailor (chūkhāduzī) in the Rāstvān bazaar arable lands sown with 95 kharvār 30 man seed in the village of Dihkhāriqān 6 dāng of the village of Bābā Ḥāmid, 14 nightday rotations out of 23 of the Qanāt-i Kishāvar in the same village, and 5 and 1/4 night-day rotations out of 8 rotations of the river flowing through the villages of Sardrūd and Khalkhāl one night-day rotation out of 32 rotations of the Qanāt-i Ūrh in the village of Sardrūd a disused orchard sown with 470 man seed in the village of Sīs

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran

327

no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

price counterparty (tūmān)

reference note 2960-

27

9 Shavvāl 1188/ 13 Dec. 1774

gift

5 night-day rotations out of 14 rotations of the Qanāt-i Āqā Khān in the village of Sīs

MuḥammadJaʿfar Beg Dunbulī and Muḥammad Sulṭān Shabistarī

11266

original document

28

15 Ẕī ḥijja 1188/ 16 Feb. 1775

sale

Mīr ʿAbidīn Khiyābānī

10932

original document

29

30 Ẕī ḥijja 1188/ 3 Mar. 1775

sale

1

Ismāʿīl Beg Turkamān

11162

copy

30

20 Muḥarram 1189/ 23 Mar. 1775

sale

3.95

five villagers of Sīs

11270

original document

31

5 Rabīʿ II 1189/ 5 June 1775

sale

4.75

11270 Karbalāʾī Muḥammadqulī and six other villagers of Sīs

original document

32

22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

sale

one third of the ice-house (yakhchāl) of Ḥājjī Mīr Jaʿfar in the Khiyābān quarter a disused land sown with 36 man seed in the village of Sīs a piece of arable land sown with 66.5 gandum seed (in the Arvanaq weight) in the village of Sīs 19 chāsht (i.e. 2 night-day rotations and 3 chāsht out of 14 rotations) of the Qanāt-i Āqā Khān in the village of Sīs 29/64 dāng of the village of Bīlvīrdī

a piece of a vineyard and farmland in the hamlet of Sharaf al-Dīn of Arvanaq 2

heirs of the late 10930

original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document. The former transaction on the verso.

33

22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

sale

1.72

3.505 two pieces of arable land sown with 304 man seed and with 282 man seed in the village of Bīlvīrdī

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

heirs of the late 10257

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

3 28

n ao f u m i a be

no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

34 22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

sale

35

36

37

22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

22 Shavvāl 1189/ 16 Dec. 1775

sale

sale

sale

price counterparty (tūmān)

arable land sown 6.75 with 11 kharvār 40 man seed and lands of ʿAlīqulī Beg arable land sown 4.66 with 11 kharvār 40 man seed and lands of ʿAlīqulī Beg in the village of Bīlvīrdī 3,5 dāng of the 4 village of Yangija in Badūstān

1.5 dāng of the 4 village of Yangija

reference note 2960-

heirs of the late 10345

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

heirs of the late 10345

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

heirs of the late 12480

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

heirs of the late 12321

ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm

Beg

38

10 Jumādā I 1191/ 16 June 1777

sale

6 dāng of the villages of Kalajāh and Bāvīl

400

Āqā Ḥātam Tabrīzī

10499

39

12 Shavvāl 1191/ 13 Nov. 1777

sale

3 dāng of the village of Qaragūnī and 5/6 dāng of the village of Ṭaraf

25

11295

sale

2 dāng of the 12 village of Qaragūnī 8 one night-day rotation out of 34 rotations of a qanāt in the village of Alqālandīs 3 dāng of the 20 village of Chihraq and 3 dāng of the hamlet of Shāllū

Muḥammad Khān (a son of Ganj-ʿAlī Qaragūnī-yi Badūstān) 4 villagers of Qaragūnī

40 5 Ṣafar 1192/ 5 Mar. 1778 41

10 Rabīʿ II 1192/ 8 May 1778

42 6 Ẕī ḥijja 1192/ 26 Dec. 1778

sale

sale

11295

original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document. The former transaction on the verso. original document

copy

Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, 11161 son of Ḥājjī Āqā Riżā Sardrūdī

original document

11269 ʿAlī Mukhtār Beg, ʿAlī-Aṣghar

original document

Beg, and AyvAllāh Beg

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

43 25 Jumādā I 1194/ 29 May 1780

sale

44 20 Rabīʿ I 1195/ 16 Mar. 1781

sale

21 Rabīʿ I 1195/ 17 Mar. 1781

sale

45

price counterparty (tūmān)

a piece of land 13.5 inside the new citadel of Tabrīz sown with 30 man seed 284.57 villages of Harīs (6 dāng), Amīrzakariyā (6 dāng), Nawjidih (6 dāng), hamlets of Malikzāda (half), Dīzajān (half), Qāżī ʿAbd al-Laṭīf (half), Dīzajān, 6 night-day rotations of Qanāt-i Muḥammadābād, an orchard of ʿAlī Iḥsān (both in Nawjidih), and pieces of land in the village of Dīzaj-i Vīnīḥī? all in Arvanaq 32 1,5 night-day rotations out of 32 rotations of the river in the village of Kūzakunān

reference note 2960-

Sharaf Khānum 12556

original document

heirs of the late 12520 Muḥammad Sulṭān Shabistarī, i.e., Sulaymān Beg, Naṣrallāh Beg (sons of the late Muḥammad Sulṭān), Khānum-jān Khānum, Fayżiya Khānum, Jahānbānū Khānum, Fāṭima Khānum, and Sharaf Khānum (daughters of the late Muḥammad Sulṭān), minor heirs of the late ʿAbdallāh Beg same as above 11296

copy

original document

329

330

n ao f u m i a be

no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

price counterparty (tūmān)

46 7 Jumādā II 1195/ 31 May 1781

sale

100.7 A desolated external residence and garden of the late late Muḥammad Sulṭān and 2 night-day rotations out of 14 rotations of the river in the village of Shabistar

47 9 Jumādā II 1195/ 2 June 1781

sale

115 a piece of land sown with 230 man seed in the Sanjirān quarter in Tabrīz known as “the land of Armenians” (arāżī-yi arāmana)

reference note 2960-

heirs of the late 11268 Muḥammad Sulṭān Shabistarī, i.e., Sulaymān Beg, Naṣrallāh Beg (sons of the late Muḥammad Sulṭān), Zubayda Khānum (mother of Sulaymān Beg), Khānum-jān Khānum, Fayżiya Khānum, Jahānbānū Khānum, Fāṭima Khānum, and Sharaf Khānum (daughters of the late Muḥammad Sulṭān), a widow and minor heirs of the late ʿAbd allāh Beg 24 people 10276 of Christian denomination and obedient to Islam (masīḥī va muṭīʿī al-Islām)

original document

original document

C r e at i n g a Fam i ly P ro p e rt y i n Early M o d e rn Iran no. Date

type of object of the contract contract

48 13 Jumādā II 1196/ sale 26 May 1782

49 15 Rajab 1196/ 26 June 1782

sale

4 Shaʿbān 1196/ 15 July 1782

sale

51

21 Ẕī qaʿda 1196/ 28 Oct. 1782

sale

52

4 Jumādā II 1197/ 7 May 1783

lease

50

Lands of Kalla-khāna and 8 night-day rotations out of 12 rotations of the Qanāt-i Kalla-khāna in the village of Yāmchī of Marand ten-fourteenth (10/14)of a vineyard in the village of Shabistar four-fourteenth (4/14(of a vineyard in the village of Shabistar one-fourth of the village of Kalagīr Qanāt-i Begum and an orchard of Begum in the village of Khusrawshāh

price counterparty (tūmān)

reference note 2960-

14.5

Bābā Jān Beg and the children of the late Ḥājjī ʿAlīDūst Yagānī

11370

original document

9.285

Heirs of the late 12498 Muḥammad Sulṭān Shabistarī

original document

3.715

Ḥadīja-Begum

12498

marginal note of the above document

Qibla-ʿAlī

11389

original document

12487

original document. A legal verdict? 93 years lease

Khānum (the widow of the late ʿAbdallāh Beg)

10

2 Muḥammadkharvār Taqī Qāżī per year

Bibliographical References 1.

331

Primary Sources

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Tajribat ʿAbd al-Razzāq Beg Dunbulī “Maftūn,” Tajribat al-aḥrār va tasliyat al-abrār, vol. 2, (ed.) Ḥasan Qāżī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tabrīz: Intishārāt-i Muʾassasa-yi Tārīkh va Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971. Tārīkh-i Dunbulī: Anon., Tārīkh-i Dunbulī, Ms. Kitābkhāna-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, no. 3210. Tārīkh-i Tabrīz: Nādir Mīrzā, Tārīkh va Jughrāfī-yi Dār al-Salṭana-yi Tabrīz, ed, GhulāmRiżā Ṭabāṭabāʾī Majd, Tabrīz: Intishārāt-i Sutūda, 1373/1994. Taẕkirat al-danābila: Muḥammad-Ḥasan Ishtihārdī, Taẕkirat al-danābila, (ed.) Abū al-Fażl Murādī, in Mīrās̱-i Bahāristān (majmūʿa-i 12 risāla), daftar-i chahārum, (ed.) Markaz-i Pazhūhish-i Kitābkhāna-yi Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, Tihrān: Kitābkhāna, Mūza va Markaz-i asnād-i Majlis-i Shūrā-yi Islāmī, 1390/2011: 617-767. 2.

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