Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Fad'a'il-i Balkh 9780199687053

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History
1 Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1
2 The Sacred Sites and the City
3 Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape
Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward
End Matter

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Title Pages

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Title Pages (p.i) Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (p.ii) Oxford Oriental Monographs (p.iii) Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan This series of monographs from the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, makes available the results of recent research by scholars connected with the Faculty. Its range of subject matter includes language, literature, thought, history, and art; its geographical scope extends from the Mediterranean and Caucasus to East Asia. The emphasis is more on specialist studies than on works of a general nature. Editorial Board John Baines, Professor of Egyptology Bjarke Frellesvig, Professor of Japanese Linguistics Christopher Minkowski, Boden Professor of Sanskrit Charles Ramble, University Lecturer in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies Robert Thomson, formerly Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies Geert Jan van Gelder, Laudian Professor of Arabic

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Title Pages

(p.iv) Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries. © Arezou Azad 2013 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published 2013 Impression: 1 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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013938316 ISBN 978–0–19–968705–3 As printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Title Pages

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Dedication

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Dedication (p.v) For Reza

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Acknowledgements

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.viii) Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Edmund Herzig and Professor Deborah KlimburgSalter, my supervisors throughout my doctoral study, which is the progenitor of this book, for all their patience and support. For answering many of my questions, and reading and commenting on my work at various stages I am grateful to Adam Silverstein, Charles Ramble, Chase Robinson, Firuza Abdullaeva, Hugh Kennedy, Luke Treadwell, Marina Rustow, and Teresa Bernheimer. During this time, I profited from the suggestions and comments offered by Jürgen Paul, Patricia Crone, Richard Bulliet, and Wilferd Madelung. Many scholars have shared their knowledge about Balkh’s texts and their history, and I am particularly grateful to the following for their considered responses: Ali Mir-Ansari, Christopher Melchert, Edmund Bosworth, Emilie Savage-Smith, Geert Jan van Gelder, Eyyüp Said Kaya, Teresa Fitzherbert, and Thomas Welsford. Sylvie Berthier of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Maria Szuppe of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Elena Tanonova of the St Petersburg-based Department of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Nauman Dawoodi and Arif Naushahi in Pakistan helped me with unpublished material and manuscripts. In Afghanistan, Omara Khan Massoudi of the Kabul National Museum, Philippe Marquis and Roland Besenval of the Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan (DAFA), and Jolyon Leslie in particular shared their knowledge on the material culture of Balkh. I would like to thank the staff of Oxford University’s Oriental Institute Library for allowing me to keep a space full of books throughout my research, and the staff at the Bodleian Library for their untiring assistance, as well as James Allan and the Khalili Research Centre for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East for facilitating my use of a workspace. I am also grateful for the research Page 1 of 2

Acknowledgements funding and support provided by the Faculty of Oriental Studies, the Leverhulme Trust, the Barakat Trust, St Cross College, Corpus Christi College, and the University of Vienna. At Oxford University Press, I am deeply grateful for all the feedback and advice (p.ix) from the anonymous reviewers, Lizzie Robottom, Caroline Hawley, Tony Williams, Hanna Siurua, and Elizabeth Stone of the OUP -editorial team, as well as the series editors of the Oxford Oriental Monographs. I thank my family and friends for their warmth and loyalty, and most of all my lovely daughter who was born as this book was being written and whose smile brightens up any grey day in Oxford. This book is dedicated to the most wondrous of humanitarian workers, friends, and partners, Reza Hosseini: your love, inspiration, and unwavering optimism will always stay alive.

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Note on Dates, Citations, and Transliterations

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.x) Note on Dates, Citations, and Transliterations Dates are given according to the lunar or solar hijrī and Gregorian calendars but centuries are only given in the Gregorian dates (thus ‘96/714–15’ and ‘eighth century AD’). Pre-Islamic dates are given according to the Gregorian calendar and annotated with ‘AD’ (i.e. ‘anno domini’) and ‘BC’ (i.e. ‘before Christ’). The translation of names necessitates the transliteration into Latin script of material from Persian and Arabic. Where more than one orthographic form of names exists, one out of a set of valid options has been selected (thus ‘Naw Bahār’ rather than ‘Nū Bahār’). Personal names and most other lexical elements from Arabic and Persian are rendered in the International Journal of Middle East Studies system for transliterating Arabic for all common letters and Persian for letters that are specific to Persian. However, a number of relatively well-known toponyms are transliterated in the form in which they are most familiar (thus ‘Bukhara’ rather than ‘Bukhārā’). Several well-known political titles are also Latinized without diacritics (e.g. sultan), unless they appear in a transcription or form part of a name. Words that feature in the Oxford English Dictionary have been Latinized as in the dictionary (unless the transliteration appears in a published title, personal name, or is a direct quote from a Persian or Arabic language text). Such words include Sufi (instead of Ṣūfī) and bazaar (instead of bāzār). Where Arabic nouns are used in the plural to designate a term with no precise equivalent in English, the plural is usually given in the Arabic singular with the English plural –s added (such as faqīhs rather than fuqahâʾ). Exceptions are made with words that are better known in English in their plural forms (thus

͑ulamâʾ not ͑ālims).

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Note on Dates, Citations, and Transliterations For the excerpted translations of the base text, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, I have stayed as faithful as possible to the manuscripts. I present a first-time set of English excerpted translations, and apply the translation principle of being accurate to the meaning and natural to the English language. In this way a readership that is unfamiliar with the source text will readily understand it. Where the base text does not clearly specify by name a set of multiple subjects or issues introduced earlier, and the subject of the (p.xi) phrase is not clear, the translation into English includes added pronouns or names to help the reader grasp the meaning more easily. Arabic religious formulae which the author or translator shortened in the base text, such as by dropping the preposition and pronoun (e.g. Ar. ῾anhu, ‘from him’), are extended to their standard format. For example, riḍā allāh has been translated as ‘may God be pleased with him’. The translations into English include transcriptions of key terms and toponyms based first on the Paris manuscript (Persan-115), with variant readings from the other manuscripts if the script is not legible or the edited version appears inadequate. Manuscript references are given with the folio number and side (‘a’ for the recto and ‘b’ for the verso side) and line number. Thus, line 4 of the recto side of the fifth folio of the Paris manuscript is indicated as ‘Persan-115, fol. 5a, line 4’. Dotted consonants in the manuscripts are rendered with a different set of dots and lines than is the convention today, and frequently the copyists left out the dots altogether. Some undotted characters can be transcribed in multiple ways. Where the meaning of the word is obvious the transcription will follow accordingly; and where it is unclear the defective characters are reflected as they appear in the manuscript (e.g. Panj r.sh, which may be Panj resh, i.e. ‘Five Mounds’, in Persan-115, fol. 195a, line 3, but we cannot be sure). Finally, I have not corrected the Arabic orthography where it is deviant (e.g. ijna which should read ijnatin, that is, with a tā’ marbūṭa in Persan-115, fol. 6a, line 3). The retention of errors is justified according to the formidable Arabic editor Alfred Beeston by the fact that these orthographic inconsistencies ‘are valuable pointers to the actual usage of the time, and an editorial policy of regularizing them eliminates evidence of the historical evolution of the language’.1 Notes:

(1) A. F. L. Beeston (ed. and trans.), The Epistle of the Singing-Girls of al-Jāḥiẓ (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1980), 9.

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Abbreviations1

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.xii) Abbreviations1 (p.xii) Abbreviations1

(I) Bibliographic Resources and Reference Works BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France CHI Cambridge History of Iran, 7 vols CPED Francis Joseph Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary DAFA Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan EI2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition EI3 The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition EIr Encyclopaedia Iranica GAL Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 5 vols & supps GAS Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 11 vols LHP Edward Granville Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols MDAFA Mémoires de la délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan Q Page 1 of 4

Abbreviations1 The Qurʾān. English translation with parallel Arabic text by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, [2004] 2010 Storey C. A. Storey, Persian Literature; A Bio-bibliographical Survey, 5 vols Stori/Bregel’ Ch. A. Stori (ed. and tr. Iu. Bregel’), Persidskaia literatura; Biobibliograficheskii obzor, 3 vols

(II) Journals BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies CAJ Central Asiatic Journal IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies (p.xiii) Ir Sts Iranian Studies JA Journale asiatique JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society REI Revue des études islamiques St Ir Studia Iranica ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

(III) Legend to Key Sources Related to the FaḌā’il-i Balkh FB, ed. AḤḤ Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ῾Abd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī. Tehran edition Persan-115 Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Identified as ‘pa’ in Ḥabībī’s edition) C-453-1 Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, manuscript at the St Petersburg Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Identified as ‘lā’ in Ḥabībī’s edition) C-453-3 Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, manuscript at the St Petersburg Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Identified as ‘lab’ in Ḥabībī’s edition) PAK Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, manuscript in the personal possession of Khalil alRahman Dawoodi in Lahore, Pakistan (Not in Ḥabībī’s edition) Page 2 of 4

Abbreviations1 (IV) Legend to Key Parallel Sources Used by ʿabd Al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī,2 Berndt Radtke3 and Myself Ansāb Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, 13 vols. Hyderabad edition (p.xiv) Fawāʾid Laknawī al-Hindī, Kitāb al-fawāʾid al-bahiyya fī tarājim al-Ḥanafiyya, ed. Muḥammad Badr al-Dīn al-Naʿsānī Ḥalabī, Cairo edition Jawāhir1 Ibn Abī al-Wafāʾ al-Qurashī, al-Jawāhir al-muḍiyya fī ṭabaqāt alḥanafiyya, 2 vols, Hyderabad edition Jawāhir2 [same work], 2 vols, Cairo edition of 1967 Jawāhir3 [same work], 3 vols, Cairo edition of 1978 Khulāṣa Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Khazrajī al-Anṣārī, Khulāṣat Tadhhīb Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fī asmāʾ al-rijāl, Cairo edition Lisān Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Lisān al-mīzān, 6 vols, Hyderabad edition Mazārāt Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ b. Amīr ʿAbd Allāh b. Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Shaykh Khalīl Allāh Wirūsajī, Mazārāt-i Balkh, Kabul National Library manuscript Miftāḥ Ṭāshköprüzāda/Ṭāshkubrīzāda, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa-miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, 2 vols, Hyderabad edition Mīzān1 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, Cairo edition of 1907 Mīzān2 Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, 4 vols, Cairo edition of 1963 Muntaẓam Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umūm wa-l-mulūk, 18 vols, Beirut edition Nawāzil1 Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, al-Nawāzil fī al-furūʿ, manuscript cited in Muḥammad Maḥrūs ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh min alḥanafiyya wa-mā infaradū bihi min al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya Nawāzil2 Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, al-Nawāzil min al-fatāwā. Unpublished index by Eyyüp Said Kaya of manuscript 45 Hk 690, copied 860/1455, deposited at Manisa İl Halk Kütüphanesi, Istanbul (‘Manisa 690’) TBg al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād, 14 vols, Cairo edition. Page 3 of 4

Abbreviations1 (V) Languages and Other Abbreviations Ar. Arabic c. composition date (of a written work) (p.xv) Ch. Chinese d. death date n.d. no date Per. Persian Sk. Sanskrit r. dates of reign Tib. Tibetan Tu. Turkish Notes:

(1) For full references, where applicable, please see bibliography. (2) Bibliography (160 sources) in Shaykh al-Islām Ṣafī Allāh wa-l-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971), 489–96. (3) Bibliography in Berndt Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien’, ZDMG 136 (1986), 536–9.

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Glossary of Terms

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.xvi) Glossary of Terms Most terms are Arabic, and were adopted into Persian and/or Turkish. I indicate where terms are strictly Persian (‘Per.’), Turkish (‘Tu.’), Greek (‘Gr.’), Sanskrit (‘Sk.’) or Tibetan (‘Tib.’). Terms are listed either in the singular or plural forms, depending on how they occur in the book. adab, genre of texts on manners and etiquette, for example, of a certain profession. adīb (pl. udabāʾ), learned person. ahl al-ḥadīth, those qualified in the science of ḥadīth (tradition of what the Prophet Muḥammad did or said). akhbār (sing. khabar), discrete reports varying in length from a line to several pages. ʿālim (pl. ʿulamāʾ), man learned in religious knowledge. amālī, transcription of a master’s dictations (imlāʾ) used to transmit teachings. ʿāmil, tax collector. amīr (pl. umarāʾ), leading member of the military classes. arhat, Sk., a perfected person, one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved nirvāna (spiritual

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Glossary of Terms enlightenment). The arhat, having freed himself from the bonds of desire, will not be reborn. The term can also be translated as ‘saint’. ʿāriḍ, official in charge of military registers, army paymaster, mustermaster. aṣḥāb-i ḥiraf, skilled labour. ashrāf (sing. sharīf), of noble birth; descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad. awāʾil, genre of ‘firsts’ in the history of Islam. balada, land, country, metropolis. dargāh, Per., palace, sometimes used to refer to a burial place. darwāza, Per., gate, gateway. dharma, Sk., the teaching (of the Buddha). dhayl, continuation of existing chronicle. ḍiyāʿ (sing. ḍayʿa), landed estate. (p.xvii) dih, Per., village, small urban/residential agglomeration, hamlet. dirham, Gr., weight usually two-thirds of a mithqāl; name of the silver unit of currency in the early Islamic monetary system. faḍīla (pl. faḍāʾil), merit (particularly religious merit), name of genre. faqīh (pl. fuqahāʾ), specialist in Islamic jurisprudence, especially in furūʿ (q.v.). farmān, Per., order, decree. farsakh/parāsang, Per., measurement of distance (1 farsakh = ca. 6 km). fārsī-darī, New Persian language. fatwā (pl. fatāwā), non-binding legal opinions issued by jurisconsults or ‘muftīs’ (not associated as a special profession in Saljūq or Īlkhānid times). furūʿ (al-fiqh), application of principles of law to specific cases, i.e. positive law, derived from uṣūl (q.v.) gaz, Page 2 of 8

Glossary of Terms a yard for measuring cloth; a cubit, a length of 24 finger-breadths, or six hands; a measure equal to half the height of a man of ordinary stature (used chiefly in Khurāsān) gompa, Tib., monastery. gunbad, lit. dome, also (domed) shrine. ḥadīth, sayings or traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad or his Companions. ḥakīm, wise man, sage. ḥanafī, follower of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767), founder of the Sunnī school or rite (madhhab, q.v.) which bears his name. ḥikāya (pl. ḥikāyāt), exemplary tale. ijāza, licence to transmit certain traditions. ijtihād, the application of independent reason to the solution of legal problems. ʿilm (pl. ʿulūm), knowledge (especially Islamic knowledge). imām, authoritative scholar (in the Sunnī sense); leader of the Islamic community; prayer leader. imlāʾ, dictation. isnād (pl. asānīd), chain of transmission. jūy, irrigation channel. kāfir (pl. kuffār), non-Muslim who is not from amongst the ahl al-kitāb, ‘people of the book’. kalām, discipline which brings to the service of religious beliefs discursive arguments. karāma, miracle. kharāj, tax, land tax; land tax assessed by measurement; tribute. (p.xviii) khāṭib, official who pronounces the khuṭba (q.v.). Page 3 of 8

Glossary of Terms khātūn, Tu., lady; title of respect given to princesses and high-ranking women. khuṭba, special address given in the mosque on Fridays in which the ruler’s name is customarily mentioned. kitābkhāna, a library, a study, bookseller’s shop. kūshk, Per., a palace, villa, castle, citadel. kūra, Per., district. kūy, Per., street; quarter or district (of a city). madhhab, societal-professional institution, or body of legal doctrine. madīna, city, town. madrasa, in medieval usage, essentially a college of law in which the other Islamic sciences, including literary and philosophical ones, were ancillary subjects only. majlis, religious or secular assembly; meeting; lecture. mamlaka (pl. mamālik), country; province. maqām, [resting] place. maqbara, cemetery. marḥala, travel distance (1 marḥala = ca. 6 farsakh/parāsang = 36 km). mashhad, martyrium of commemorative value. masjid, mosque, also site for a madrasa (q.v.) in early Islam. masjid-i jāmiʿ, congregational mosque. masjid-i ādīna, Friday or congregational mosque. mawlā (pl. mawālī), client (synonymous with ‘non-Arab Muslim’). maydān, open space, square in a village or town. Page 4 of 8

Glossary of Terms maẓālim, courts for the redress of grievances set up by the political authority. muʿabbir, someone who masters the interpretation of dreams. mudarris, official in charge of a madrasa (q.v.). muḥaddith, traditionist. mujtahid, jurist who according to the means of consensus or qiyās (q.v.) was independent. murjiʾa, lit. suspender of judgement (irjāʾ). mustamlī, the one who wrote down or assisted a shaykh (q.v.) in actual communication. mutawallī, administrator of a waqf (q.v.). mawṭin, synonymous with waṭan (q.v.). nāḥiya/nawāḥī, canton. nahr, river. nāʾib (pl. nuwwāb), deputy, deputy governor. (p.xix) naqīb (pl. nuqabāʾ), official in charge of the ʿAlids; tribal chief, headman. naqīb al-nuqabāʾ, chief naqīb. nāsik (pl. nussāk), religious/devout man. nawāḥī, environs, territories; in FB and other geographical sources, refers to administrative sub-division. nāzila (pl. nawāzil), legal genre focusing on specific cases and solutions adopted in practice. punya, Sk., generally refers to ‘merit’; a primary attribute sought by Buddhist monks and laymen, in order to build up a better kārma (the cumulative consequences of deeds) and thus to achieve a more favourable future rebirth. qāḍī (pl. quḍāt), Page 5 of 8

Glossary of Terms judge appointed by the ruler to apply the sharīʿa (q.v.). qāḍī al-quḍāt, chief qāḍī (q.v.). qalʿa, fort. qarya, village. qaṣaba (district) capital, smaller than shahr (q.v.). qaṣr, castle, sometimes used to refer to a burial site. qirāʾa, the science of Qurʾānic reading. qiyās, legal reasoning by analogy. qubba, literally dome, also (domed) shrine. raʿāyā, subjects of the ruler. rabaḍ, suburb. rabb (pl. arbāb), master; landowner; landlord. raʾīs (pl. ruʾasāʾ), chief, leader; local head of a religious rite; main local official of a town. ribāṭ, military frontier post; Sufi hospice. risāla (pl. rasāʾil), treatise on a specific topic. ṣadaqa (pl. ṣadaqāt), voluntary alms. ṣaḥābī (pl. ṣaḥāba), Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad. sākin, resident. salaf, lit. predecessor, as opposed to ‘successor’ (khalaf), an honorific often given to the earliest generations of Muslims. samāʿ, recitation; Sufi audition. sangha, Sk., the community (of Buddhists, or specifically of Buddhist monks). sarāy, Page 6 of 8

Glossary of Terms Per., dwelling, habitation or house; extended to refer to seat of government or residence of a ruler or prince. sayyid (pl. sādāt), descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad through his daughter Fāṭima. (p.xx) shahr, Per., city, metropolis. sharīʿa, the divine law, written down and administered by the qāḍīs (q.v.) and sharʿī judges. shaykh (pl. shuyūkh), honorific. shaykh al-Islām, highest Islamic dignitary; chief muftī (see fatwā). stūpa, Sk., domed reliquary of the Buddha’s remains, Buddhist temple. ṣuḥba, Per. & Ar., religious disputation. ṭabaqa (pl. ṭabaqāt), class, level, name of genre of biographical dictionaries. tābiʿ (pl. tābiʿūn), successor of a Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad. tafsīr, the science of Qurʾānic commentary. tall, mound, hill. tārīkh, history, historiography ṭarkhān, high-ranking Inner Asian title used since antiquity, also by Hephthalites. tāzī, Arabic language. tepe, Tu. (täpä), tappa, Per., hill, crest, peak. turba, tomb. uṣūl (al-fiqh), theoretical jurisprudence of Islam, i.e. the roots or sources of legal knowledge. vihāra, Sk., Buddhist monastery. wālī (pl. wulāt), governor; place of holy personage. waqf (pl. awqāf), Page 7 of 8

Glossary of Terms charitable trust. waṭan, homeland; home. Synonymous with mawṭin (q.v.). wazīr, minister; can also refer to the heads of the personal establishment of provincial governors, important amīrs, and royal princes and princesses. wilāya, province. zāhid (pl. zuhhād), pious person; mystic; Sufi. zakāt, legal obligatory alms paid by Muslims on fruits of fields planted for food, fruits, camels, oxen, flocks and domestic animals, gold and silver and merchandise. ziyāra, visitation, pilgrimage.

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List of Figures

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.xxi) List of Figures Figure 1. Genealogy of FB’s manuscripts. 36 Figure 2. Charkh-i Falak (‘Ferris Wheel’) ‘stūpa’ beyond the walls of Balkh. (Azad, 2009). 91 Figure 3a. On Top of Tepe Zargarān or the ancient Tall-i Gushtāsp? (Azad, 2009). 97 Figure 3b. Detail of excavated Hellenistic remains from Tepe Zargarān. (Azad, 2009). 97 Figure 4. Foucher’s Reconstruction of the Naw Bahār Temple and Plan of the Site. (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan). 100–1

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List of Plates

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.xxii) List of Plates Plate 1. Tīmūr’s attack on Balkh, 771/1370. Depicted in a manuscript dated 1008/1599 of Mīrkhwānd’s (d. 903/1498) Rawḍat al-ṣafāʾ (‘Garden of Purity’). (British Library Board, Or. 5736, 37b.) Plate 2. The mountainous terrain around Balkh. (Azad, 2009). Plate 3. The ancient walls of Balkh. (Azad, 2009). Plate 4. Facsimile of Persan-115 (Paris), fol. 1a, fifteenth century AD. (Bibliothèque nationale de France). Plate 5. Persan-115, fol. 1a, and explanatory note by eighteenth-century French librarian Armain. Plate 6. Facsimile of C453-3 (St Petersburg), fol. 211b, nineteenth century AD. Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia. Plate 7. Fascimile of C453-1 (St Petersburg), fol. 3a, nineteenth century AD. Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia. Plate 8. (a) Modern display of Balkh’s saints in Mazār-i Sharīf, the capital of Balkh Province, (b) the prominent place of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh on this plaque indicates its continued relevance as a historical source. (Azad, 2009). Plate 9. King Gushtāsp on His Throne [309v], from Shāhnāma (The Book of Kings) by Abū ʿl Qāṣim Firdawsī (d. 1020); Calligrapher: Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ibrāhīm, Mughal period, 1602 AD (text), 19th century paintings. Plate 10. The Shrine of Bābā Ḥātim: A prototype for FB’s Shrines? (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan). Plate 11. (a) The ‘Nuh Gunbad’ (Ḥajjī Piyāda) of Balkh, (b) with detail. (Azad, 2009). Plate 12. Medieval Balkh City archaeological excavations and features. (Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project, University of Oxford). Page 1 of 3

List of Plates Plate 13. Tepe Rustam or the ancient Naw Bahār Temple of Balkh. (Azad, 2009). Plate 14. (a) Exterior of one of several post-Tīmūrid shrines around the Naw Bahār (b) interior. (Azad, 2009). (p.xxiii) Plate 15. Tīmūrid shrine of Abū Naṣr Pārsā (d. 864 or 865/1459–60 or 61). (Azad, 2009). Plate 16. Homeland of Tonpa Shenrab, Olmo Lungring, Tibet, nineteenth century. Rubin Museum of Art, C2006.66.617 [HAR 200040]). Plate 17. The Shrine of ʿAlī at Mazār-i Sharīf. (Shahrooz Badkoubei, 2009). (p.xxiv) (p.xxv) (p.xxvi)

Map 1. Medieval Central Asia and eastern Iran. (Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project, University of Oxford). Global 30 Arc-Second Elevation Data Set (GTOPO30) © 1996 US Geological Survey. Made with Natural Earth.

Map 2. Balkh and its Afghan and Central Asian context today. (Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project, University of Oxford). Global 30 Arc-Second Elevation Data Set (GTOPO30) © 1996 US Page 2 of 3

List of Plates Geological Survey. Made with Natural Earth.

Map 3. Balkh and its routes. (Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project, University of Oxford). Global 30 Arc-Second Elevation Data Set (GTOPO30) © 1996 US Geological Survey. Made with Natural Earth.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords The introduction contextualizes the book within relevant historical fields, such as ‘place studies’. It expounds on the pros and cons of focusing on one city in order to understand the history of a place, and introduces the book’s main source, the earliest surviving local history of Balkh known as Faḍāʿil-i Balkh, written by a local Balkhī in 1214 AD. It offers a working definition of landscape with a subjective viewer’s perspective of space, distinguishing it from the topographical understanding of space. The chapter introduces the book’s argument that an understanding of medieval sacred landscape—one that is largely focused on shrines—can provide important clues to the Islamisation of the lands integrated into the dār al-Islām. The chapter also provides a brief background on Balkh’s history beginning in the Bronze Age and reaching its height during the Kushan era in the early centuries of this millennium, through to the medieval period. Keywords:   Local history, cities, place studies, Islamic history, Islamisation, shrines, Afghanistan, Central Asia

[p]lace itself has no place. How shall there be a place for the Creator of place, a heaven for the Maker of heaven himself? 1 Page 1 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Place is not a static thing; it is created and re-created over time. Place tickles our imagination and curiosity—we want to know where people were born, to visit distant places, to find out how places were in the past. The ways in which places are conceptualized depend on the persons imagining or constructing them. There are those who visit places that are foreign to them; there are those who ‘live’ them. To the visitor, the lure of a place may be its epic past, natural landscape, or monumental attractions. To the resident, place is where rationality rules. The eyes of the visitor are untrained and uninitiated, scanning a new landscape, eagerly searching for familiar markers, while using the known landscape from home as a reference point. The challenge for visitors to ‘see’ the way local inhabitants perceive their home is significant. The visitor needs to step out of the ‘expatriate mind’ and learn about the landscape that the resident inhabits and navigates, and to appreciate how he or she relates specific places to the past. To put it differently, place might be conceptualized in one of two ways. There is the place that is lived, ‘a dynamic location where different people, social agents, or powerful actors come together in (p.2) unpredictable and ever-shifting ways’.2 We can also think of place as a location imbued with spiritual and cultural meaning, produced, in part, through the ways in which people imagine the past. These imaginations of the past may take physical form in shrines or public monuments, or they may encapsulate wider tracts of land, such as an entire city. The conception of the landscape impresses itself on people’s notions of their history, and by extension, gives power to the place in the present.

The Implications for a History of Afghanistan Considering place in this way produces a different kind of history for Afghanistan from what we can usually read about—namely, a political history of major events and people. These studies—although extremely useful—tend to focus on Afghanistan’s more recent past with limited space left for considering the earlier events that shaped what was to come. Moreover, they are often heavily focused on the Afghan capital of Kabul. Important as Kabul may be to Afghan history it often bears limited, if any, relation to what happens in the rest of Afghanistan (or lands that are now part of Afghanistan).3 There are also wellresearched books on specific places and regions in Afghanistan. These are useful guides to the topography of Afghanistan, written from the modern observer’s perspective, mapping and visualizing places according to Western methods and conventions.4 (p.3) This book offers a different story of Afghanistan: that of a particular place called Balkh, situated in the north of the country. The story is told through the eyes of a medieval Balkhī scholar. It should be added that I realize that I am part of a new trend in the history-writing of the Near and Middle East (if we can provisionally include Afghanistan in this regional category). ‘Critical place studies’ are increasingly viewed by historians as making it ‘possible to answer Page 2 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History larger questions regarding power, politics, and social change from the perspective of complex local life’.5 In order to answer these questions, this book not only focuses on place but views it from the local, time-specific perspective. The challenge is to ‘reconstruct’ the medieval city and district of Balkh in northern Afghanistan through the eyes of a local and a contemporary, rather than projecting modern views of space onto the past. One anthropologist put it well when he stated: ‘How a culture maps its world says much about its way of thinking about its environment, about how its soul and the soul of the world, the anima mundi, interact.’6 Being able to obtain a more accurate reading of how things were centuries ago is an asset. On the other hand, this approach produces less of the critical mass of falsifiable, hard ‘facts’ needed to ascertain the topography and physical layout of this important, little-understood city. Such data would certainly provide complementary and crucial evidence for understanding how Balkh was affected by major socio-cultural and political developments following the Islamic conquests and throughout the medieval period. The desire to ‘find’ the ancient city of Balkh has inspired scholars and researchers for the better part of a century. Alfred Foucher was the first foreign Orientalist to start digging up the ancient site of Balkh in the 1920s. Excavation works have continued until this day, albeit with lengthy intermissions, sometimes lasting years, due to the massive upheavals that have befallen the country, such as the Soviet intervention (1979–88), two civil wars (1989–96), and Taliban rule (1996–2001). Apart from its great walls, and some scattered remnants (p.4) of buildings, little of the old, early Islamic city has been unearthed to enable us to reconstruct the physical city. And yet the many written accounts tell us much about the grand, ancient, powerful and beautiful city of Balkh. The challenge of reconstructing this medieval city is compelling to any historian of the region. Balkh is the missing link between the western and eastern Iranian worlds, at the crossroads between the ‘Iranian’ and ‘Turkic’ peoples of the north, at the western fringe of Buddhism, the mythical death place of Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, the prophet of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrians), and the cradle of Sufism, the mystical, ‘friendlier’ version of Islam as people like to consider it today. This is an impressive legacy for one place, and yet how it all happened remains a mystery. Since 2011, the ‘Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage’ project, run by the University of Oxford together with colleagues in Afghanistan and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, has been working towards unveiling some of Balkh’s secrets. The results are not yet available, but there are great expectations that answers to the questions of Balkh’s urban history will be found. For example, the project plans to produce detailed historical maps of Balkh and its surroundings, something that has not been attempted so far.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Before the reader becomes too disappointed at the lack of hard data, let it be asked if it is not interesting that the medieval authors who wrote about their city did not tell us what we want to know today. Does that not mean something in itself? Perhaps it did not matter to them where the congregational mosque or a particular shrine was physically located. Or perhaps everyone knew, so why mention it? And so we get to the crux of this book. What is it that the local contemporaries tell us about their city, in how much detail, and to what purpose?

Period, Location, and Connotation Historical Balkh is an important place to study for three main reasons. First, it has survived over more than four millennia; secondly, it has an untarnished reputation as a city of great scholarship and mysticism; and thirdly, it is noted for an exceptional level of mercantile achievement. Bactra—the Greek name under which pre-Islamic (p.5) Balkh was known—encapsulated Bronze Age settlements around 2,000 BC when its ancient water systems were built.7 It was a province of the Achaemenid Empire (sixth century BC),8 the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Bactria,9 and a part of the Kūshān Empire that flourished in the first to the third centuries.10 The Sāsānian King Ardashir I (r. ca. AD 220– 40) vanquished the Kūshān king of Bactria. The Iranian dynasty ruled over Bactria until the Muslim conquests in the early eighth century, usually indirectly through resident élites.11 After the Muslim conquest, Balkh, along with Merv (in today’s Turkmenistan), became one of the main centres of Arab settlement in (p.6) north-eastern Iran in the eighth century.12 During the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate (eighth-ninth centuries), Balkh was celebrated as the original home of the Barmakid family of viziers, whose fore-fathers had run the Naw Bahār Buddhist temple-monastery complex.13 Balkh acquired grand epithets, such as, ‘the mother of cities’ (Ar. umm al-bilād) and ‘the dome of Islam’ (qubbat al-Islām) as well as the more sinister ‘city of blood’,14 and became one of the foremost Islamic historical cities in Central Asia. From the coming of Islam until the Mongol conquest in 618/1220–1, Balkh was a major centre of commerce, learning and culture. The city experienced a renewed flourishing of its arts and culture under the Tīmūrids after Tamerlane’s conquest of Balkh in 771/1370 (see Plate 1), although never quite reaching the same importance it had enjoyed before. The main period of focus in this book concerns the eighth to the twelfth centuries. During this time, Balkh was ruled by the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid caliphs through their provincial governors, as well as various regional dynasts who professed their allegiance to the caliphate, while enjoying a significant amount of autonomy. The following regional dynasties ruled over Balkh: Ṭāhirids and Banījūrids (205/821–257/871), Ṣaffārids (257/871–287/900), Sāmānids (287/900–382/992), Ghaznawids and Qarakhānids (389–435/999–1043–4), Saljūqs and Oghuz-Ghūrids (435–548/1043–1153), and Qarakhitāy and their Qarakhānid and Ghūrid vassals (560/1165–601/1205).15 The (p.7) main source Page 4 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History of this book, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh (FB),16 must have been written during the rule of the subsequent dynasty, the Khwārazmshāhs (602–617/1205–20), and it was during this time that the family of the poet-mystic Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn [alBalkhī] al-Rūmī is said to have emigrated from Balkh (the poet’s father, Bahāʾ alDīn Walad al-Balkhī, is depicted on the cover of this book).17 This ‘pre-Mongol’ period—Chinggis Khan entered Balkh himself in 618/1221—is still many centuries before the name ‘Afghanistan’ came into being. Historians refer to this part of the world during this period as ‘the eastern Islamic world’ or ‘the eastern Iranian world’. The former irks those people who see the word ‘Islamic’ as assuming that the population at the time was fully converted to Islam (when it clearly was not). Others, rather, consider the term merely to refer to the ‘Islamic caliphate’, which ruled, if only nominally, over Balkh. Yet Balkh was a major city that had been part of a region known since antiquity as Khurāsān (‘land to the east’). The term ‘eastern Iranian world’, on the other hand, antagonizes those who see it as part of the modern, nationalist Iranian narrative, which holds that the Persian-speaking world (or ‘Persianate’) is really just a part of the long defunct but per- petually present ‘greater Iran’: a vast area comprising the northern Iranian plateau from the Caspian Sea to the Oxus and up to the Pamir Mountains on the western borders of China. This book uses both terms, simply because they are well established in the scholarly literature and are conveniently short. Frankly, no better terms exist. If we situate ourselves on a modern-day map for a moment, we can find Balkh in the north-western part of Afghanistan (see Map 2). The region is at the fringe of Afghanistan, and, as fringes go, it is not easily accommodated in one or another of the major areas of the present or the past. One scholar, Richard Foltz, clearly situates Balkh (together (p.8) with Mā warāʾ al-nahr, ‘the land across the river’, i.e. the Oxus, but not the rest of Afghanistan) within Central Asia, which seems perfectly plausible to me as well.18 According to FB, Balkh came into direct or indirect contact with places, such as Badakhshān (shared today between Afghanistan and Tajikistan and bordering the Pamir Mountains); China (chīn wa mā-chīn); Tirmidh, Bukhara and Samarqand (in today’s Uzbekistan); the generic area of ‘Turkistān’ which includes places like Ferghana (in today’s Kazakhstan); the Bamiyan Valley and al-hind/hindūstān; and to a lesser extent with Kuhistan (in today’s Iran) and Merv (Turkmenistan). (see Maps 1–3)19 Seen in this light, early Islamic Balkh can be securely placed within a Central Asian context, with significant links to South Asia. We need to bear this regional context in mind when considering the influence of Islam and other religions on Balkh. Even in the post-Tīmūrid period, Balkh has been at the dividing line between Central and South Asia. For three centuries it was under Uzbek rule, becoming the second most important city of the Bukhara Emirate (after Bukhara). Then, in the mid -nineteenth -century Balkh was permanently integrated into Durrānī Afghanistan, with Russian influence weighing in more heavily than British during the so-called Great Game rivalry. The Soviets had a major presence there Page 5 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History when they intervened in Afghanistan in 1979–88. Previously, the different Mongol lands or uluses exchanged hands in Balkh, frequently involving violent warfare between the Mongol houses, notably the Ilkhānids from the west, the Chaghadaids in the north-west and the Golden Horde of the north.20 Balkh’s history is illustrious to say the least, and we find mentions of it in the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta, as well as in Greek and Roman chronicles of antiquity,21 and in Sasanian rock inscriptions in (p.9) Fārs, Iran. Balkh’s Buddhist past is described by Chinese and Korean pilgrims in the seventh and eighth centuries, such as Hsiuen Tsang and Hye Ch’o.22 Other documentary evidence points to Balkh’s multicultural and multi-religious medieval social fabric, including not only Buddhists and Muslims, but Christians, Manichaeans, and Jews, amongst others.23 The list of sources is long, and there is no need to inventory them all here. The point is that Balkh is a major historical site, but about the place itself we know very little. The name of Balkh may not conjure up a clear image to many Westerners. But ask anyone from the region—Iran, Afghanistan or Uzbekistan, for example—and you will most likely get a twinkle in your counterpart’s eye, and a smile of nostalgia. ‘One of the great cities of our past’, ‘the birthplace of some of our greatest Persian poets and Sufi masters’ are typical comments. The first Balkhī in this rubric to be mentioned is usually the Mawlānā al-Rūmī (or al-Balkhī, as he is better known to people from the region, referring to his alleged birthplace rather than the place of his death in rūm, i.e. Turkey). Everyone claims Balkh as theirs—not in geostrategic, pragmatic or economic terms, but on a wider, cultural and, yes, metaphysical scale. It is not just the people of the region who love Balkh. If you speak to a foreign visitor who has come into contact with it, say a 1960s/1970s hippie trailer, you are bound to hear a story about an encounter with a Sufi master in Balkh. Days would be spent sipping tea with the wise mystic, usually with a view over and around the imposing ancient walls of Balkh that provide testament to an impressive, built-up landscape that existed once here. The ancient site of Balkh is (p.10) a special place imbued with an ‘other-worldly’ character—or so such accounts go. One might wonder whether it is the ruins of the ancient city wall, dotted like awkwardly jutting rock formations across the now largely unbuilt mountainous landscape that give Balkh its ‘Martian’ appeal (see Plates 2 and 3 for example). Or might Balkh’s reputation as a spiritual haven hinge on ancient traditions, continued and recounted, reshaped and compacted until this day? When standing in the old site of Balkh and its surroundings today it is appealing to believe that the landscape shapes imaginings of specialness and holiness. However, few people have a chance to experience this place today, and thus, Balkh’s specialness seems firmly rooted in historical memory.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History The Source and Its Context The question is, then, how and when was this historical memory formed? Who developed it, and why? The reader may now pause and wonder whether I am questioning the validity of the statements on Balkh’s grandeur. Is she claiming that Balkh was actually not great, that it did not produce some of Afghanistan’s most influential thinkers and feelers? Rest assured that this quest has nothing to do with such a reassessment. As mentioned before, I am not intending to recount ‘the history’ of Afghanistan or even that of Balkh in the first instance. This is rather a search for the source of a narrative that has become a part of the history of Afghanistan. This narrative considers Balkh to have a special spiritual quality. The question as to whether or not this is true is secondary, and will not concern us here. What interests me is how Balkh’s reputation as a spiritual centre became generally established. Did it arise out of the mainstream ideas of the day? Or did the notion merely live on by happenstance—say, because the narrative was enshrined in a particular document or text that survived. Why would such a particular text persist, and not others? In this regard, a quote by the novelist Julian Barnes comes to mind: ‘History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation’.24 This (p.11) book tries to outline a particular historical memory and analyse the source, in order to attain a more accurate history.25 Let us take a closer look at the source that forms our testimonial. It is known as the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, or the ‘Merits of Balkh’. This little-studied work was completed in Arabic in 610/1214, and then adapted into Persian in 676/1278. The Arabic author is the Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was edited in full by the Afghan scholar ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī in 1971. It is just now being translated into English, and only parts have been adapted into French in an unpublished doctoral thesis by the influential Iranian activist of the 1960s and 1970s Ali Shariati at the Sorbonne.26 A few scholars of religious history have used the text, but this book represents the first attempt to use it as a historiographical and broader historical source. Of particular importance to this study are the book’s timing and its attention to detail about places within the city. Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is the earliest existing written narrative on and from Balkh, and it dates back to the early thirteenth century. Incidentally, this is precisely the time when the Mawlānā Balkhī/Rumī’s family would have been leaving Balkh (Mawlānā was just a child then), never to come back, eventually settling in faraway Konya, Anatolia. The composition of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh coincides with the lifetimes of other famous poets and mystics (and their predecessors) with whom Balkh is intimately associated, and from whom Balkh is said to receive its special aura, such as the early Sufis, Shaqīq alBalkhī and Ibrāhīm b. Adham. (Or perhaps it was the place that imbued these men with their special qualities? More on this later) Moreover, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is written during a time when other cities and places of the eastern Page 7 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Iranian world are producing their local histories as well: Bukhara, Nishapur, Samarqand, and Isfahan, among others.27 What is the background to the writing of (p.12) local histories? Who patronized them? Who wrote them? What do they say that we do not find in the general histories of the time? These are all important questions and comparanda for our study. Besides its timing, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh has a second, very important feature; one that has been overlooked by historians until now, and that provides the crucial evidence for our study: the text is filled with detailed anecdotes and stories that reveal a perception of sacred landscape. At first glance, these little snippets of information may seem random and insignificant, but, in fact, they provide us with a rare insight and contemporary perspective on place. The reason why historians have ignored these details so far is that the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was predominantly known as a work on the developments of Islamic legal and political thought in Balkh. The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh did not help himself by applying an unimaginative writing style. And yet, if we look beyond all that, what emerges is a description of the sacred sites that made up the geography of Balkh. Therein lies a history untold: the history of a legend that is a city, a city that is holy more than anything else. What exactly makes this place holy, and how its sacredness is retained and respected will form the central theme of this book.

Sacred Space The notion of sacred space is not new, and has been outlined and explained by scholars from various fields. One of the early theoreticians of the ‘spirit of place’ was the nineteenth-century German theologian Rudolf Otto. He suggested that sacred places had a mystical quality called numen, or divine power. This sense of a spirit of place, a genius loci (or, numen loci) was the origin of humanity’s association of selected places with holiness. More recently, anthropologists (and historians to a much lesser degree) have studied the ‘spirit of place’ as a human, cognitive process rather than an independent divine power. (p.13) The concept has been developed and explained most fully by anthropologists.28 The importance of this perspective for historians is aptly expressed by anthropologist Roger Keesing writing about the Solomon Islands community of the Kwaio: The landscape of the Kwaio interior appears, to the alien eye, as a sea of green, a dense forest broken periodically by gardens and recent secondary growth, and an occasional tiny settlement … To the Kwaio eye this landscape is not only divided by invisible lines into named land tracts and settlement sites; it is seen as structured by history [emphasis added].29 Explained in another way, the term ‘landscape’ derives from the Dutch renaissance paintings that were depicting the ‘landschap’, which was not an objective mirror image of the environment, but a subjective representation with codes and points of emphasis. Narratives perpetuate the idea that particular Page 8 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History places—natural and man-made—have a sacral quality. Often such places already have a historical significance. The impetus that originally ‘empowered’ a place in Tibet, for example, argues Charles Ramble, ‘was not a particular saint or magician, but probably the historical importance of a site’ that may have been the cradle of civilization and the ancient home of the place’s dynastic rulers.30 To the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s author, too, Balkh is above all a pure and sacred city (khāk-i pāk). What made the city sacred and pure, and how the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s narrative linked Balkh’s sanctity to the past, will be explored in this book. The narratives on sacred landscape around the world are found in written and oral historical accounts, as well as legal documents and letters, and they find their confirmation (or not) in the archaeological evidence. On the basis of these studies we can categorize sacred sites as either natural landscape features that are identified as holy (such as mountains, trees, caves and waters), or where sensory and mythic relationships with the environment are established. The former have existed since the earliest days of human interaction with place. The latter developed as humans ‘improved upon’ the environment, with (p.14) devices such as petroglyphs, wall paintings and simulacra (that is, the resemblance of a natural feature to some other form—anthropomorphic, animal or iconic). In this category, places also became holy as a result of a particular scent or sound that existed there (others might argue that the causality is reversed, i.e. that the scent or sound existed because of the place’s sacredness). Within this second category we can include places like Jerusalem which are theorized as conceptual centres, or Mount Kailash in Tibet which is understood as a symbolic centre for Tibetan and South Asian communities. Another notion is that of the ‘middle place’, i.e. that of a centre from which things radiate in the four directions. Human interaction with sacred spaces reaches its height during pilgrimage. Visits to shrines and similar interactions with sacred spaces are accompanied by a set of standard rituals, such as circumambulating a space a designated number of times and in a particular direction, and at a specific, auspicious point in time. Pilgrims pay their respects to the site, and ask its spirit for intervention when faced with a particular problem in life.31 Reflected here are two different senses of place, a distinction of which the ancient Greeks were keenly aware. The Greeks spoke of a chora, which denoted place as something expressive, as a repository of memory and of mythic presence. Then there was topos, which signified place as we understand it today: a simple location—the objective, physical features of a locale. Modern Western historians started to be interested in the chora in so far as the conversion of sites to Islam told us about the impact of Islam on the West. The fundamental question here is why were sites that were considered sacred to one religion not destroyed by the conquerors who brought with them a new religion. What happened to the numen loci, the spirit of the place, as a result of the conversion? Was it retained, or did the new powers that be reconfigure it so that it bore attributes that emanated from the new religion? Such questions interested Page 9 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History scholars such as F. W. Hasluck who identified Christian and Islamic religious sites in Turkey that displayed the remnants of previous religions and spirituality. These were sites that had changed hands multiple times during their history.32 (p.15) The process of blending religious symbols, belief systems and practices has been frequently labelled as ‘syncretism’. Without dwelling on the criticisms of this concept, it is worth recalling that modern scholars tend to avoid this term due to its abuse by previous Western historians and anthropologists. Their assumptions—now superseded and proven false—were that Western Christianity was a pure religion while the religions of the non-Western world, say the Santería of Cuba or the Xangoists of Brazil, were ‘contaminations’ of Christianity. Today, these newer faiths are understood as religions in their own right with a foundation in local belief systems. Moreover, we are aware that Christianity is not a monolith but is itself a result of a blending pro-cess, and that it existed in many forms (and still does). Thus, in this book we will treat syncretism as a process of fusion without any of the hierarchical connotations that used to mark this term.

Islamization and Sacred Landscape In the Balkh area, religiosity up to the time of the Islamic conquests and for at least two centuries thereafter seems to have been centred on the worship of a set of local deities,33 together with Buddhism34 (p.16) and Zoroastrianism. The syncretic process is probably best connoted by the term, ‘Islamization’ given that by the time we reach the period of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh—the early thirteenth century—Balkh is a well-established centre of Islamic learning and mysticism, and a major participant in the dār al-Islām. The question is how did the Islamization process happen in Balkh, i.e. how much of the old reli-giosity was retained and melded into Islam? How was the Buddhist-dominated city of Balkh transformed into a centre for Islamic scholarship within just a few centuries after the advent of Islam? Until recently, much scholarship has tended to focus on the caliphal centres further west (Syria, Iraq, and Egypt) when considering questions on early conversions to Islam.35 We know now that Islamization (and Arabization) did not reach the same extent in the east. Iranian and Central Asian centres and cities did not adopt Arabic but Persian, and large-scale conversions to Islam occurred much later in the east than in the west. The reasons for this difference are still not fully understood. Balkh was the easternmost province of the Central Asian lands of the caliphate, which makes it a particularly interesting test case for such an investigation. By the same token, it is worth exploring the extent to which life after Islam in Balkh may have stayed the same, or was perhaps only made to look different. Questions that arise are: did the Arab conquerors really destroy all remnants of the previous religions in Balkh, as the Arab historians such as al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) and al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) would have us believe?36 Was the religion of early Islamic Balkh a direct, unaltered import from the Ḥijāz and Iraq, or was it Page 10 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History rather a syncretic blend of pre-existing religions and Islam? These questions are difficult to answer, and we may not always find the evidence for them, but this book provides at least a starting point for looking at the question of Islamization in Balkh. The case of Balkh may serve as an additional prism for understanding Islamization at a more general level. (p.17) Shrines have dominated the discourse on sacred landscape amongst historians of Islamic history, with a particular focus on the shrines of Syria and Palestine in the early Mamluk Sultanate. However, the study of sacred landscape is still in its infancy amongst historians of the Middle East and Central Asia. Yehoshua Frenkel considered the Realpolitik of the Mamlūk ruler Baybars (r. 658–76/1260–77) to be the motivating force behind his shrine-building policies: it aimed at Islamicizing the bilād al-shām. Other studies have focused on shrines as well, probably because they feature so prominently in the Arabic and Persian works, including the source of this book, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh.37 While these studies look at shrines as individual structures, they do not necessarily consider them in the context of the wider landscape. A notable exception is Devin DeWeese’s (2000) work on the saints and sacred landscape of Sayrām (modernday southern Kazakhstan, known in medieval times as Isfījāb) based on narratives from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which attribute to Sayrām a sacrality that manifests itself both spatially and temporally.38 On the whole, historians have tended to see Realpolitik as the driving force for shrine conversions. How better to send the message across to the conquered peoples about the new order of things than to expropriate and reconfigure the most iconic and central monuments of the city? While such postulations appear reasonable and tell us a lot about conversions, they do not enlighten us about the importance of shrines in a landscape that is not dominated by conversion. This (p.18) would apply to a place that has long been converted, say, and coexists with pre-existing shrines. How much knowledge of the previous history of the shrine is retained? Does it feature in the pilgrims’ relationship with the site? If so, is it a positive, integrative element, or does it live on as a reminder of the bad religion that should not be revisited?

Other Research Gaps Addressed in this Book Besides the research gap on sacred landscape in the Islamic world discussed above, this book attempts to fill two further lacunae. First, the historiographic context is partial. Our best literary source on pre-modern cities such as Balkh are Persian local histories, notably the little-studied Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, which is the earliest surviving local history of the city. Other local histories from the region that have already been studied include Narshakhī’s Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, examined by Richard Frye in the 1950s, and the histories of Nishapur analysed by Richard Bulliet in the 1970s.39 Written originally in Arabic, these local histories have often been treated as mere translations, while modern scholars have glossed over the fact that they reflect a cobbling together of texts stemming from Page 11 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History various genres and periods, often going back to the time of the Arab conquests. We will consider how the Persian versions represent adaptations, rather than literal translations, bringing into the narrative familiar codes that are parti-cular to Persian literary and oral traditions. Second, the social aspect of the ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars) as both authors and subjects of local histories is largely neglected in scholarly literature (a notable exception is Bulliet’s Patricians of Nishapur). Here I am referring to biographies contained in the local history of Balkh and those of other cities in the region. Hermione Lee states that, ‘for the biographer, who himself represents the social world, the social self is the real self; the self only comes to exist when juxtaposed with other people. (p.19) The solitary self is a pressure upon the social self, or a repercussion of it, but it has no independent life’.40 Biographies are a part of social history, and in this book I will bring them into the study of Balkh’s history.

Terminology Regional terminologies, such as ‘eastern Iranian world’, ‘eastern Islamic world’ and ‘Central Asia’ have been described earlier. A few conceptual terms that run through the book need explanation. This book applies the terms ‘medieval’ and ‘pre-modern’ interchangeably to denote the pre-Mongol period only (with no implications of a value-ridden concept of ‘backwardness’ or ‘primitiveness’). The beginning of the medieval period will be taken as the eighth century. The Mongol and post-Mongol period begins in the thirteenth century after the conquest of Balkh in 618/1220–1. Sets of terms that are often erroneously confused are the Greek ‘Bactra’, ‘Bactria’, ‘Bactriana’ and the Perso-Arabic ‘Balkh’. In this book, Bactra is the capital of the cultural area of Bactria/Bactriana, which at its height included the ‘eastern Iranian lands’ as well as the lands south of the Hindukush and northern India (modern-day Pakistan and the north-west frontier). Bactra and Bactria/ Bactriana together became known in the Muslim sources as ‘Balkh’. Another set of terms, ‘Islamic world’ or ‘Islamicate’, which often appear in secondary sources, may be used to refer to the countries that were incorporated into the dār al-Islām in the medieval period. Finally, the term ‘Persianate’, which also appears in Western scholarly writing, refers to the Persian-speaking lands of the medieval period.

Structure of the Book This book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene by telling us first about the text in question. Who wrote it, when, where (p.20) and to what purpose? Much original material from the manuscripts that survive of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is provided, in order to give the reader a flavour of the tone, writing style (which can occasionally become florid and entertaining) and content of the book. This chapter also situates the text within its historiographical context, identifying the books the author used to give his Page 12 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History history authenticity and scholarly credibility. Most of these source texts are largely unknown to the scholar of the western Islamic world, whereas they clearly had a strong appeal in the eastern Islamic region. Much like other local histories of the region (notably, Bukhara and Nishapur), it is difficult to place the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh neatly within one defined genre of Islamic historiography, while one finds a number of genres represented in it. Having introduced the beast that is the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, one can now attempt a forensic analysis of its content. Chapter 2 describes the sacred sites that are mentioned in the text. It will become apparent that a large number of them are tombs and shrines. Here, again, much of the language from the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is given so that the reader can form his or her own opinion of the contemporary perspective. In order to provide corroborating evidence for the sites in the medieval account of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, I shall occasionally offer parallel evidence from other Persian (and Arabic) textual, medieval sources, and possible confirmation from the archaeological testimony. In this chapter the important observation will be made that the sites on which the shrines lay were already sacred before the arrival of Islam: they are the burial places of important figures from Balkh’s pre-Islamic (mythical) past. Having established the pre-Islamic origins and general features of Balkh’s sacred sites, we will consider who was buried in them after the sites were ‘converted’ to Islam. The Muslims turned Balkh into an Umayyad city in the early eighth century. Chapter 3 reveals the identities of the people who the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh claims were buried at these sacred sites between the eighth and the late twelfth centuries. The author identifies the shrines as belonging to pious and religious men, or ‘shaykhs’. They were the early ‘Islamic scholars’, the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh, and they are depicted as the agents of good within society; an agency that lent them the gravitas required to become saints. But, who were they? Where did they come from? And, what exactly was it that made them so special? The evidence also casts a sidelight on the development of Islamic scholarship, or (p.21) ‘ulamology’, to quote Roy Mottahedeh, and the early legal schools (madhhabs).41 This study will close with the observation that the study of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its depictions of Balkh’s shaykhs and their shrines is a story of the survival of sacredness. The powers associated with this holy place may have been pacified and they may have been tamed by cultural and linguistic means; but they were never removed. Notes:

(1) Sanāʾī, The First Book of the Ḥadīqatu ʾl-Ḥaqīqat or the Enclosed Garden of the Truth, tr. J. Stephenson (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), 7–8.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (2) Amy Mills, ‘Critical Place Studies and Middle East Histories: Power, Politics, and Social Change’, in History Compass 10/10 (2012), 778. (3) Robert McChesney wrote a useful review of four such books. Robert McChesney, ‘Recent Work on the History of Afghanistan’, Journal of Persianate Studies 5 (2012), 58–91. The works discussed in this article are: V. S. Boiko (Boyko), Vlastʾ i oppozitsiya v Afganistane: osobennosti politicheskoi borʾbyi v 1919–1953 gg. (English title: Government and Opposition in Afghanistan: the Features of Political Fighting in 1919–1953) (Moscow-Barnaul: Institut Vostokovedeniia, Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk, 2010); Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011) (Originally published as an e-book by Columbia University Press, 2008); B. D. Hopkins, The Making of Modern Afghanistan (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2008); May Schinasi, Kaboul 1773–1948: Naissance et Croissance d’une Capitale Royale (Naples: Universita degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’, 2008). (4) See, for example, Schinasi, Kaboul. (5) Mills, ‘Critical Place Studies’, 778. (6) Paul Devereux, Sacred Geography: Deciphering Hidden Codes in the Landscape (London: Gaia, 2010), 9. (7) Pierre Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 77–9, 743–54; Eric Fouache et al., ‘Palaeochannels of the Balkh River (Northern Afghanistan) and Human Occupation since the Bronze Age Period’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012): 3416 ff. (8) The first surviving textual mention of ancient Bactria is in the Vendīdād section of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian Holy Book. Avesta – Die heiligen Bücher der Parsen, tr. Fritz Wolff (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1910), 317–18. Bactria (Bāxtri) is mentioned in the trilingual inscription of the Emperor Darius I (r. 522– 486 BC) at Bisutūn and Persepolis as one of the Achaemenid satrapies (provinces). A. Shapur Shahbazi, ‘Darius’, EIr, VII (1994), Fasc. 1, 41–50. (9) Alexander the Great overwhelmed the Achaemenids and their eastern territories including Bactria in 327 BC. In this year, Alexander married Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian Oxyartes, at the Rock of Ariamazes in Sogdiana. In 256 BC, Bactria was turned into an independent Hellenistic kingdom. John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray (eds), The Oxford History of the Classical World: Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 311, 314–15.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (10) In the second century BC, nomadic peoples from the north conquered Bactria. Amongst these new rulers the Kūshāns achieved supremacy. By the first century their empire extended far beyond Bactria, across much of northern India and to the borders of Sogdiana in Central Asia. Nicholas Sims-Williams, New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: The Decipherment of Bactrian. An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 1 February 1996 (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1997). (11) Roman Ghirshman, Les Chionites-Hephtalites, Cairo, 1948; Robert Göbl, Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967; Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les TouKiue (Turcs) occidentaux, recueillis et commentés, suivi de notes additionnelles … avec une carte (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, [1942]); Arthur Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1944); Sims-Williams, New Light, 5–-6; Étienne de la Vaissière, ‘Is There a ‘Nationality’ of the Hephthalites?’ Bulletin of the Asia Institute 17 (2003), 119–32; Frantz Grenet et al., ‘The Sasanian Relief at Rag-i Bibi (Northern Afghanistan)’, in Joe Cribb and Georgina Herrmann (eds), After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 243–67. (12) Accounts on the timing and rapidity of the conquest of Balkh by the Muslim troops vary. A final conquest is generally agreed to have occurred under General Qutayba b. Muslim in 89/707–8 or 90/708–9 when the Hephthalite rebel Nīzak Ṭarkhān was vanquished. The futūḥ writer Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī sets Balkh’s conquest in this period [Kitāb al-Futūḥ (c. 204/819) (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1974), VII, 234–5], and he is generally considered to be more accurate on Khurāsān than others. Al-Balādhurī refers to earlier conquests, but also emphasizes that the final conquest happened with the killing of Nīzak Ṭarkhān [Futūḥ al-buldān, tr. Francis C. Murgotten (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), II, 164–7]. The writer of the local history of Balkh, the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ, follows a similar chronology to that of alBalādhūrī [FB, ed. AḤḤ, 30–6], and of al-Yaʿqūbī, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1860), 287, as does al-Ṭabarī [Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje, I, 156; II/3, 1472–3]. See also H. A. R. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia (New York, 1970 [1923]), 8–9. (13) V. Barthold and D. Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, EI2, I (1960), 1033; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 19, 46. (14) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 28, 43. (15) For brief surveys of this period in Balkh, see V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: Luzac, 1968 [1928]), 77–8, 272, 288–9, 331–5; and C. E. Bosworth, ‘Balkh – ii. History from the Arab Conquest to the Mongols’, EIr, III (1989): 588–91. For the local account, see FB, ed. AḤḤ, 19, 38–9, 40–1, 52–3, Page 15 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History 200, 377. On the Ṣaffārids, see Deborah Tor, ‘Historical Representations of Yaʿqūb b. al-Layth al-Ṣaffār: A Reappraisal’, JRAS 12/3 (2002), 247–75. On the Ghūrid conquests of Balkh, see Ḥamīd al-Dīn Balkhī (d. 559/1164), Maqāmāt-i Ḥamīdī, ed. Rid.ā Anzābī Nizhād (Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 1365/1986). On the Qarakhānids in Balkh, see Michael Fedorov, ‘Qarakhanid Coins of Tirmidh and Balkh as a Historical Source. New Numismatic Data on the History of the Qarakhanid Dominions of Tirmidh and Balkh’, Numismatic Chronicle 163 (2003), 261–2. (16) Shaykh al-Islām Ṣafī Allāh wa-l-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971). (17) Aflākī, The Feats of the Knowers of God: Manāqeb al-ʿārefīn (completed in 754/1353–4), ed. John O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 7–13, 56. (18) Richard Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), xxi. Shirin Akiner surveys the various definitions of Central Asia, each with ‘its own chronology, ‘geography’ or spatial dimensions’. See her ‘Conceptual Geographies of Central Asia’, in Sustainable Development in Central Asia, ed. Shirin Akiner, Sander Tideman, and Jon Hay (Richmond: Curzon, 1998), 3–62. (19) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 15–18, 24, 48, 52. (20) Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, ed. Muḥammad Rawshan and Muṣṭafā Mūsawī (Tehran: Nashr-i Alburz, 1373/1994), I, 163; Maḥmūd b. Amīr Wālī, Baḥr al-asrār, fol. 132a; Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), 57. (21) See references above, and, for example, Ctesias of Cnidus, ‘Persica’ in Photius, Bibliothèque, ed. René Henry (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959–91). (22) Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, tr. Samuel Beal (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1906), I, 43–8; ‘Huei-ch’aos Pilgerreise durch Nordwest-Indien und ZentralAsien um 726’, ed. Walter Fuchs, Sitzunsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 22 (1938), 426–69; The Hye Ch’o Diary, ed. Han-Sung Yang et al. (Berkeley, CN: Asian Humanities Press, 1984), 52. (23) For example, a Nestorian-Chinese stele bearing a Chinese-Syriac inscription erected in Chang’an in 781 AD states that it was made by churchmen, one of whom was Mār Yazdbozid, whose father was from Balkh. A Manichaean fragment from Balkh indicates that there was a Manichaean community here too. Nicholas Sims-Williams, ‘The Bactrian Fragment in Manichaean Script (M1224)’, in Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Christiane Reck, and Dieter Weber (eds), Literarische Stoffe und ihre Gestaltung in mitteliranischer Zeit Page 16 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2009), 245–68. The recent discovery of pre-Mongol Jewish documents (in press by Shaul Shaked in Journal of Persianate Studies) points to the presence of a medieval Jewish community. (24) Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (London: Jonathan Cape, 2011), 17. (25) Zayde Antrim in her recent study also takes a text-based approach on understanding the depictions of place in the western Islamic lands of the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Zayde Antrim, Routes & Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). (26) Ali Mazinani-Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh—“Les Mérites de Balkh”—Notes, correction, et traduction abrégée’. Thèse de doctorat d’université, Paris, Institut d’études iraniénnes library at the Université de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), 1963. (27) C. A. Storey and Yuri Bregel’s bibliographies of Persian literature list local his-tories of Qum, Isfahan, Nāʿīn, Kāshān, Yazd, Fārs, Shabānkāra, Khurāsān, Herat, Kirmān, the Caspian provinces (Ṭabaristān, Rūyān, Ṭabaristān-RūyānMāzandarān, Gīlān, Gīlān-Daylamistān), Sīstān, Khūzistān, the Bakhtiyārīs, Azerbaijan, Bukhara, Badakhshān, Nishapur, Khiva, Merv, Samarqand, Ferghana, and Kashgār [cf. Storey, I/1, 348–93; I/2, 1291–1302, and Stori/ Bregel’, II, 1008–1208]. Medieval local history-writing is not limited to Iranian cities, but grows in cities and regions throughout the Islamic world. (28) Eric Hirsch, ‘Introduction: Landscape: Between Place and Space’, in Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon (eds), The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 1–2. (29) Robert Keesing, Kwaio Religion: The Living and the Dead in a Solomon Island Society, New York, 1982; cited in Hirsch, ‘Introduction’, 1–2. (30) Charles Ramble, ‘The creation of the Bon Mountain of Kongpo’, in Alexander Macdonald (ed.), Mandala and Landscape (Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997), 134. (31) Devereux, Sacred Geography, 52, citing Simon Coleman and John Elsner in their Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 100: ‘Pilgrimage is as concerned with taking back some part of the charisma of a holy place as it is about actually going to the place’. (32) F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929). (33) Bactrian documents—in the Bactrian language, written from the fourth to the eighth centuries—consistently evoke the names of local deities, such as Kamird and Wakhsh, for example, as witnesses to contracts. The documents Page 17 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History seem to come from an area between Balkh and Bamiyan, which is part of Bactria, in a placed called Rōb, 50 miles south of Samangān (see Map Section). They are identified with the Rōb Khān who helped the Umayyad general Qutayba to defeat Nīzak Ṭarkhān. They have been edited and translated by Nicholas Sims-Williams, Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan – 1. Legal and Economic Documents, rev. ed. (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions, 2012). Geoffrey Khan edited Arabic language documents from the same corpus of Bactrian documents in Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan. Studies in the Khalili Collection; V. 5 (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions, 2006). See also C. E. Bosworth, ‘Review of Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan (Studies in the Khalili Collection, Volume V)’, in Journal of Semitic Studies, 55/2 (2010), 618–20. (34) Buddhism was practised widely in Balkh in the 630s AD when the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsiuen Tsang travelled there. Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, I, 43–8. Equally, a century later around 726 AD the Buddhist monk from Silla (now Korea) named Hye-Ch’o wrote of his visit to ‘Pactra’, the ‘capital city’ of Tokharistan that: ‘the king [who is in exile in Badakhshan at present], the chiefs, and the common people respect the Three Jewels [of Buddhism, i.e. the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha]. There are many monasteries and monks. Hīnayāna Buddhism is practiced here. They eat meat, onions, and leeks. They do not profess any other religions. All men cut their beards and hair, but women keep their hair. The land is mountainous’. The Hye ch’o Diary, 52. (35) Some examples of such studies, are: Yehoshua Frenkel, ‘Baybars and the Sacred Geography of Bilād al-shām: a Chapter in the Islamization of Syria’s landscape’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), 153–70; Paul Cobb, ‘Virtual Sacrality: Making Muslim Syria Sacred before the Crusades’, Medieval Encounters 8 (2002), 35–55; and Stephennie Mulder, ‘The Architecture of Coexistence: Sunnis, Shiʿis, and the Shrines of the ʿAlids in the Medieval Levant’, University of Pennsylvania, 2008, unpublished doctoral thesis. (36) Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 409; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1879– 1901), II/1, 156. (37) We should not forget that shrine veneration and pilgrimage are common to both Abrahamic and Indic religions throughout history. See Josef Meri, ‘The Etiquette of Devotion in the Islamic Cult of Saints’, in James Howard-Johnston, Paul Hayward, and Peter Lamont Brown (eds), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 263–86. Christopher Taylor’s finding on Muslim shrine veneration as a crosssectarian phenomenon supersedes Grabar’s contention that it was a predominantly Shīʿī phenomenon that had a Sunnī response. Christopher Taylor, ‘Reevaluating the Shiʿi Role in the Development of Monumental Islamic Page 18 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Funerary Architecture: the Case of Egypt’, Muqarnas 9 (1992), 1–10; and by the same author, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Oleg Grabar, ‘The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures’, Ars Orientalis 6 (1966), 7–46; (38) Devin DeWeese, ‘Sacred History for a Central Asian Town – Saints, Shrines and Legends of Origin in Histories of Sayram, 18th to 19th Centuries’, in Denise Aigle (ed.), Figures mythiques des mondes musulmans (Aix-en-Provence: Édisud, 2000), 245–95. (39) Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī ([Tehran]: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1351/1972–3); The History of Bukhara, tr. Richard Frye (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954); Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); also Habib Jaouiche, Register der Personen- und Ortsnamen (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1984). (40) Hermione Lee, Biography. A Very Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 101. (41) Cited in Stephen Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite. The ʿUlamāʾ in Society’, in Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (London: I.B.Tauris, 1991), 187.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords The introduction contextualizes the book within relevant historical fields, such as ‘place studies’. It expounds on the pros and cons of focusing on one city in order to understand the history of a place, and introduces the book’s main source, the earliest surviving local history of Balkh known as Faḍāʿil-i Balkh, written by a local Balkhī in 1214 AD. It offers a working definition of landscape with a subjective viewer’s perspective of space, distinguishing it from the topographical understanding of space. The chapter introduces the book’s argument that an understanding of medieval sacred landscape—one that is largely focused on shrines—can provide important clues to the Islamisation of the lands integrated into the dār al-Islām. The chapter also provides a brief background on Balkh’s history beginning in the Bronze Age and reaching its height during the Kushan era in the early centuries of this millennium, through to the medieval period. Keywords:   Local history, cities, place studies, Islamic history, Islamisation, shrines, Afghanistan, Central Asia

[p]lace itself has no place. How shall there be a place for the Creator of place, a heaven for the Maker of heaven himself? 1 Page 1 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Place is not a static thing; it is created and re-created over time. Place tickles our imagination and curiosity—we want to know where people were born, to visit distant places, to find out how places were in the past. The ways in which places are conceptualized depend on the persons imagining or constructing them. There are those who visit places that are foreign to them; there are those who ‘live’ them. To the visitor, the lure of a place may be its epic past, natural landscape, or monumental attractions. To the resident, place is where rationality rules. The eyes of the visitor are untrained and uninitiated, scanning a new landscape, eagerly searching for familiar markers, while using the known landscape from home as a reference point. The challenge for visitors to ‘see’ the way local inhabitants perceive their home is significant. The visitor needs to step out of the ‘expatriate mind’ and learn about the landscape that the resident inhabits and navigates, and to appreciate how he or she relates specific places to the past. To put it differently, place might be conceptualized in one of two ways. There is the place that is lived, ‘a dynamic location where different people, social agents, or powerful actors come together in (p.2) unpredictable and ever-shifting ways’.2 We can also think of place as a location imbued with spiritual and cultural meaning, produced, in part, through the ways in which people imagine the past. These imaginations of the past may take physical form in shrines or public monuments, or they may encapsulate wider tracts of land, such as an entire city. The conception of the landscape impresses itself on people’s notions of their history, and by extension, gives power to the place in the present.

The Implications for a History of Afghanistan Considering place in this way produces a different kind of history for Afghanistan from what we can usually read about—namely, a political history of major events and people. These studies—although extremely useful—tend to focus on Afghanistan’s more recent past with limited space left for considering the earlier events that shaped what was to come. Moreover, they are often heavily focused on the Afghan capital of Kabul. Important as Kabul may be to Afghan history it often bears limited, if any, relation to what happens in the rest of Afghanistan (or lands that are now part of Afghanistan).3 There are also wellresearched books on specific places and regions in Afghanistan. These are useful guides to the topography of Afghanistan, written from the modern observer’s perspective, mapping and visualizing places according to Western methods and conventions.4 (p.3) This book offers a different story of Afghanistan: that of a particular place called Balkh, situated in the north of the country. The story is told through the eyes of a medieval Balkhī scholar. It should be added that I realize that I am part of a new trend in the history-writing of the Near and Middle East (if we can provisionally include Afghanistan in this regional category). ‘Critical place studies’ are increasingly viewed by historians as making it ‘possible to answer Page 2 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History larger questions regarding power, politics, and social change from the perspective of complex local life’.5 In order to answer these questions, this book not only focuses on place but views it from the local, time-specific perspective. The challenge is to ‘reconstruct’ the medieval city and district of Balkh in northern Afghanistan through the eyes of a local and a contemporary, rather than projecting modern views of space onto the past. One anthropologist put it well when he stated: ‘How a culture maps its world says much about its way of thinking about its environment, about how its soul and the soul of the world, the anima mundi, interact.’6 Being able to obtain a more accurate reading of how things were centuries ago is an asset. On the other hand, this approach produces less of the critical mass of falsifiable, hard ‘facts’ needed to ascertain the topography and physical layout of this important, little-understood city. Such data would certainly provide complementary and crucial evidence for understanding how Balkh was affected by major socio-cultural and political developments following the Islamic conquests and throughout the medieval period. The desire to ‘find’ the ancient city of Balkh has inspired scholars and researchers for the better part of a century. Alfred Foucher was the first foreign Orientalist to start digging up the ancient site of Balkh in the 1920s. Excavation works have continued until this day, albeit with lengthy intermissions, sometimes lasting years, due to the massive upheavals that have befallen the country, such as the Soviet intervention (1979–88), two civil wars (1989–96), and Taliban rule (1996–2001). Apart from its great walls, and some scattered remnants (p.4) of buildings, little of the old, early Islamic city has been unearthed to enable us to reconstruct the physical city. And yet the many written accounts tell us much about the grand, ancient, powerful and beautiful city of Balkh. The challenge of reconstructing this medieval city is compelling to any historian of the region. Balkh is the missing link between the western and eastern Iranian worlds, at the crossroads between the ‘Iranian’ and ‘Turkic’ peoples of the north, at the western fringe of Buddhism, the mythical death place of Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, the prophet of the ancient Iranian Zoroastrians), and the cradle of Sufism, the mystical, ‘friendlier’ version of Islam as people like to consider it today. This is an impressive legacy for one place, and yet how it all happened remains a mystery. Since 2011, the ‘Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage’ project, run by the University of Oxford together with colleagues in Afghanistan and funded by the Leverhulme Trust, has been working towards unveiling some of Balkh’s secrets. The results are not yet available, but there are great expectations that answers to the questions of Balkh’s urban history will be found. For example, the project plans to produce detailed historical maps of Balkh and its surroundings, something that has not been attempted so far.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Before the reader becomes too disappointed at the lack of hard data, let it be asked if it is not interesting that the medieval authors who wrote about their city did not tell us what we want to know today. Does that not mean something in itself? Perhaps it did not matter to them where the congregational mosque or a particular shrine was physically located. Or perhaps everyone knew, so why mention it? And so we get to the crux of this book. What is it that the local contemporaries tell us about their city, in how much detail, and to what purpose?

Period, Location, and Connotation Historical Balkh is an important place to study for three main reasons. First, it has survived over more than four millennia; secondly, it has an untarnished reputation as a city of great scholarship and mysticism; and thirdly, it is noted for an exceptional level of mercantile achievement. Bactra—the Greek name under which pre-Islamic (p.5) Balkh was known—encapsulated Bronze Age settlements around 2,000 BC when its ancient water systems were built.7 It was a province of the Achaemenid Empire (sixth century BC),8 the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Bactria,9 and a part of the Kūshān Empire that flourished in the first to the third centuries.10 The Sāsānian King Ardashir I (r. ca. AD 220– 40) vanquished the Kūshān king of Bactria. The Iranian dynasty ruled over Bactria until the Muslim conquests in the early eighth century, usually indirectly through resident élites.11 After the Muslim conquest, Balkh, along with Merv (in today’s Turkmenistan), became one of the main centres of Arab settlement in (p.6) north-eastern Iran in the eighth century.12 During the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate (eighth-ninth centuries), Balkh was celebrated as the original home of the Barmakid family of viziers, whose fore-fathers had run the Naw Bahār Buddhist temple-monastery complex.13 Balkh acquired grand epithets, such as, ‘the mother of cities’ (Ar. umm al-bilād) and ‘the dome of Islam’ (qubbat al-Islām) as well as the more sinister ‘city of blood’,14 and became one of the foremost Islamic historical cities in Central Asia. From the coming of Islam until the Mongol conquest in 618/1220–1, Balkh was a major centre of commerce, learning and culture. The city experienced a renewed flourishing of its arts and culture under the Tīmūrids after Tamerlane’s conquest of Balkh in 771/1370 (see Plate 1), although never quite reaching the same importance it had enjoyed before. The main period of focus in this book concerns the eighth to the twelfth centuries. During this time, Balkh was ruled by the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid caliphs through their provincial governors, as well as various regional dynasts who professed their allegiance to the caliphate, while enjoying a significant amount of autonomy. The following regional dynasties ruled over Balkh: Ṭāhirids and Banījūrids (205/821–257/871), Ṣaffārids (257/871–287/900), Sāmānids (287/900–382/992), Ghaznawids and Qarakhānids (389–435/999–1043–4), Saljūqs and Oghuz-Ghūrids (435–548/1043–1153), and Qarakhitāy and their Qarakhānid and Ghūrid vassals (560/1165–601/1205).15 The (p.7) main source Page 4 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History of this book, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh (FB),16 must have been written during the rule of the subsequent dynasty, the Khwārazmshāhs (602–617/1205–20), and it was during this time that the family of the poet-mystic Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn [alBalkhī] al-Rūmī is said to have emigrated from Balkh (the poet’s father, Bahāʾ alDīn Walad al-Balkhī, is depicted on the cover of this book).17 This ‘pre-Mongol’ period—Chinggis Khan entered Balkh himself in 618/1221—is still many centuries before the name ‘Afghanistan’ came into being. Historians refer to this part of the world during this period as ‘the eastern Islamic world’ or ‘the eastern Iranian world’. The former irks those people who see the word ‘Islamic’ as assuming that the population at the time was fully converted to Islam (when it clearly was not). Others, rather, consider the term merely to refer to the ‘Islamic caliphate’, which ruled, if only nominally, over Balkh. Yet Balkh was a major city that had been part of a region known since antiquity as Khurāsān (‘land to the east’). The term ‘eastern Iranian world’, on the other hand, antagonizes those who see it as part of the modern, nationalist Iranian narrative, which holds that the Persian-speaking world (or ‘Persianate’) is really just a part of the long defunct but per- petually present ‘greater Iran’: a vast area comprising the northern Iranian plateau from the Caspian Sea to the Oxus and up to the Pamir Mountains on the western borders of China. This book uses both terms, simply because they are well established in the scholarly literature and are conveniently short. Frankly, no better terms exist. If we situate ourselves on a modern-day map for a moment, we can find Balkh in the north-western part of Afghanistan (see Map 2). The region is at the fringe of Afghanistan, and, as fringes go, it is not easily accommodated in one or another of the major areas of the present or the past. One scholar, Richard Foltz, clearly situates Balkh (together (p.8) with Mā warāʾ al-nahr, ‘the land across the river’, i.e. the Oxus, but not the rest of Afghanistan) within Central Asia, which seems perfectly plausible to me as well.18 According to FB, Balkh came into direct or indirect contact with places, such as Badakhshān (shared today between Afghanistan and Tajikistan and bordering the Pamir Mountains); China (chīn wa mā-chīn); Tirmidh, Bukhara and Samarqand (in today’s Uzbekistan); the generic area of ‘Turkistān’ which includes places like Ferghana (in today’s Kazakhstan); the Bamiyan Valley and al-hind/hindūstān; and to a lesser extent with Kuhistan (in today’s Iran) and Merv (Turkmenistan). (see Maps 1–3)19 Seen in this light, early Islamic Balkh can be securely placed within a Central Asian context, with significant links to South Asia. We need to bear this regional context in mind when considering the influence of Islam and other religions on Balkh. Even in the post-Tīmūrid period, Balkh has been at the dividing line between Central and South Asia. For three centuries it was under Uzbek rule, becoming the second most important city of the Bukhara Emirate (after Bukhara). Then, in the mid -nineteenth -century Balkh was permanently integrated into Durrānī Afghanistan, with Russian influence weighing in more heavily than British during the so-called Great Game rivalry. The Soviets had a major presence there Page 5 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History when they intervened in Afghanistan in 1979–88. Previously, the different Mongol lands or uluses exchanged hands in Balkh, frequently involving violent warfare between the Mongol houses, notably the Ilkhānids from the west, the Chaghadaids in the north-west and the Golden Horde of the north.20 Balkh’s history is illustrious to say the least, and we find mentions of it in the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta, as well as in Greek and Roman chronicles of antiquity,21 and in Sasanian rock inscriptions in (p.9) Fārs, Iran. Balkh’s Buddhist past is described by Chinese and Korean pilgrims in the seventh and eighth centuries, such as Hsiuen Tsang and Hye Ch’o.22 Other documentary evidence points to Balkh’s multicultural and multi-religious medieval social fabric, including not only Buddhists and Muslims, but Christians, Manichaeans, and Jews, amongst others.23 The list of sources is long, and there is no need to inventory them all here. The point is that Balkh is a major historical site, but about the place itself we know very little. The name of Balkh may not conjure up a clear image to many Westerners. But ask anyone from the region—Iran, Afghanistan or Uzbekistan, for example—and you will most likely get a twinkle in your counterpart’s eye, and a smile of nostalgia. ‘One of the great cities of our past’, ‘the birthplace of some of our greatest Persian poets and Sufi masters’ are typical comments. The first Balkhī in this rubric to be mentioned is usually the Mawlānā al-Rūmī (or al-Balkhī, as he is better known to people from the region, referring to his alleged birthplace rather than the place of his death in rūm, i.e. Turkey). Everyone claims Balkh as theirs—not in geostrategic, pragmatic or economic terms, but on a wider, cultural and, yes, metaphysical scale. It is not just the people of the region who love Balkh. If you speak to a foreign visitor who has come into contact with it, say a 1960s/1970s hippie trailer, you are bound to hear a story about an encounter with a Sufi master in Balkh. Days would be spent sipping tea with the wise mystic, usually with a view over and around the imposing ancient walls of Balkh that provide testament to an impressive, built-up landscape that existed once here. The ancient site of Balkh is (p.10) a special place imbued with an ‘other-worldly’ character—or so such accounts go. One might wonder whether it is the ruins of the ancient city wall, dotted like awkwardly jutting rock formations across the now largely unbuilt mountainous landscape that give Balkh its ‘Martian’ appeal (see Plates 2 and 3 for example). Or might Balkh’s reputation as a spiritual haven hinge on ancient traditions, continued and recounted, reshaped and compacted until this day? When standing in the old site of Balkh and its surroundings today it is appealing to believe that the landscape shapes imaginings of specialness and holiness. However, few people have a chance to experience this place today, and thus, Balkh’s specialness seems firmly rooted in historical memory.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History The Source and Its Context The question is, then, how and when was this historical memory formed? Who developed it, and why? The reader may now pause and wonder whether I am questioning the validity of the statements on Balkh’s grandeur. Is she claiming that Balkh was actually not great, that it did not produce some of Afghanistan’s most influential thinkers and feelers? Rest assured that this quest has nothing to do with such a reassessment. As mentioned before, I am not intending to recount ‘the history’ of Afghanistan or even that of Balkh in the first instance. This is rather a search for the source of a narrative that has become a part of the history of Afghanistan. This narrative considers Balkh to have a special spiritual quality. The question as to whether or not this is true is secondary, and will not concern us here. What interests me is how Balkh’s reputation as a spiritual centre became generally established. Did it arise out of the mainstream ideas of the day? Or did the notion merely live on by happenstance—say, because the narrative was enshrined in a particular document or text that survived. Why would such a particular text persist, and not others? In this regard, a quote by the novelist Julian Barnes comes to mind: ‘History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation’.24 This (p.11) book tries to outline a particular historical memory and analyse the source, in order to attain a more accurate history.25 Let us take a closer look at the source that forms our testimonial. It is known as the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, or the ‘Merits of Balkh’. This little-studied work was completed in Arabic in 610/1214, and then adapted into Persian in 676/1278. The Arabic author is the Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was edited in full by the Afghan scholar ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī in 1971. It is just now being translated into English, and only parts have been adapted into French in an unpublished doctoral thesis by the influential Iranian activist of the 1960s and 1970s Ali Shariati at the Sorbonne.26 A few scholars of religious history have used the text, but this book represents the first attempt to use it as a historiographical and broader historical source. Of particular importance to this study are the book’s timing and its attention to detail about places within the city. Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is the earliest existing written narrative on and from Balkh, and it dates back to the early thirteenth century. Incidentally, this is precisely the time when the Mawlānā Balkhī/Rumī’s family would have been leaving Balkh (Mawlānā was just a child then), never to come back, eventually settling in faraway Konya, Anatolia. The composition of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh coincides with the lifetimes of other famous poets and mystics (and their predecessors) with whom Balkh is intimately associated, and from whom Balkh is said to receive its special aura, such as the early Sufis, Shaqīq alBalkhī and Ibrāhīm b. Adham. (Or perhaps it was the place that imbued these men with their special qualities? More on this later) Moreover, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is written during a time when other cities and places of the eastern Page 7 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Iranian world are producing their local histories as well: Bukhara, Nishapur, Samarqand, and Isfahan, among others.27 What is the background to the writing of (p.12) local histories? Who patronized them? Who wrote them? What do they say that we do not find in the general histories of the time? These are all important questions and comparanda for our study. Besides its timing, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh has a second, very important feature; one that has been overlooked by historians until now, and that provides the crucial evidence for our study: the text is filled with detailed anecdotes and stories that reveal a perception of sacred landscape. At first glance, these little snippets of information may seem random and insignificant, but, in fact, they provide us with a rare insight and contemporary perspective on place. The reason why historians have ignored these details so far is that the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was predominantly known as a work on the developments of Islamic legal and political thought in Balkh. The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh did not help himself by applying an unimaginative writing style. And yet, if we look beyond all that, what emerges is a description of the sacred sites that made up the geography of Balkh. Therein lies a history untold: the history of a legend that is a city, a city that is holy more than anything else. What exactly makes this place holy, and how its sacredness is retained and respected will form the central theme of this book.

Sacred Space The notion of sacred space is not new, and has been outlined and explained by scholars from various fields. One of the early theoreticians of the ‘spirit of place’ was the nineteenth-century German theologian Rudolf Otto. He suggested that sacred places had a mystical quality called numen, or divine power. This sense of a spirit of place, a genius loci (or, numen loci) was the origin of humanity’s association of selected places with holiness. More recently, anthropologists (and historians to a much lesser degree) have studied the ‘spirit of place’ as a human, cognitive process rather than an independent divine power. (p.13) The concept has been developed and explained most fully by anthropologists.28 The importance of this perspective for historians is aptly expressed by anthropologist Roger Keesing writing about the Solomon Islands community of the Kwaio: The landscape of the Kwaio interior appears, to the alien eye, as a sea of green, a dense forest broken periodically by gardens and recent secondary growth, and an occasional tiny settlement … To the Kwaio eye this landscape is not only divided by invisible lines into named land tracts and settlement sites; it is seen as structured by history [emphasis added].29 Explained in another way, the term ‘landscape’ derives from the Dutch renaissance paintings that were depicting the ‘landschap’, which was not an objective mirror image of the environment, but a subjective representation with codes and points of emphasis. Narratives perpetuate the idea that particular Page 8 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History places—natural and man-made—have a sacral quality. Often such places already have a historical significance. The impetus that originally ‘empowered’ a place in Tibet, for example, argues Charles Ramble, ‘was not a particular saint or magician, but probably the historical importance of a site’ that may have been the cradle of civilization and the ancient home of the place’s dynastic rulers.30 To the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s author, too, Balkh is above all a pure and sacred city (khāk-i pāk). What made the city sacred and pure, and how the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’s narrative linked Balkh’s sanctity to the past, will be explored in this book. The narratives on sacred landscape around the world are found in written and oral historical accounts, as well as legal documents and letters, and they find their confirmation (or not) in the archaeological evidence. On the basis of these studies we can categorize sacred sites as either natural landscape features that are identified as holy (such as mountains, trees, caves and waters), or where sensory and mythic relationships with the environment are established. The former have existed since the earliest days of human interaction with place. The latter developed as humans ‘improved upon’ the environment, with (p.14) devices such as petroglyphs, wall paintings and simulacra (that is, the resemblance of a natural feature to some other form—anthropomorphic, animal or iconic). In this category, places also became holy as a result of a particular scent or sound that existed there (others might argue that the causality is reversed, i.e. that the scent or sound existed because of the place’s sacredness). Within this second category we can include places like Jerusalem which are theorized as conceptual centres, or Mount Kailash in Tibet which is understood as a symbolic centre for Tibetan and South Asian communities. Another notion is that of the ‘middle place’, i.e. that of a centre from which things radiate in the four directions. Human interaction with sacred spaces reaches its height during pilgrimage. Visits to shrines and similar interactions with sacred spaces are accompanied by a set of standard rituals, such as circumambulating a space a designated number of times and in a particular direction, and at a specific, auspicious point in time. Pilgrims pay their respects to the site, and ask its spirit for intervention when faced with a particular problem in life.31 Reflected here are two different senses of place, a distinction of which the ancient Greeks were keenly aware. The Greeks spoke of a chora, which denoted place as something expressive, as a repository of memory and of mythic presence. Then there was topos, which signified place as we understand it today: a simple location—the objective, physical features of a locale. Modern Western historians started to be interested in the chora in so far as the conversion of sites to Islam told us about the impact of Islam on the West. The fundamental question here is why were sites that were considered sacred to one religion not destroyed by the conquerors who brought with them a new religion. What happened to the numen loci, the spirit of the place, as a result of the conversion? Was it retained, or did the new powers that be reconfigure it so that it bore attributes that emanated from the new religion? Such questions interested Page 9 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History scholars such as F. W. Hasluck who identified Christian and Islamic religious sites in Turkey that displayed the remnants of previous religions and spirituality. These were sites that had changed hands multiple times during their history.32 (p.15) The process of blending religious symbols, belief systems and practices has been frequently labelled as ‘syncretism’. Without dwelling on the criticisms of this concept, it is worth recalling that modern scholars tend to avoid this term due to its abuse by previous Western historians and anthropologists. Their assumptions—now superseded and proven false—were that Western Christianity was a pure religion while the religions of the non-Western world, say the Santería of Cuba or the Xangoists of Brazil, were ‘contaminations’ of Christianity. Today, these newer faiths are understood as religions in their own right with a foundation in local belief systems. Moreover, we are aware that Christianity is not a monolith but is itself a result of a blending pro-cess, and that it existed in many forms (and still does). Thus, in this book we will treat syncretism as a process of fusion without any of the hierarchical connotations that used to mark this term.

Islamization and Sacred Landscape In the Balkh area, religiosity up to the time of the Islamic conquests and for at least two centuries thereafter seems to have been centred on the worship of a set of local deities,33 together with Buddhism34 (p.16) and Zoroastrianism. The syncretic process is probably best connoted by the term, ‘Islamization’ given that by the time we reach the period of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh—the early thirteenth century—Balkh is a well-established centre of Islamic learning and mysticism, and a major participant in the dār al-Islām. The question is how did the Islamization process happen in Balkh, i.e. how much of the old reli-giosity was retained and melded into Islam? How was the Buddhist-dominated city of Balkh transformed into a centre for Islamic scholarship within just a few centuries after the advent of Islam? Until recently, much scholarship has tended to focus on the caliphal centres further west (Syria, Iraq, and Egypt) when considering questions on early conversions to Islam.35 We know now that Islamization (and Arabization) did not reach the same extent in the east. Iranian and Central Asian centres and cities did not adopt Arabic but Persian, and large-scale conversions to Islam occurred much later in the east than in the west. The reasons for this difference are still not fully understood. Balkh was the easternmost province of the Central Asian lands of the caliphate, which makes it a particularly interesting test case for such an investigation. By the same token, it is worth exploring the extent to which life after Islam in Balkh may have stayed the same, or was perhaps only made to look different. Questions that arise are: did the Arab conquerors really destroy all remnants of the previous religions in Balkh, as the Arab historians such as al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) and al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) would have us believe?36 Was the religion of early Islamic Balkh a direct, unaltered import from the Ḥijāz and Iraq, or was it Page 10 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History rather a syncretic blend of pre-existing religions and Islam? These questions are difficult to answer, and we may not always find the evidence for them, but this book provides at least a starting point for looking at the question of Islamization in Balkh. The case of Balkh may serve as an additional prism for understanding Islamization at a more general level. (p.17) Shrines have dominated the discourse on sacred landscape amongst historians of Islamic history, with a particular focus on the shrines of Syria and Palestine in the early Mamluk Sultanate. However, the study of sacred landscape is still in its infancy amongst historians of the Middle East and Central Asia. Yehoshua Frenkel considered the Realpolitik of the Mamlūk ruler Baybars (r. 658–76/1260–77) to be the motivating force behind his shrine-building policies: it aimed at Islamicizing the bilād al-shām. Other studies have focused on shrines as well, probably because they feature so prominently in the Arabic and Persian works, including the source of this book, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh.37 While these studies look at shrines as individual structures, they do not necessarily consider them in the context of the wider landscape. A notable exception is Devin DeWeese’s (2000) work on the saints and sacred landscape of Sayrām (modernday southern Kazakhstan, known in medieval times as Isfījāb) based on narratives from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which attribute to Sayrām a sacrality that manifests itself both spatially and temporally.38 On the whole, historians have tended to see Realpolitik as the driving force for shrine conversions. How better to send the message across to the conquered peoples about the new order of things than to expropriate and reconfigure the most iconic and central monuments of the city? While such postulations appear reasonable and tell us a lot about conversions, they do not enlighten us about the importance of shrines in a landscape that is not dominated by conversion. This (p.18) would apply to a place that has long been converted, say, and coexists with pre-existing shrines. How much knowledge of the previous history of the shrine is retained? Does it feature in the pilgrims’ relationship with the site? If so, is it a positive, integrative element, or does it live on as a reminder of the bad religion that should not be revisited?

Other Research Gaps Addressed in this Book Besides the research gap on sacred landscape in the Islamic world discussed above, this book attempts to fill two further lacunae. First, the historiographic context is partial. Our best literary source on pre-modern cities such as Balkh are Persian local histories, notably the little-studied Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, which is the earliest surviving local history of the city. Other local histories from the region that have already been studied include Narshakhī’s Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, examined by Richard Frye in the 1950s, and the histories of Nishapur analysed by Richard Bulliet in the 1970s.39 Written originally in Arabic, these local histories have often been treated as mere translations, while modern scholars have glossed over the fact that they reflect a cobbling together of texts stemming from Page 11 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History various genres and periods, often going back to the time of the Arab conquests. We will consider how the Persian versions represent adaptations, rather than literal translations, bringing into the narrative familiar codes that are parti-cular to Persian literary and oral traditions. Second, the social aspect of the ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars) as both authors and subjects of local histories is largely neglected in scholarly literature (a notable exception is Bulliet’s Patricians of Nishapur). Here I am referring to biographies contained in the local history of Balkh and those of other cities in the region. Hermione Lee states that, ‘for the biographer, who himself represents the social world, the social self is the real self; the self only comes to exist when juxtaposed with other people. (p.19) The solitary self is a pressure upon the social self, or a repercussion of it, but it has no independent life’.40 Biographies are a part of social history, and in this book I will bring them into the study of Balkh’s history.

Terminology Regional terminologies, such as ‘eastern Iranian world’, ‘eastern Islamic world’ and ‘Central Asia’ have been described earlier. A few conceptual terms that run through the book need explanation. This book applies the terms ‘medieval’ and ‘pre-modern’ interchangeably to denote the pre-Mongol period only (with no implications of a value-ridden concept of ‘backwardness’ or ‘primitiveness’). The beginning of the medieval period will be taken as the eighth century. The Mongol and post-Mongol period begins in the thirteenth century after the conquest of Balkh in 618/1220–1. Sets of terms that are often erroneously confused are the Greek ‘Bactra’, ‘Bactria’, ‘Bactriana’ and the Perso-Arabic ‘Balkh’. In this book, Bactra is the capital of the cultural area of Bactria/Bactriana, which at its height included the ‘eastern Iranian lands’ as well as the lands south of the Hindukush and northern India (modern-day Pakistan and the north-west frontier). Bactra and Bactria/ Bactriana together became known in the Muslim sources as ‘Balkh’. Another set of terms, ‘Islamic world’ or ‘Islamicate’, which often appear in secondary sources, may be used to refer to the countries that were incorporated into the dār al-Islām in the medieval period. Finally, the term ‘Persianate’, which also appears in Western scholarly writing, refers to the Persian-speaking lands of the medieval period.

Structure of the Book This book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene by telling us first about the text in question. Who wrote it, when, where (p.20) and to what purpose? Much original material from the manuscripts that survive of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is provided, in order to give the reader a flavour of the tone, writing style (which can occasionally become florid and entertaining) and content of the book. This chapter also situates the text within its historiographical context, identifying the books the author used to give his Page 12 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History history authenticity and scholarly credibility. Most of these source texts are largely unknown to the scholar of the western Islamic world, whereas they clearly had a strong appeal in the eastern Islamic region. Much like other local histories of the region (notably, Bukhara and Nishapur), it is difficult to place the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh neatly within one defined genre of Islamic historiography, while one finds a number of genres represented in it. Having introduced the beast that is the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, one can now attempt a forensic analysis of its content. Chapter 2 describes the sacred sites that are mentioned in the text. It will become apparent that a large number of them are tombs and shrines. Here, again, much of the language from the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is given so that the reader can form his or her own opinion of the contemporary perspective. In order to provide corroborating evidence for the sites in the medieval account of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, I shall occasionally offer parallel evidence from other Persian (and Arabic) textual, medieval sources, and possible confirmation from the archaeological testimony. In this chapter the important observation will be made that the sites on which the shrines lay were already sacred before the arrival of Islam: they are the burial places of important figures from Balkh’s pre-Islamic (mythical) past. Having established the pre-Islamic origins and general features of Balkh’s sacred sites, we will consider who was buried in them after the sites were ‘converted’ to Islam. The Muslims turned Balkh into an Umayyad city in the early eighth century. Chapter 3 reveals the identities of the people who the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh claims were buried at these sacred sites between the eighth and the late twelfth centuries. The author identifies the shrines as belonging to pious and religious men, or ‘shaykhs’. They were the early ‘Islamic scholars’, the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh, and they are depicted as the agents of good within society; an agency that lent them the gravitas required to become saints. But, who were they? Where did they come from? And, what exactly was it that made them so special? The evidence also casts a sidelight on the development of Islamic scholarship, or (p.21) ‘ulamology’, to quote Roy Mottahedeh, and the early legal schools (madhhabs).41 This study will close with the observation that the study of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its depictions of Balkh’s shaykhs and their shrines is a story of the survival of sacredness. The powers associated with this holy place may have been pacified and they may have been tamed by cultural and linguistic means; but they were never removed. Notes:

(1) Sanāʾī, The First Book of the Ḥadīqatu ʾl-Ḥaqīqat or the Enclosed Garden of the Truth, tr. J. Stephenson (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), 7–8.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (2) Amy Mills, ‘Critical Place Studies and Middle East Histories: Power, Politics, and Social Change’, in History Compass 10/10 (2012), 778. (3) Robert McChesney wrote a useful review of four such books. Robert McChesney, ‘Recent Work on the History of Afghanistan’, Journal of Persianate Studies 5 (2012), 58–91. The works discussed in this article are: V. S. Boiko (Boyko), Vlastʾ i oppozitsiya v Afganistane: osobennosti politicheskoi borʾbyi v 1919–1953 gg. (English title: Government and Opposition in Afghanistan: the Features of Political Fighting in 1919–1953) (Moscow-Barnaul: Institut Vostokovedeniia, Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk, 2010); Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011) (Originally published as an e-book by Columbia University Press, 2008); B. D. Hopkins, The Making of Modern Afghanistan (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, 2008); May Schinasi, Kaboul 1773–1948: Naissance et Croissance d’une Capitale Royale (Naples: Universita degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’, 2008). (4) See, for example, Schinasi, Kaboul. (5) Mills, ‘Critical Place Studies’, 778. (6) Paul Devereux, Sacred Geography: Deciphering Hidden Codes in the Landscape (London: Gaia, 2010), 9. (7) Pierre Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 77–9, 743–54; Eric Fouache et al., ‘Palaeochannels of the Balkh River (Northern Afghanistan) and Human Occupation since the Bronze Age Period’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012): 3416 ff. (8) The first surviving textual mention of ancient Bactria is in the Vendīdād section of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian Holy Book. Avesta – Die heiligen Bücher der Parsen, tr. Fritz Wolff (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1910), 317–18. Bactria (Bāxtri) is mentioned in the trilingual inscription of the Emperor Darius I (r. 522– 486 BC) at Bisutūn and Persepolis as one of the Achaemenid satrapies (provinces). A. Shapur Shahbazi, ‘Darius’, EIr, VII (1994), Fasc. 1, 41–50. (9) Alexander the Great overwhelmed the Achaemenids and their eastern territories including Bactria in 327 BC. In this year, Alexander married Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian Oxyartes, at the Rock of Ariamazes in Sogdiana. In 256 BC, Bactria was turned into an independent Hellenistic kingdom. John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray (eds), The Oxford History of the Classical World: Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 311, 314–15.

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Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (10) In the second century BC, nomadic peoples from the north conquered Bactria. Amongst these new rulers the Kūshāns achieved supremacy. By the first century their empire extended far beyond Bactria, across much of northern India and to the borders of Sogdiana in Central Asia. Nicholas Sims-Williams, New Light on Ancient Afghanistan: The Decipherment of Bactrian. An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 1 February 1996 (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1997). (11) Roman Ghirshman, Les Chionites-Hephtalites, Cairo, 1948; Robert Göbl, Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967; Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les TouKiue (Turcs) occidentaux, recueillis et commentés, suivi de notes additionnelles … avec une carte (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, [1942]); Arthur Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1944); Sims-Williams, New Light, 5–-6; Étienne de la Vaissière, ‘Is There a ‘Nationality’ of the Hephthalites?’ Bulletin of the Asia Institute 17 (2003), 119–32; Frantz Grenet et al., ‘The Sasanian Relief at Rag-i Bibi (Northern Afghanistan)’, in Joe Cribb and Georgina Herrmann (eds), After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 243–67. (12) Accounts on the timing and rapidity of the conquest of Balkh by the Muslim troops vary. A final conquest is generally agreed to have occurred under General Qutayba b. Muslim in 89/707–8 or 90/708–9 when the Hephthalite rebel Nīzak Ṭarkhān was vanquished. The futūḥ writer Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī sets Balkh’s conquest in this period [Kitāb al-Futūḥ (c. 204/819) (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1974), VII, 234–5], and he is generally considered to be more accurate on Khurāsān than others. Al-Balādhurī refers to earlier conquests, but also emphasizes that the final conquest happened with the killing of Nīzak Ṭarkhān [Futūḥ al-buldān, tr. Francis C. Murgotten (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), II, 164–7]. The writer of the local history of Balkh, the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ, follows a similar chronology to that of alBalādhūrī [FB, ed. AḤḤ, 30–6], and of al-Yaʿqūbī, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1860), 287, as does al-Ṭabarī [Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje, I, 156; II/3, 1472–3]. See also H. A. R. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia (New York, 1970 [1923]), 8–9. (13) V. Barthold and D. Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, EI2, I (1960), 1033; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 19, 46. (14) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 28, 43. (15) For brief surveys of this period in Balkh, see V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: Luzac, 1968 [1928]), 77–8, 272, 288–9, 331–5; and C. E. Bosworth, ‘Balkh – ii. History from the Arab Conquest to the Mongols’, EIr, III (1989): 588–91. For the local account, see FB, ed. AḤḤ, 19, 38–9, 40–1, 52–3, Page 15 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History 200, 377. On the Ṣaffārids, see Deborah Tor, ‘Historical Representations of Yaʿqūb b. al-Layth al-Ṣaffār: A Reappraisal’, JRAS 12/3 (2002), 247–75. On the Ghūrid conquests of Balkh, see Ḥamīd al-Dīn Balkhī (d. 559/1164), Maqāmāt-i Ḥamīdī, ed. Rid.ā Anzābī Nizhād (Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 1365/1986). On the Qarakhānids in Balkh, see Michael Fedorov, ‘Qarakhanid Coins of Tirmidh and Balkh as a Historical Source. New Numismatic Data on the History of the Qarakhanid Dominions of Tirmidh and Balkh’, Numismatic Chronicle 163 (2003), 261–2. (16) Shaykh al-Islām Ṣafī Allāh wa-l-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971). (17) Aflākī, The Feats of the Knowers of God: Manāqeb al-ʿārefīn (completed in 754/1353–4), ed. John O’Kane (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 7–13, 56. (18) Richard Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998), xxi. Shirin Akiner surveys the various definitions of Central Asia, each with ‘its own chronology, ‘geography’ or spatial dimensions’. See her ‘Conceptual Geographies of Central Asia’, in Sustainable Development in Central Asia, ed. Shirin Akiner, Sander Tideman, and Jon Hay (Richmond: Curzon, 1998), 3–62. (19) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 15–18, 24, 48, 52. (20) Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, ed. Muḥammad Rawshan and Muṣṭafā Mūsawī (Tehran: Nashr-i Alburz, 1373/1994), I, 163; Maḥmūd b. Amīr Wālī, Baḥr al-asrār, fol. 132a; Michal Biran, Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), 57. (21) See references above, and, for example, Ctesias of Cnidus, ‘Persica’ in Photius, Bibliothèque, ed. René Henry (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959–91). (22) Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, tr. Samuel Beal (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1906), I, 43–8; ‘Huei-ch’aos Pilgerreise durch Nordwest-Indien und ZentralAsien um 726’, ed. Walter Fuchs, Sitzunsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 22 (1938), 426–69; The Hye Ch’o Diary, ed. Han-Sung Yang et al. (Berkeley, CN: Asian Humanities Press, 1984), 52. (23) For example, a Nestorian-Chinese stele bearing a Chinese-Syriac inscription erected in Chang’an in 781 AD states that it was made by churchmen, one of whom was Mār Yazdbozid, whose father was from Balkh. A Manichaean fragment from Balkh indicates that there was a Manichaean community here too. Nicholas Sims-Williams, ‘The Bactrian Fragment in Manichaean Script (M1224)’, in Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Christiane Reck, and Dieter Weber (eds), Literarische Stoffe und ihre Gestaltung in mitteliranischer Zeit Page 16 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2009), 245–68. The recent discovery of pre-Mongol Jewish documents (in press by Shaul Shaked in Journal of Persianate Studies) points to the presence of a medieval Jewish community. (24) Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (London: Jonathan Cape, 2011), 17. (25) Zayde Antrim in her recent study also takes a text-based approach on understanding the depictions of place in the western Islamic lands of the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Zayde Antrim, Routes & Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). (26) Ali Mazinani-Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh—“Les Mérites de Balkh”—Notes, correction, et traduction abrégée’. Thèse de doctorat d’université, Paris, Institut d’études iraniénnes library at the Université de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), 1963. (27) C. A. Storey and Yuri Bregel’s bibliographies of Persian literature list local his-tories of Qum, Isfahan, Nāʿīn, Kāshān, Yazd, Fārs, Shabānkāra, Khurāsān, Herat, Kirmān, the Caspian provinces (Ṭabaristān, Rūyān, Ṭabaristān-RūyānMāzandarān, Gīlān, Gīlān-Daylamistān), Sīstān, Khūzistān, the Bakhtiyārīs, Azerbaijan, Bukhara, Badakhshān, Nishapur, Khiva, Merv, Samarqand, Ferghana, and Kashgār [cf. Storey, I/1, 348–93; I/2, 1291–1302, and Stori/ Bregel’, II, 1008–1208]. Medieval local history-writing is not limited to Iranian cities, but grows in cities and regions throughout the Islamic world. (28) Eric Hirsch, ‘Introduction: Landscape: Between Place and Space’, in Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon (eds), The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 1–2. (29) Robert Keesing, Kwaio Religion: The Living and the Dead in a Solomon Island Society, New York, 1982; cited in Hirsch, ‘Introduction’, 1–2. (30) Charles Ramble, ‘The creation of the Bon Mountain of Kongpo’, in Alexander Macdonald (ed.), Mandala and Landscape (Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1997), 134. (31) Devereux, Sacred Geography, 52, citing Simon Coleman and John Elsner in their Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 100: ‘Pilgrimage is as concerned with taking back some part of the charisma of a holy place as it is about actually going to the place’. (32) F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929). (33) Bactrian documents—in the Bactrian language, written from the fourth to the eighth centuries—consistently evoke the names of local deities, such as Kamird and Wakhsh, for example, as witnesses to contracts. The documents Page 17 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History seem to come from an area between Balkh and Bamiyan, which is part of Bactria, in a placed called Rōb, 50 miles south of Samangān (see Map Section). They are identified with the Rōb Khān who helped the Umayyad general Qutayba to defeat Nīzak Ṭarkhān. They have been edited and translated by Nicholas Sims-Williams, Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan – 1. Legal and Economic Documents, rev. ed. (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions, 2012). Geoffrey Khan edited Arabic language documents from the same corpus of Bactrian documents in Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan. Studies in the Khalili Collection; V. 5 (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions, 2006). See also C. E. Bosworth, ‘Review of Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan (Studies in the Khalili Collection, Volume V)’, in Journal of Semitic Studies, 55/2 (2010), 618–20. (34) Buddhism was practised widely in Balkh in the 630s AD when the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hsiuen Tsang travelled there. Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, I, 43–8. Equally, a century later around 726 AD the Buddhist monk from Silla (now Korea) named Hye-Ch’o wrote of his visit to ‘Pactra’, the ‘capital city’ of Tokharistan that: ‘the king [who is in exile in Badakhshan at present], the chiefs, and the common people respect the Three Jewels [of Buddhism, i.e. the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha]. There are many monasteries and monks. Hīnayāna Buddhism is practiced here. They eat meat, onions, and leeks. They do not profess any other religions. All men cut their beards and hair, but women keep their hair. The land is mountainous’. The Hye ch’o Diary, 52. (35) Some examples of such studies, are: Yehoshua Frenkel, ‘Baybars and the Sacred Geography of Bilād al-shām: a Chapter in the Islamization of Syria’s landscape’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), 153–70; Paul Cobb, ‘Virtual Sacrality: Making Muslim Syria Sacred before the Crusades’, Medieval Encounters 8 (2002), 35–55; and Stephennie Mulder, ‘The Architecture of Coexistence: Sunnis, Shiʿis, and the Shrines of the ʿAlids in the Medieval Levant’, University of Pennsylvania, 2008, unpublished doctoral thesis. (36) Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 409; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1879– 1901), II/1, 156. (37) We should not forget that shrine veneration and pilgrimage are common to both Abrahamic and Indic religions throughout history. See Josef Meri, ‘The Etiquette of Devotion in the Islamic Cult of Saints’, in James Howard-Johnston, Paul Hayward, and Peter Lamont Brown (eds), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 263–86. Christopher Taylor’s finding on Muslim shrine veneration as a crosssectarian phenomenon supersedes Grabar’s contention that it was a predominantly Shīʿī phenomenon that had a Sunnī response. Christopher Taylor, ‘Reevaluating the Shiʿi Role in the Development of Monumental Islamic Page 18 of 19

Introduction: The Discourse of Landscape, Balkh and its History Funerary Architecture: the Case of Egypt’, Muqarnas 9 (1992), 1–10; and by the same author, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Oleg Grabar, ‘The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures’, Ars Orientalis 6 (1966), 7–46; (38) Devin DeWeese, ‘Sacred History for a Central Asian Town – Saints, Shrines and Legends of Origin in Histories of Sayram, 18th to 19th Centuries’, in Denise Aigle (ed.), Figures mythiques des mondes musulmans (Aix-en-Provence: Édisud, 2000), 245–95. (39) Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī ([Tehran]: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1351/1972–3); The History of Bukhara, tr. Richard Frye (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954); Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); also Habib Jaouiche, Register der Personen- und Ortsnamen (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1984). (40) Hermione Lee, Biography. A Very Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 101. (41) Cited in Stephen Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite. The ʿUlamāʾ in Society’, in Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (London: I.B.Tauris, 1991), 187.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords The chapter describes the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and sets its historiographical elements within the wider context of Islamic historiography through a source-critical study. The story that is being told here is one of survival of a rare text, and its role in keeping alive a narrative on sacred landscape. In the inventory of texts that has been compiled, most of the sources are classified in one of five established categories of Islamic history-writing: the biographical ṭabaqāt, the genre of faḍīla, legal and juridical works, mystical and Sufi treatises, and poetry. Balkh is not alone in this form of history-writing, and there are comparanda from Bukhara, Samarqand, Nishapur, Isfahan and Bayhaq. The chapter argues that rather than seeing local history-writing in the ‘non-Arab’ lands as an expression of political autonomy from the caliphal centre, they are an attempt by the inhabitants to describe a history with ancient roots that is compatible within Islamic traditions. Keywords:   local histories, historiography, codicology, Persian manuscripts, Central Asia, medieval Islamic history

There are five major local histories of greater Khurasan—of Balkh, Bayhaq, Bukhara, Nishapur, and Samarqand.2 Of these, the local history of Balkh is the least understood, and the least researched. It is known as Faḍāʾil-i Balkh (FB) and was finished in Arabic in 610/1214 and translated into Persian in 676/1278. The purpose of this (p.23) chapter is to describe the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and set its historiographical elements within the wider context of Islamic historiography through a source-critical study. The story that is being told here is one of

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 survival of a rare text, and its role in keeping alive a narrative on sacred landscape. In the few instances that FB is mentioned in modern historiographical studies it is called a ‘city chronicle’ or ‘local history’.3 If local is the opposite of universal, then FB is certainly local. However, the term ‘local’ needs to be qualified. Richard Frye in the 1950s engendered an appreciation in Western scholarship that local sources were an important check against the excessive focus on universal histories for understanding the history of the Middle East and Central Asia.4 His student Richard Bulliet developed this idea through his study of Nishapur’s Arabic local histories (some with Persian interpolations). Bulliet began to see a pattern: the texts began with a praise of the city, its origins and the Arab conquests, and biographies with frequent mentions of place names ‘which would be of little interest to the student of ḥadīth and are devoid of information that would be relevant for the student of ḥadīth’.5 While the Arabic version of FB does not survive, Bulliet’s description may well be representative of the lost Arabic FB. The Persian translations of local histories were studied by Edmund Bosworth and then in the thirty-third issue of Iranian Studies in 2000. Bosworth noted that the early specimens ‘were first composed in Arabic, but then had Persian translations and epitomes … made from them, often with continuations’. He suggested that the aim of the translations from Arabic into Persian was to widen the audience even further, ‘beyond the narrow circle of those scholars literate in Arabic’.6 This could also be the case with Persian FB, which was written in 676/1278. Equally, Charles Melville in his introductory (p.24) comments to the 2000 Iranian Studies volume noted the need for further studies. He considered that Franz Rosenthal’s distinction between secular and theological local historiography—the former apparently concerned with political events and the latter with urban topography and biographies of religious scholars—is not convincing in the Persian case. A number of Persian local histories, such as the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, did not fit into such a duality.7 FB also does not fit into this duality and presents a case for a more nuanced understanding of Iranian and Central Asian texts. Another line of enquiry that has occupied scholars is the reason for the proliferation of local histories. Wadad al-Qadi saw expressions of political autonomy embodied in Persian local histories and an outcome of ‘the weakening of the central caliphate and the emergence of other centres of political power in the Islamic empire’.8 Recent scholars such as Parvaneh Pourshariati, who studied early medieval Bayhaq, and Jürgen Paul, who analysed Herat’s local histories, provide an alternative view. The suggestion put forward by Pourshariati, for example, is that the societal forces that led to the proliferation of local histories in Iran were linked to an increasing identity with place rather than a drive for political autonomy.9 Paul’s assessment that the local histories from Page 2 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 eastern Iran and Transoxania are under-studied—noting specifically the lack of any systematic assessment of FB—still remains valid.10 I hope that this chapter will bring us a little further in helping us understand a change in Persian historywriting.

(p.25) Text and Transmission Authorship

In the preface of FB, the author of the original is identified as the Shaykh alIslām Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ Ṣafī alMilla wa-l-Dīn al-Balkhī. He completed his work in 610/1214 in Arabic (bi zabān-i tāzī). The Persian translator in later excerpts usually calls him ‘Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ’ for short. It is the appellation I adopt as well.11 We know about FB’s author only what is stated in FB itself. We do not have exact birth or death dates, but can anchor the time in which Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ flourished to the years 565–610/1169–1214. We can estimate the birth date from a statement in FB that he was ten years old when the last of three Umayyadperiod gates of Naw Bahār was removed; in 575/1179–80.12 This means that our Arabic author was born no later than 565/1169–70: five years after the Qarakhitāy took Balkh and placed the western Qarakhānids as their vassals to rule over it. Moreover, the Shaykh al-Islām travelled as a pilgrim to some of the tombs of FB’s saints during the year 582/1186–7, when he went to Bukhara and Faryāb of Jūzjānān. If he was born in 565/1169–70, he would have been about seventeen years old on this trip. He also travelled six years later in 588/1192–3 to Wāshgird in Transoxania—a frontier post against people of the Buttamān Mountains (in today’s southern Tajikistan)—at which point he was about twenty years old. The transcription of his speeches was completed in 610/1214 when he was ca. forty-five years old. He writes that, ‘in forty years since 570/1174–5, I have seen twenty-six unjust rulers in Balkh’.13 From his use of the sources and scientific method, as well as his relations to Balkh’s seventieth and last saint who was his teacher, we (p.26) can gather that the Arabic author enjoyed a good education.14 His title of shaykh al-Islām tells us that he had a high social status. The author’s teacher was a shaykh alIslām as well, and the author visited his house in 584/1188–9 where the teacher’s son Tāj al-Dīn gave him further instructions/dictations (imlāʾ). Tāj alDīn retrieved the notes in his father’s library, and made books out of them.15 In one anecdote the Persian translator paraphrases the Arabic author, who wrote about his encounter with a certain Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamadānī. The latter asked the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ whether he had come across the compositions (taṣānīf) of Balkh’s fortieth shaykh, Abū Bakr al-Warrāq (d. 294/906–7). The Hamadānī shaykh asked for ten copies at any price which he would match with gold, silver and other books. Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ, who praised the work highly, sent the

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 books to Hamadānī without responding to the offer for recompense.16 We are to gather from this account that the Arabic author was generous and kind. The Persian translator of FB does not provide any conclusive information on the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ’s death.17 The original, Arabic version of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh was transcribed in Ramaḍān of 610/January 1214, but the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ ended his biographical account twenty-six years before with his master’s death in 584/1188–9. This may explain why the Shaykh al-Islām makes no direct mention of the approaching Mongols (Balkh was occupied by Chinggis Khan himself in 618/1221). It appears that a plausible date for the composition is sometime between 584/1188–9 and 610/1214, most probably in the 590s/1190s. The identity of the Persian translator is obscure. What we know of him is limited to what he tells us in the preface. He introduces himself as ʿAbd Allāh [b. Muḥammad] b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī, and states that he completed his translation in the month of dhū al-qaʿda (p.27) 676/1278.18 Al-Ḥusaynī only reluctantly conceded to the request of Abū Bakr [ʿAbd Allāh] b. Abī [al-Farīd] al-Balkhī to translate into Persian the book on the merits of Balkh and its people (faḍāʾil-i Balkh wa shamāyil-i ahālī-yi way), which was composed in Arabic by Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar [b. Muḥammad] b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿiẓ Ṣafī al-Milla wa-l-Dīn alBalkhī. Al-Ḥusaynī justifies his reluctance with the usual protocol of modesty used by medieval writers. He was asked to do so by friends, after Abū Bakr [ʿAbd Allāh] b. Abī [al-Farīd] al-Balkhī had come across a single surviving manuscript.19 This manuscript has since gone missing. Whether the Persian translator of FB belonged to the religious establishment cannot be said with any certainty, but his Arabic skills would point to a high educational level. ʿAbd al–Ḥayy -Ḥabībī, the editor of FB, suggests that alḤusaynī was a descendant of the ʿAlid Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn alḤusaynī (d. 537/1142–3) profiled as Balkh’s sixty-seventh shaykh, but this contention has no basis except for the common surname.20 It is obvious that alḤusaynī was a Muslim, and had a sound understanding of the method of historical falsification used in Islamic scholarship. He frequently quotes in Arabic from the Arabic original with statements like, ‘the Shaykh al-Islām alWāʿiẓ states that …’ Clearly, he did not see his role as an invisible translator, which suggests that the Persian FB is really a Persian adaptation of the Arabic text. This becomes even more obvious when comparing the Arabic quotes to the Persian ‘translations’, which are often not literal. Al–Ḥusaynī was following what was standard practice at the time, when translators had a creative licence to add to and shorten their base text.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (p.28) What the Faḍā ʾ il-i Balkh says

A 1971 Tehran edition constitutes FB’s sole critical edition thus far, and it was carried out by the Afghan scholar ʿAbd al–Ḥayy -Ḥabībī. The edition provides: • A translator’s preface of six pages; • The author’s introduction (miftāḥ al-kitāb) of five pages; • First part (faṣl) entitled ‘The merits that are attested in texts’ (fī faḍāʾilihā al-manṣūṣa) of thirty pages; • Second part entitled ‘Its qualities that are characteristic that can be perceived’ (fī shamāʾil al-makhṣūṣa al-maḥsūsa bihā) of twelve pages; • Third part entitled ‘The ʿulamāʾ’ of 333 pages; and • Conclusion (khātima) of three pages. The author’s miftāḥ includes a table of contents. The first part, which I loosely call the ‘historical section’, is largely a collection of pre-Islamic traditions and selected Islamic historical traditions on Balkh. The historical section does not continue to the author’s time, but ends with the ninth-century Banījūrids. It calls into question whether the author was at all interested in giving a full account of Balkh’s history. The early cut-off date may possibly also be a clue as to the era in which the lost original local histories on which FB is based were written. Part Two, which I call the ‘geographical section’, is less scholarly and is based on the author’s observations or those of his sources. Full of praise, it reads rather like a personal exposé or tourist brochure on the delights of the city and its mountainous surroundings, its notables (religious and secular) and its inhabitants generally. It does not entail a complicated referencing system (no isnāds are given), as it only discusses what can be ‘perceived by the senses’ (maḥsūsa). The language is, again, heavily influenced by the religious faḍāʾil concepts of purity, abundance and fertility. Part Three, which forms the bulk of FB, is a collection of seventy biographies, or rather, hagiographies. The focus is on the subjects’ scholarly achievements, and the tone is again filled with effusive praise and respectful deference. In the entries the author is at pains to point out the titles of books which the scholars and mystics had written themselves. He also includes anecdotes that exemplify the (p.29) accomplishments of these great men. The author is careful to cite his sources on all shaykhs, except for the last seven (nos. 64–-70). Al-Wāʿiẓ justifies the selection of people profiled in FB with these words:21 (In Arabic):22 Ignoring23 all [these worthy men] is bad; and proclaiming some24 is sweet. Mentioning all is hard; and25 some is a lot already. May God make their spirits holy and pure, and may God make them our guides on account of their virtue and mercy.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 The lengths of the biographies are uneven. Some are less than a page long, while others may reach thirty pages. The biographies are organized chronologically, beginning with a contemporary of the Prophet Muḥammad and personalities involved in the Muslim conquests of the seventh century AD, and ending with the Arabic author’s teacher, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm alZāhid al-Balkhī (d. 584/1188–9). The translator did not add any personalities from his own time, but left the seventy ‘frozen’ in time to represent what seems to have been a ‘golden era’ of scholarship. That this era had passed is illustrated by the following excerpt in which the translator refers to the author of the pages before him. Excerpt:26 And where is that great man [the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ] now to see where those colourful cock pheasants that flew wherever they pleased have gone? Where have these great men (lit. lions) of the age gone—they, who in the comfort of their own house would break the (p.30) weak?27 And where are those kings with dignity and good judgement, the ʿulamāʾ of sound advice, the good-natured ḥakīms and the pious [men of] pure manners28? All of them have been toppled from their high seats of contentment and power to below the level of abasement. Neither kings nor throne have survived, and neither dominion nor fortune remained. It seems like they were a gust of wind that turned away, or a cloud that spiralled forth. Their eloquent speech has been silenced, and their beloved pen has worn out through use. Those trees and fruits have been reduced to thorns and scrub, and all those great buildings have been demolished. The Persian translator explains his abridgement of chains of transmission (asānīd) as a measure to make the text more palatable. Excerpt:29 Of that which the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī—may God illuminate his grave—had cited from the superior chains of reliable transmitters down to their original source (asānīd ʿālī az thiqāt-i ruwāt muʿanʿan tā bi sar-i chishma-yi maqṣūd), some of those chains of transmission *have been removed; so that the Persian-speakers (pārsī-zabānān)* do not get confused and understand the point and the matter more quickly.30 Abridgement (iqtiṣār uftād) has been made to one original transmitter31 from whom a chain of transmissions ensued. FB’s audience is less palpable than its authorial intent. Who would care to listen to, or read, the accounts in FB? It is probably safe to say that the simplification of the isnāds rendered FB less appealing for a scholarly crowd. However, students or literate non-scholars may have been interested to listen to the stories on Balkh’s great men. The (p.31) question is, who were the PersianPage 6 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 speakers (pārsī-zabānān) to whom the Persian author addressed FB? Presumably, the audience could not read or write in Arabic, which was the scholarly language of the time. It seems quite possible that the audience consisted of lay people as well as scholars. If the intended audience was indeed nonprofessional, perhaps the discovery of the manuscript only fifty years after the Mongol conquest of Balkh served as a medium for reviving the prestige of Balkh. Another possible target may have been the Mongol rulers of Balkh, perhaps to endear them towards Balkh’s Islamic scholars and jurists.32 I find this unlikely, though, as the text does not mention the Mongols at all, nor does it pay its respects to the Mongol rulers as protocol would have required it. Moreover, it is written at a time that predates the Mongols’ final conversion to Islam (AD 1295). Manuscripts and Editions of the Faḍā ʾ il-i Balkh

There are four known manuscripts of FB. Three of them, one in Paris and two in St Petersburg, were used by ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī for his 1971 edition of FB. Another uncatalogued manuscript in Pakistan was studied and described in 2002 by ʿĀrif Nawshāhī.33 The oldest of the four manuscripts is housed at the Département des Manuscrits (Division Orientale) at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) in Paris, and is identified as Persan-115 (see facsimile in Plate 4). The manuscript is not dated but, based on stylistic similarities with Tīmūrid manuscripts, can be dated to the (p.32) late fourteenth/early fifteenth century.34 It misses a page of the preface and the last quarter of the book, that is, the biographies nos. 59–-70 and conclusion; thus it lacks an incipit or excipit. Ḥabībī assessed that Persan-115 was written in a fine hand, but contained many errors.35 The body of the manuscript is written in relatively large nastaʿlīq script using a thick pen in black. The section headings are written in Arabic in thuluth script using a thick pen in red ink. Each folio has twelve lines of writing surrounded by a fine double border in dark grey. The manuscript of Persan-115 is first attested in a 1735 inventory made by the librarian Armain for the Persian and Turkish manuscripts of the French Imperial Library, the precursor to the BNF (see Plate 5).36 The previous owner had been Cardinal Jules Mazarin (d. 1661) who had succeeded his mentor Cardinal Richelieu as the Chief Minister of France from 1642 until his death. Mazarin may have obtained it from the French ambassador in Constantinople from 1639 to 1661, Jean de la Haye-Ventelet, or his son Denis who arrived between 1653 and 1660 and was ambassador in 1665–70.37 Mazarin was disgraced in his late years. After his death his books and manuscripts were ‘exchanged’ by force for duplicates in the king’s library in 1668. One of these manuscripts was FB. The (p.33) king’s library eventually became the BNF, which is why we find Persan-115 there today.38

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 The binding of Persan-115 bears the seal of Napoleon Bonaparte I (r. 1804–14, 1815), thus indicating that it post-dates Armain’s inventory by another seventy years or so. The manuscript’s 207 folios are produced in quires and have been cut to a size of 185 × 260 cm. The paper is ‘laid’, i.e. ribbed, and probably of Afghan or Central Asian origin (it has no watermark, which is typical of nonEuropean paper at this time).39 In 1905, Edgar Blochet listed it under the classification code no. 519 of the library’s Persian manuscripts.40 An uncatalogued manuscript of FB (shortened here to ‘PAK’) was studied in a 2002 article by the Pakistani scholar ʿĀrif Nawshāhī.41 The manuscript belonged to the private collection of the then-recently deceased Afghan national Khalīl alRaḥmān Dawoodi in Lahore. Nawshāhī transcribed the biographies numbered 59–70 of the manuscript, providing a second witness to Ḥabībī’s edition (which was limited to the St Petersburg manuscript C453-1 for these biographies; see below). PAK misses most of the translator’s preface, but only ends in the middle of biography no. 70. This means PAK is the second-most complete manuscript of FB (after C453-3). Manuscript dating is complicated by the missing incipit and excipit and the illegibility of the seal. The script of PAK is small nastaʿlīq using a thin pen and ink of various colours.42 Iraj Afshar estimated, on the basis of a cursory study of the photocopy of PAK during his visit to Oxford in November 2007, that it was copied in the seventeenth century, thus corroborating what Nawshāhī had suggested previously. This makes (p.34) the Lahore manuscript older than the two St Petersburg manuscripts by some two hundred years. Nawshāhī reports that the differences between PAK and Persan-115 are the same as those between PAK and C453-3/C453-1.43 Moreover, the same biographies are missing from PAK and C453-3/C453-1 (nos. 25, 41 and 42). The text for the biographies of nos. 25 and 41 and only the beginning of no. 42 has been either left blank or blotted out in PAK—the photocopy does not allow me to know for sure, although the smudging appears to indicate a deliberate blotting out. Two manuscripts of FB are catalogued as C453-3 (ba 574ag) and C453-1 (ba 574ag), and are deposited with the Department of Oriental Manuscripts, St Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of the Sciences (see facsimiles in Plates 6 and 7). They are bound together in one leather binding identified as C453.44 Manuscript C453-1 is a fragment, written in nastaʿlīq script, and breaks off at biography no. 15. C453-3 is well produced and written in a different hand and in the naskh script. It is the most complete of all the manuscripts of FB, and is the only one that has an incipit. The biographies of the shaykhs numbered 25, 41 and 42 are missing from both C453-3 and C453-1, based on which Miklukho-

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Maklai suggests that they are direct copies of one and the same previous generation manuscript that is currently lost to us.45 C453 was copied by Muḥammad Sharīf b. Mullāh Ḥasan Khwāja al-Bukhārī, who signed off C453-3 and the fragment at the end of the binding. He also stamped his seal four times in the incipit of C453-1, twice in the excipit of C453-3 and on the very last page of the compilation. The seal is dated to 1284/1866. The manuscripts were probably copied somewhere in the Bukhara Emirate, perhaps even Bukhara itself.46 The manuscript arrived in the department of what was then the Asiatic Museum amongst a set of manuscripts bequeathed by a (p.35) Russian Orientalist of German-Armenian descent, Aleksandr Ludvigovich Kun (1840–88, also spelled Kuhn) and known in Central Asia as Iskandar Tūra (d. 1888). Kun’s most important period of activity was his service in Central Asia, where on behalf of the Turkestan Governorate-General47 he collected manuscripts, archives and other materials, joining the military campaigns to Kītāb of Shahr-i Sabz, Iskanderkul, Kokand and Khiva.48 Boris Dorn reports that Kun had acquired 300 manuscripts at the siege of Khiva, for example. A large number of the manuscripts were sent back to St Petersburg to the Imperial Public Library, but some never left Kun’s possession until they were donated to the Asiatic Museum after his death: FB was one of the latter texts to which Kun held on.49 Kun’s heirs donated C453 together with 134 other manuscripts two years after his death.50 Accordingly, C453 is included by Carl Salemann (1891) as no. 66 (ba, 547 ag) in the list of items from the Kun collection.51 C453-3 (fol. 269b) also bears the name of Kun’s local secretary Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, probably written in his own hand. (p.36) The comparison between FB’s manuscripts allows us to draw up a possible stemmatic recension (see Figure 1). The shorter C453-1 may be a copy of the longer C453-3, and either of the two may be a copy of PAK, or the three stem from a common ancestor. Given the variations in errors, these three manuscripts cannot be from the same line as Persan-115. How close Persan-115 is to the original Persian translation dated 676/1278 we will not know until or unless earlier copies or indeed the original are found.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Editorial work on FB was first Fig. 1. Genealogy of FB’s manuscripts. carried out by Charles Schefer. He published in 1883 a transcription of the first and second parts of FB (i.e. the historical and geographical sections) found in Persan-115, together with a commentary in French.52 In 1938, Ṣādiq Kiyā published an abridgement of Schefer’s transcription in the Īrān-i kudā journal.53 In 1963, Ali Shariati, who later become one of the (p.37) foremost thinkers of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1978–9, submitted his doctoral thesis to the Sorbonne entitled, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh—“Les Ḿérites de Balkh”—Notes, corrections, et traduction abrégée’. Shariati’s thesis constituted a transcription and abridged translation into French of FB’s third part based on Persan-115 which included the first fifty-nine biographies. Finally, Ḥabībī published a critical edition of FB in Tehran in 1350/1971 based on Persan-115 as well as the two Russian manuscripts described earlier. He used a microfilm reproduction of Persan-115 as his base, and indicated textual variants seen on microfilm reproductions of C453-3 and C453-1. Ḥabībī does not describe his critical apparatus in any detail, and in his editorial footnotes he frequently switches at random between manuscripts without indicating that he is doing so or explaining why. Ḥabībī provided a commentary which appears in the same footnote stream, as well as a detailed index which was criticized rather severely by Ghulām-Riḍā Zarrīnchiyān in a book review as being ‘full of errors’. Zarrīnchiyān concluded that a corrigendum to Ḥabībī’s edition was needed, particularly with regard to the index. Zarrīnchiyān has a point in that Ḥabībī’s index is largely unusable because the page numbers are out of kilter by about thirty to forty pages (although this is an editorial/publishing problem as Ḥabībī points out in his defence).54 Text and historical memory

It is difficult to say how extensive the reach of FB was in its own time. We do not have data or even indications of the number of copies that were made or sold. Islamic historians often face this problem, and try to find references to the work in question in other sources to ascertain its popularity or dissemination level. However, local histories in Central Asia did not circulate widely beyond their own region, and the time of FB was unfortunate in that it only predates the Mongol (p.38) conquests by a few years. The Mongol raids must have put a virtual halt to the dissemination of written materials, and the adoption of paper as a medium—vulnerable to fires and water leaks—ironically, would have contributed to their demise. In fact, a search for references to a work entitled Faḍāʾil-i Balkh would be too limited, given that FB—or parts of it—were probably better known under other names, such Tārīkh Balkh or Maḥāsin Balkh. Its antedating the Mongol conquest only by a few years probably muted the impact. The surprise at the discovery of the Arabic manuscript conveyed by the translator of FB in his preface suggests Page 10 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 that memory of the Arabic manuscript had been lost only sixty-six years after the Arabic original had been written.55 After FB’s own time, the Tīmūrids copied the Persian FB, of which Persan-115 is the sole specimen surviving. Much of FB’s content, perhaps based on Persan-115, reappeared from the Shaybānid period onwards under different titles and with varying recensions. Akhror Mukhtarov (1993 [1980]) lists the Shaybānid copies of texts on Balkh. The list includes a sixteenth-century Majmaʾ al-qarāʿib of Sultan Muḥammad b. Darwīsh Muḥammad al-Muftī al-Balkhī, a native and resident of Balkh,56 a seventeenth-century Subḥān Qulī-nāma by Muḥammad Ṣalāḥ Siyāhgirdī Balkhī,57 and a nineteenth-century copy of the Haftād mashāyikh-i Balkh by Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Nidāya b. Amīr ʿAbd Allāh b. Amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Shaykh Khalīl Allāh al-Wirūsajī al-Badakhshī (fl. 1003/1594–5) also appears under the name Tārīkh-i shahr-i Balkh (TSB). The latter work is also known by a third name—the Tārīkh-i mazārāt-i Balkh (abbreviated in this book to Mazārāt), which Ḥabībī used for his edition. Mukhtarov also used a work studied by M. A. Salakhetdinova (1970), the Tārīkh-i rāqimī covering fourteenth to seventeenth-century Central Asian history. It was written in the late seventeenth century by Mīr Sayyid Sharīf Rāqim.58 Mukhtarov also cites an unpublished compilation of fiqh works discovered in Pandzikent in 1976 that refer to buildings in (p.39) Balkh.59 All of these works include elements of Balkh’s pre-Mongol history found in FB. The most direct link can be made between FB and Haftād mashāyikh-i Balkh by al-Wirūsajī al-Badakhshī (fl. 1003/1594–5).60 Another strong link exists between FB and a work not cited by Mukhtarov, the Baḥr al-asrār of Maḥmūd b. Amīr Wālī (c. 1055/1645) of which there are manuscripts in Tashkent and London. Hermann Ethé characterized the work as ‘a rare and detailed history of the Uzbek khāns of Transoxania’ with sections on neighbouring countries.61 I found that the section on the ‘neighbouring country’ of Balkh is lifted almost verbatim from FB. Some thirty folios cover the history of the dār al-Islām of Balkh: the content matches that of FB (so a chronicle and biographies from pre-Islamic times to the twelfth century). The Balkh text is attributed largely to ‘Ṣafī al-Dīn’. This is probably Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ, the Arabic author of FB, whose laqab was Ṣafī al-Milla wa-l-Dīn. The Baḥr al-asrār also cites one of FB’s main sources, Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (no. 51), as well as some later authors. To my knowledge, no one has identified the link between FB and the Baḥr al-asrār, but here we have a good example of how parts of FB were picked up by a later source from the region. In the eighteenth century a work in Balkh entitled Jarīda was written, which includes major sections of FB that were also picked up by the Baḥr al-asrār.62 Moreover, in the nineteenth century we find copies of FB in the Bukhara Emirate, that is, C453-3 and C453-1.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Balkh continues to capture the imagination of modern historians working in Afghanistan, Iran and Europe. A number of more recent monographs include literary, legal and topographical works, notably (p.40) Mīr ʿĀbidīnī’s (1372 H.Sh./1972) Balkh dar tārīkh wa adab-i fārsī;63 also Muḥammad Mudarris’ (1978) Mashāyikh Balkh min al-ḥanafiyya wa-mā infaradū bihi min al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya based on his doctoral dissertation in 1978.64 There is also Āzarmīdukht Farīdanī’s (1997) Balkh—Kuhantarīn shahr-i īrānī-yi āsiyā-yi markazī 65 and the very recent publication in Tehran of a two-volume anthology of Balkh’s scholars throughout history by Mahdī Raḥmānī Walawī and Manṣūr Jaghatāʾī (1383/2004– 5 and 1386/2007–8).66 A modern wall displaying dozens of plaques (see Plate 8), each dedicated to one of Balkh’s ‘saints’, in the modern provincial capital of Mazār-i Sharīf attests to FB’s continued legacy. The text is the only written source cited here.

The Question of Sources The sources an author cites in his book tell us a lot about the genre, or tradition of history-writing, that he follows. A source-critical study also offers us precious insight into the kinds of books a medieval library of a Balkhī scholar held. FB’s 1971 editor ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī enumerated sixteen sources consulted by the author of FB, and Berndt Radtke in 1986 identified a smaller set that is not identical to Ḥabībī’s.67 Together, Ḥabībī’s and Radtke’s lists account for just over half the sources one can actually find, namely a total of 31.68 In the (p.41) inventory of texts that has been compiled, most of the sources are classified in one of five established categories of Islamic history-writing: the biographical genre of ṭabaqāt, the merit-focused genre of faḍīla, legal and juridical works (of adab, nazīla, amālī), mystical and Sufi treatises, and poetry. The orthography and detail on titles and authors’ names are given below in the sub-headings as they appear in FB. The biographical compilations of scholars (ṭabaqāt)

In the introduction FB singles out five sources that were used by the Shaykh alIslām al-Wāʿiẓ for his composition. All of them belong to the ṭabaqāt category.69 This is a biographical genre that involves the classification of Islamic scholars into levels (first, second, etc.), with brief entries on each scholar’s professional credentials, the names of their teachers or famous students, their scholarly or pious visits abroad, and their written works.70 None of these sources is extant. In total FB cites six (source nos. 1–6) ṭabaqāt works: (1) A ṭabaqāt work by ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Jūybārī al-Warrāq (fl. 300/912): FB uses this work as a source on the early shaykhs of Balkh, Rūmān al-Balkhī (no. 1) and ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Sāʾib (no. 4).71 The bibliographer al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497) refers to this work, stating that al-Jūybārī conceived his ṭabaqāt as a history of Balkh, and had arranged it not alphabetically but according to the Page 12 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 main cities of Balkh Province. Al-Sakhāwī’s editor Franz Rosenthal found a reference to al-Jūybārī’s (p.42) ṭabaqāt in a manuscript of Ibn al-Najjār’s (d. 643/1245) Dhayl Tārīkh Baghdād.72 (2) A four-volume ṭabaqāt work by ʿAlī b. al-Faḍl b. al-Ṭāhir al-Balkhī (d. 323/934– 5?): FB cites this work in the biographies of Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10, d. 163/779–80) and Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240).73 Al-Sakhāwī listed the work and its author, and four centuries before him al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071) used it for his Tārīkh Baghdād.74 (3) Kitāb ʿulamāʾ Balkh (‘The Book on the Scholars of Balkh’): This work consisted of fourteen volumes arranged in alphabetical order. It was written by Shaykh al-Islām Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad al-Mustamlī (d. 376/986–7). This al-Mustamlī is, in fact, one of Balkh’s saints (no. 52). FB refers to his work as a source for the life of Balkh’s shaykh Abū Bakr Tarkhān (no. 46, d. 333/944–5).75 Al-Samʿānī (d. 562/1166) gave al-Mustamlī an entry as a great ḥadīth scholar, shaykh and historian of Balkh.76 Al-Sakhāwī explains that alMustamlī’s ṭabaqāt on the scholars of Balkh was arranged alphabetically, and he found that the work included some ‘improper’ akhbār.77 Radtke adds that alMustamlī had ‘Shīʿite leanings’, but does not provide further evidence for this.78 (4) Kitāb al-Bahja (‘The Book of Joy’), a small book by Shaykh al-Islām Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Naṣīrī (Nuṣayrī) al-Balkhī (d. 411/1020): The author is FB’s fifty-third shaykh, and the first person in Balkh to hold the title of ‘Shaykh al-Islām’. Al-Sakhāwī mentions this author and his book, which focused on Abū Ḥanīfa, his two successors, Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad b. alḤasan al-Shaybānī, and some of their (p.43) circle of thirty or so people. The last of the men in the circle is Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (no. 51, d. 376/987).79 (5) Kitāb-i Tārīkh-i/Tawārīkh-i Balkh by Sayyid(-zāda) Imām Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū alQāsim al-Shahīd [al-Ḥusaynī] al-Samarqandī (d. 556/1161): FB describes in the introduction that this work existed in five notebooks (dafātīr) and was about the good qualities of the ‘pure tomb’ (turbat-i pāk) of Balkh and its people. FB also mentions that Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Samarqandī’s tārīkh provided a chronological list of Balkh’s qāḍīs up to Abū Jaʿfar al-Zhālī (b.?) Abī al-Qaṣīr (no. 63, d. 517/1123) from whom al-Samarqandī had received a personally written (bi khaṭṭ-i mubārak-i khwud) ijāza. The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ consulted a copy (khwīsh nawishta) in which he had recorded what he had heard in the lectures (samāʿ) of al-Zhālī.80 The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ cites Nāṣir al-Dīn alSamarqandī’s tārīkh in the biographies of Saʿīd al-Maqburī (no. 3, d. 123/740–1 or 126/743–4), Shaddād al-Ḥakīm (no. 22, d. 214/829), the qāḍī al-quḍāt Shaykh Page 13 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 al-Islām ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ṣayrafī (no. 55, d. 454/1062), Abū ʿAlī al-Wakhshī (no. 56, d. 471/1078–9), Abū Bakr al-Sarakhsī (no. 59, d. 481/1082–83), al-Ḥusayn al-Maḥmūdī (no. 60, d. 506/1112–13) and Abū Jaʿfar alZhālī (no. 63, d. 517/1123).81 The tārīkh of Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Samarqandī still existed in al-Sakhāwī’s time in the fifteenth century when it was bound in one volume and arranged alphabetically (beginning with the Muḥammads, Aḥmads, and Ibrāhīms), including the patronymics. Brockelmann states the author also composed a monograph on the poets of Balkh.82 Despite its title, this is not a work of the tārīkh genre as we understand it—the genre of history-writing that follows a chronicle format, and deals with dates, places, and events—but belongs to the biographical genre. At this stage, I should like to point to an earlier (p.44) work with the same title of Tārīkh-i Balkh which was composed by Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl al-Balkhī [al-Azharī].83 Ali Shariati probably guessed correctly in his doctoral thesis on FB that this is Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl b. al-Azhar al-Balkhī (d. 316/928–29), who is profiled in FB as Balkh’s fortysecond shaykh.84 The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ credits him with having written other works (Kitāb al-Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-Daqāʾiq and a Shamāʾil al-ṣāliḥīn), but not a work by the name of Tārīkh Balkh.85 Yet another Tārīkh Balkh is attributed by Ḥājjī Khalīfa to Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī (d. 319/931), the famous Muʿtazilī scholar from Balkh who died three years after Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl. According to Albert Nader, the Muʿtazilī scholar also wrote a Kitāb Maḥāsin Khurāsān.86 Thus these five key sources consulted by FB were Arabic-language biographical dictionaries of the ṭabaqāt genre that focus on religious personalities and upholders of sharīʿa law. The biographical listings were ordered alphabetically in two sources, by region in one, by madhhab with a heavy focus on Balkh in another, and in yet another, perhaps a hybrid chronological-regional ṭabaqāt order. The one tārīkh work is, in fact, a local history created through biographies. The authors lived in the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD, and were from the Khurāsān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr region. (6) Kitāb-i Wāqidī: Another ṭabaqāt source mentioned in FB is the Kitāb-i Wāqidī in the biographies of the early shaykhs, Rūmān al-Balkhī (no. 1), the tābiʿ Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (no. 2, d. 100/718–19, 105/723, or 106/724) and Saʿīd al-Maqburī (no. 3, d. 123/740–1 or 126/743–4).87 Al-Wāqidī (p.45) (d. 207/822) was a historian in Medina and an expert on fiqh. He was an important authority, and was often cited by transmitters to give authenticity to assertions on the early Islamic period. AlWāqidī was patronized by the Barmakid vizier Yaḥyā b. Khālid al-Barmakī (in office, 170–87/786–803). The vizier eventually introduced him to the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809), who appointed al-Wāqidī as qāḍī. Only alWāqidī’s Kitāb al-Maghāzī, which is a work on historical and legendary facts, survives today. Traces of other works by al-Wāqidī indicate he also wrote an alPage 14 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Futūḥ, an al-Kāmil, an al-Mubāyaʿāt, as well as a Taʾrīkh al-Wāqidī. Ali Shariati suggests that the ‘Kitāb-i Wāqidī’ is in fact al-Wāqidī’s Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt, which was one of the very first works of its genre based upon which his student Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845) put together his well-known Ṭabaqāt. Al-Wāqidī’s ṭabaqāt focused on the biographies of the ṣaḥāba, their successors and the traditionists of Kūfa and Baṣra, and may well have been a model followed by the later Khurāsānī ṭabaqāt writers.88 What are we to make of FB’s relation to the ṭabaqāt? Chase Robinson suggests that the ṭabaqāt grew out of the early Islamic tradition’s ‘love of lists,’ whereby names were constantly collected. ‘Listing is a narrative strategy,’ writes Robinson, ‘the longer one’s lists the greater one’s industry.’89 The biographical data were also grouped and defined by place and profession, thus forming what is known as prosopography, he explains. However, the quantitative approach is not what seems to drive FB, as we have seen. Another analyst of the genre, Ibrahim Hafsi, distinguishes between the Arabic and Persian approach to the ṭabaqāt. Hafsi remarks that the tenth century saw a ‘Persian revolutionary approach’, exemplified by the ṭabaqāt of Isfahan and Hamadān, which focused on the successors of the Companions of the Prophet (tābiʿūn) who had emigrated specifically to the Persian-speaking lands. Hafsi saw this as a narrative stra- tegy aimed at emphasizing that the Persian-speaking cities were in–corporated into the Islamic world. By the eleventh century, the chronological order affirmed itself, and by the twelfth century the (p.46) ‘Persian approach’ of eliminating long isnāds took root while the Andalusian ṭabaqāt, for example, continued the old, cumbersome system of citing the uninterrupted chain of transmitters.90 While the influence of the ṭabaqāt on FB can be felt, our text is not a ṭabaqāt work. Most of FB’s shaykhs are not given a classification number; the number of people selected is small, and extensive anecdotes and their tying into the history of the city makes FB a more complex text. Quality rather than quantity is the maxim of FB. While the prosopographies studied by Robinson, for example, provide basic biographical data on many people, and serve as tools of source authentication on matters of law, FB humanises Balkh’s seventy scholars, perhaps so that they can serve as models of good behaviour for the inhabitants of the city. Thus FB may well be part of a Persian revolutionary approach observed by Hafsi, giving the ṭabaqāt-influenced works of Central Asia a distinct flavouring in Islamic historiography. The genre of ‘merit-writing’ (faḍīla)

The locality-based faḍīla (lit. ‘merit’, sing. of faḍāʾil) is one of the oldest genres of history-writing in Arabic.91 Cities and regions were assigned special ‘merit’, on account of their early submission to Islam, the supposed presence of Companions in the place, and from a series of other events and circumstances in the city or region.92 It is arguable how much historical value one might assign to

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 faḍīla works as ‘sober’ sources on the history of cities or regions.93 The one source cited in FB that belongs to this genre is: (7) Manāqib Balkh (‘The Good Qualities of Balkh’) by Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl alBalkhī (d. 322/934): Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ mentions in his introduction to FB that Abū Zayd’s Manāqib Balkh is a great source on Balkh.94 The reference (p.47) is here to the polymath Abū Zayd al-Balkhī who became best known as one of the forefathers of Islamic geography. Unfortunately, his written works are no longer extant.95 Both Ibn al-Nadīm (d. ca. 385/995) and the much later al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497) credit Abū Zayd al-Balkhī with composing a Maḥāsin Khurāsān.96 Yāqūt interestingly attributes to Abū Zayd a book entitled Faḍāʾil-i Balkh which was lost in Yāqūt’s time.97 We also find a Taʾrīkh Balkh in Ḥājjī Khalīfa’s (d. 1067/1657) Kashf al-ẓunūn.98 We cannot overlook, of course, the possibility that the faḍīla genre is the namesake of FB itself. Given that FB’s faḍīla elements only account for a relatively small part of the work, it seems likely that FB’s title was assigned to it by European cataloguers: as we have seen earlier, the earliest manuscript lacks an incipit and we cannot be sure of FB’s original title.99 Legal and juridical reference works

The largest number of sources cited in FB constitute legal and juridical handbooks and guides. Totalling eight (source nos. 8–16 below), they appear in the biographies of Balkh’s shaykhs as works which either they consulted or wrote themselves. These are works of sub-genres, like the nazīla, adab (particularly on the conduct for qāḍīs), and amālī: (8) Kitāb al-Qaḍiyya (‘Book of Jurisprudence’): FB cites the Kitāb al-Qaḍiyya in the biography of al-Qāsim (b.) Zurayq (no. 20, d. 201/816–-17), the son-in-law of the famous qāḍī Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14, d. 204/819–-20).100 Radtke suggests that this is the work listed in GAS under the title Adab al-qāḍī written by (p.48) Abū Yūsuf al-Qāḍī (d. 182/798).101 Rulebooks and guides for the conduct of the qāḍīs were already an established genre of the time, so there were probably numerous works by that name. For example, the recent Beirut edition of the Fatāwā al-nawāzil by Abū al-Layth alSamarqandī (d. 373/983) also has a section called Kitāb al-Qaḍiyya.102 AlShaybanī, one of Abū Ḥanīfa’s direct disciples, wrote a Kitāb Adab al-qāḍī, which was used by Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsī (no. 59, d. 481/1082–3).103 (9) ʿUyūn al-masāʾil (‘The Origins of Cases’) by Abū Bakr [Aḥmad] al-Fārisī (d. 305/917):

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Radtke identified the author of this work, Abū Bakr [Aḥmad] al-Fārisī, in Ibn alNadīm’s (d. ca. 385/995) Fihrist and Yāqūt’s (d. 626/1229) Muʿjam al-buldān. It appears to be a legal book, one focused on the evidence bases for legal cases.104 (10) Al-Nawāzil fī al-furūʿ (‘Collection of Applied Fiqh’) by Abū al-Layth alSamarqandī (d. 373/983): Nawāzil (pl. of nazīla) refers to the practice of law in a court (maḥkama) or by independent specialists. The authors of such works used material from their own experiences and from the works of their predecessors with the purpose of offerering the readership, above all the qāḍīs, a choice of questions bearing on specific cases and together with the solutions adopted in practice. Amongst the best-known works of nawāzil is this very one, used by FB as a source on a large number of Balkh’s shaykhs. This is the only legal source of the FB I know to be extant today (surviving in several manuscripts). It is, therefore, particularly important for us, and I will devote more attention to it. The author, Abū al-Layth Naṣr b. Ibrāhīm al-Khaṭṭāb al-Samarqandī, is a well-known Ḥanafī scholar, who is also profiled in FB as Balkh’s fifty-first shaykh. According to Sezgin, this nawāzil work is a collection of legal opinions issued by Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Fārisī (author of (p.49) source no. 9 above), amongst others.105 Abū al-Layth’s Nawāzil was followed by a mukhtaṣar in which fatwās and nawāzil were mingled together.106 In FB’s biographical profile of Abū al-Layth, we are told that he composed a number of other works: a Mabsūṭ, Jāmiʿīn(?), al-Ziyādāt [fī al-furūʿ al-ḥanafiyya], Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, Bustān al-ʿārifīn, Mukhtalif al-riwāya, a tafsīr, a work of fiqh and one on the details of the applied law (ruʾūs al-masāʾil). Most of these survive in multiple manuscripts.107 Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn is a work of observations on morality and renunci-ation. Bustān al-ʿārifin is a work of entertainment about the various objects of theological, philosophical, juridical and other fields, and consists of 155 short chapters. Mukhtalif al-riwāya survives in two different recensions. An ʿUyūn al-masāʾil fī al-furūʿ attributed to Abū al-Layth alSamarqandī also exists in various manuscripts.108 Based on an index made by Eyyüp Kaya of the Istanbul University Library manuscript of Abū al-Layth’s Nawāzil, I was able to identify at least sixteen of the men profiled in FB, and even some of the lesser known shuyūkh (e.g. FB biography nos. 26, 33 and 37). The last common biography is that of the wellknown Ḥanafī of Balkh, Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49), who probably died a few years before Abū al-Layth completed his nawāzil.109 FB tells us that Abū alLayth was buried at the Hindūwān Gate of Balkh at the head of Abū Jaʿfar alHindūwānī’s grave.110 (p.50) (11) Kitāb al-Nawādir (‘Book of Rarities’) by the faqīh Abū al-Layth:

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 FB cites the source in the biography of the great qāḍī Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14).111 Nawādir is a genre that involves listing in anthological format anecdotes on rarities. FB’s reference may be erroneous for Abū al-Layth’s Nawāzil mentioned previously, or FB may be referring to a Kitāb al-Nawādir written by someone else, most notably one listed in GAS and composed by Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsī who was one of Balkh’s saints (no. 59, d. 481/1082–3). But while most of al-Samarqandī’s other books survive in manuscript form and are listed in GAS, no such title is linked to him. GAS lists a nawādir work as a source on the Ḥanafī traditionist Abū Sulaymān Mūsā b. Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī (n. 27) who is profiled in FB.112 (12) Al-Dalāʾil al-bayyināt/nubuwwa 113 (‘The Proofs [and] Evidences’) by Abū alʿAbbās [Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad al-Nasafī] [al-Muʿtazz] al-Mustaghfirī (d. 432/1042): FB cites al-Mustaghfirī’s work in the biography of Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl alBalkhī (no. 43). Al-Samʿānī lists the author in his Ansāb as a great ḥadīth scholar.114 The Dalāʾil appears to be a Ḥanafī law book on the types of legal evidence.115 This al-Mustaghfirī is also the author of the Arabic Taʾrīkh Samarqand, which is a lost source of al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand (the ‘Arabic Qandiyya’ for short) that was written by Najm al-Dīn al-Nasafī (d. 537/1142).116 (13) Jumlat al-gharāʾib (‘Collection of Curiosities’): FB refers to the Jumlat al-gharāʾib in the biography of the qāḍī Shaddād alḤakīm/Ḥukaym (no. 22). Ḥabībī, citing Ḥājjī Khalīfa (d. 1017/1609) and Ismāʿīl Pāshā Baghdādī (d. 1920), identified the work as a fourteen-volume ḥadīth work written by the Qurʾān (p.51) commentator Bayān al-Ḥaqq Shihāb al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Abī al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Nayshābūrī in 553/1158–9 at Khojand.117 (14) Amālī of Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī (d. 118/736): The amālī genre has an anthological character and probably goes back to the teachings on ḥadīth and legal scholarship. The amālī constitutes a memorized set of scholarly information dictated orally by a senior shaykh to a junior scholar acting as kātib or mustamlī. The dictations are subsequently read out during the senior shaykh’s lectures, and not infrequently repeated by the mustamlī to ensure the audibility of the content. One must imagine a large room with perhaps hundreds of students and interested scholars trying to listen to one man without a microphone. The mustamlī, also called muʿīd, is the ‘repetitor’.118 Amālī works were circulated amongst scholars. On this particular amālī work, FB’s editor Ḥabībī reads from one of the St Petersburg manuscripts the nonsensical name ‘Kayf al-Farḍī’, and suggests Kaʿb al-Quraẓī instead. Al-Quraẓī was one of the oldest tābiʿūn and scholars. This amālī is cited in the biography of the last shaykh, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad [b.] Page 18 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī (no. 70, d. 584/1188–9). The amālī is cited in reference to a Ḥusaynid akhbār which is only found in one of the St Petersburg manuscripts, making its authenticity questionable.119 (15) Amālī of qāḍī al-quḍāt Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Iskāfī: It is not clear who the author of this amālī is. The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ profiles this author (no. 47, d. 333/944–5), but no amālī work is attributed to him in FB’s biographical entry.120 (16) Amālī of the Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad [b. Ibrāhīm] al-Balkhī: This amālī work is attributed to the seventieth and last man profiled in FB: the Arabic author’s teacher who, as noted above, died in 584/1188–9. FB describes its inception: ‘Tāj [al-Dīn], the son of the (p.52) shaykh, took [his father’s notes] and made books out of them (waraq gardānīd). The second book consisted of amālī’.121 Mystical and Sufi treatises or biographical dictionaries

Another set of works deals with either asceticism or mystical Islamic thought. Some are rijāl works, thus following a similar tradition as the ṭabaqāt discussed earlier. Others combine biographies and ḥadīth attributed to mystics with information on their doctrinal and theological writing. Altogether the seven works (source nos. 17–23 below) in question do not form a genre as such, but I have grouped them for convenience: (17) Kitāb Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ: FB uses the source in the biography of Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19) and Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29), two shaykhs noted for their asceticism or renunciation (zuhd).122 This source exists in several editions today, and is well known to scholars of Sufism. Similarly, its popularity in FB’s time can be gathered from the abbreviated references to ‘Abū Nuʿaym’, for Abū Nuʿaym al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Iṣfahānī. The full title of the work is Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt al-aṣfiyāʾ (composed 422/1031). The author is also mentioned as the teacher of one of Balkh’s shaykhs called Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Wakhshī (no. 56).123 The Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ provides a general description of Sufism, and accounts and sayings by 649 pious people (nussāk) beginning with the four Righteous Caliphs.124 (18) A work by [al-] Qushayrī: FB cites al-Qushayrī twice in the biographies of the ḥakīm Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19) and shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (p.53) (no. 29).125 This is probably the Khurāsānī mystic and Shāfiʿī faqīh Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), and his Risāla (c. 438/1045). The fame of this work explains the abbreviated reference. The Risāla is an important compendium of the principles Page 19 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 and terminologies of Sufism, and several Cairo editions and an English translation exist today.126 In fact, the Risāla mentions at least three more of FB’s saints, namely Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9), Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12), and Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl al-Balkhī (no. 43).127 (19) Kitāb al-Salwa/ Salwat al-ʿārifīn/Kitāb al-ʿĀrifīn wa-uns al- mushtāqīn/Salwat al-ṣābirīn (‘Book of Comfort for the Knowledge-able/Patient’): FB cites this work in the biographies of Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 194/809–10), Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5), and Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl al-Balkhī (no. 43, d. 319/931). All three are noted for their piety (zuhd). Ḥabībī, citing Ḥājjī Khalīfa (d. 1067/1657), suggests that these are variant names for one work. I was able to find in the Kashf al-ẓunūn only a Kitāb al-Salwa attributed to Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Yūsuf al-Ṣūfī (d. 463/1070–1).128 Brockelmann, citing Ḥājjī Khalīfa, found a work entitled Salwat al-ʿārifīn wabustān al-muttakhidīn written by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 285/898). Brockelmann lists another work entitled Salwat al-ʿārifīn wa-uns al-mushtāqīn, cited by Tāj alDīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), which was written by Abū Khalaf Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Khalaf al-Ṭabarī (d. 470/1077). This kitāb consisted of twenty-two (or seventy-two?) volumes, of which the last volume included the biog-raphies of Sufis. The latter volume was modelled along the lines of al-Qushayrī’s (c. 438/1045) Risāla mentioned above.129 (p.54) (20) Kitāb al-Ḥadāʾiq li-ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq (‘The Enclosed Garden of the People of the Truth’):130 FB uses the work as a source on the biography of Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10), who is known for his piety (zuhd). Ḥabībī suggests that this is the Kitāb al-Ḥadāʾiq li-ahl al-ḥaqāʾiq on preachers (wuʿʿāẓ, sing. wāʿiẓ) written by Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200).131 Even though Ḥabībī’s assumption that FB’s author, a wāʿiẓ himself, would have had access to such a book is convincing, I do not think it fits the pattern of sources used in FB. Men noted for their zuhd are identified in FB through Sufi rijāl works.132 (21) Kitāb-i Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ: Here FB is referring to the extensive prose work that contains the biographies and sayings of Muslim mystics written by the Persian mystical poet Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. 617/1221 or earlier). It is in fact the only Persian-language source cited in FB. FB mentions the Tadhkira only once in the biography of Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10). However, I was not able to find this shaykh in the Tadhkira, while a number of other shaykhs are included, such as Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9), Shaqīq alBalkhī (no. 12), Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19), and Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29), as well as the poet Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī cited in FB. This is a relatively late

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 source compared to most others cited in FB, and it seems to me that it may have been added to the text by a later hand.133 (22) Kitāb al-Zuhd (‘Book of Renunciation’) by ʿAbbād b. Kathīr: FB mentions the work in the biographies of Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12) and Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14). The latter is even said to have met (p.55) ʿAbbād b. Kathīr.134 Richard Gramlich (1996), citing al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) and al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341), suggests that the author is either ʿAbbād b. Kathīr al-Thaqafī alBaṣrī (d. after 140/757) or ʿAbbād b. Kathīr al-Ramlī al-Filasṭīnī (d. after 170/786). The two fourteenth-century historians cite ʿAbbād b. Kathīr on traditions related to Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9).135 GAS lists fourteen works with the title Kitāb al-Zuhd, but none was written by an ʿAbbād b. Kathīr.136 (23) Several works by Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Warrāq al-Tirmidhī (no. 40, d. 294/906–-07): FB’s Arabic author specifies that he studied several of the works of al-Warrāq alTirmidhī who is profiled in FB (no. 40). Al-Warrāq al-Tirmidhī’s works included the Kitāb al-ʿĀlim wa-l-mutaʿallim, Kitāb al-Ikhlāṣ, Kitāb al-Ḥurūf, Kitāb al-ʿAtīq, Al-Fakkāk, Kitāb al-Darajāt, Kitāb al-ʿAhd, Kitāb al-Ṣaffār, Kitāb al-ʿAjab, Kitāb Khidmat al-bāṭin, and others which had spread into and circulated in Iraq. AlWarrāq al-Tirmidhī engaged in scholarly religious discourse (ṣuḥba) with FB’s shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29). The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ also visited his tomb.137 Poetry

On at least two occasions (source nos. 24 and 25 below), the Shaykh al-Islām cites a poem to make his point: (24) [Majdūd b. Ādam al-Ghaznawī] Sanāʾī (fl. early twelfth century): FB’s historical section includes a poem that was composed by Sanāʾī.138 Sanāʾī left his hometown of Ghazna for Balkh at the time of the Ghaznawid Sultan Masʿūd III’s power (r. 492–508/1099–1115). The poet describes his move to Balkh in his Kārnāma-yi Balkh, which is a long poem written in mathnawī verse. The exact dates of his life are not known with any certainty, but his sojourn in Balkh—probably around 508/1114–15—would have predated FB’s author by about (p.56) fifty years.139 De Bruijn noted that the poet’s time in Balkh was decisive for his career. Sanāʾī became strongly engaged with the Ḥanafī circles of Khurāsān, although probably only after his stay in Balkh.140 That FB cited Sanāʾī, and not another poet who visited Balkh like ʿUmar Khayyām (d. 517/1123)141 or Anwarī (d. ca. 585/1189),142 is perhaps related to Sanāʾī’s close ties to ʿulamāʾ and the Ḥanafī circles in the region.143 The poem is gloomy: What is the world, mankind, and the seeking of help?

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 ’Tis a rubbish dump full of dogs and vultures.144 The former strikes with the paw, That latter strikes with the beak. Eventually, all becomes naught, And all that remains is the carcase.145

(p.57) (25) Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī (d. 258/872): The second poem in FB is written in Arabic and attributed to the mystical poet Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī. The poet is also profiled in the Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, which al-Wāʿiẓ had consulted (see above). It comes at the end of FB’s geographical section, and in contrast to Sanāʾī’s poem it sets a cheery and pleasant tone for the biographies that follow. The poem has been translated in this way: We departed early in the morning from the people of Balkh, Upon Balkh, and upon those in it, let there be peace! We stayed for some time in Balkh in luxurious pleasure, For they are generous people. If ever you want to stay with people, Then in Balkh you will have a pleasant stay.146

Al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1038) gives a slight variant of the poem, which suggests that it was well known amongst the literati of Khurāsān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr of this era.147 Works for which no definite categorization is possible

(26) Several works by Ḥamīd al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar (c. 559/1164): FB mentions Ḥamīd al-Dīn’s works in the biography of this author’s uncle—the qāḍī al-quḍāt and sixtieth shaykh of FB, al-Ḥusayn al-Maḥmūdī (d. 506/1112– 13).148 The author was the qāḍī of Balkh who compiled a collection of Ḥamīdian sessions, which FB mentions as the Kitāb Maqāmāt. The work is highly stylized and describes, inter alia, episodes in his travels and Balkh just before the Ghuzz (p.58) invasions of 548/1153.149 FB also mentions a Kitāb Rawḍat al-riḍā, and ‘various Risālas’ written by Ḥamīd al-Dīn.150 His contemporary Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī highlights Ḥamīd al-Dīn as one of the writers adduced as models of style.151 (27) Kitāb-i Ḍaḥḥāk: FB mentions this work in the historical section.152 Shariati suggests that this is perhaps a book written by FB’s second shaykh Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (d. between 100/718–19 and 106/724–5).153 However, FB does not attribute any written work to him in the biographical entry, and it would be a far earlier book than any other consulted by FB. Moreover, the author is cited in reference to a period when Islamic-era Balkh had reached great prosperity, so probably a century

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 after Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim’s time. The fact that FB does not bother to give the title of the work may indicate again that it was a much-used source.154 (28) A work by Abū Hārūn al-Kātib: FB cites this Abū Hārūn in the introduction to a passage that is repeated in the historical section.155 It is not clear to whom FB is referring. The veracity of Francis Richard’s unequivocal statement on Persan-115 that Abū Hārūn al-Kātib is its author is highly doubtful.156 (29) Kitāb al-ʿĀfiya (‘Book of Blessing’) by ʿAlī b. [al-] Ḥasan [al-] Mustamlī: FB cites this source in the biography of the shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29). A shaykh by the name of Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan alMustamlī is profiled in the Arabic (p.59) Qandiyya as a repetitor (mustamlī)— the one who repeats after the teacher during a lecture—for the shaykhs of Samarqand. This al-Mustamlī is credited with a transmission from a certain ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Qaṣṣār who died in 490/1096–7. If he wrote the Kitāb al-ʿĀfiya, then this al-Mustamlī probably flourished in the twelfth century.157 (30) Nuzhat al-khāṭir (‘The Promenade of Memories’): FB cites the work in the biographies of Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19) and Muḥammad al-Faqīh al-Balkhī (no. 41). FB notes especially their renunciation (zuhd).158 Ḥabībī and Radtke (citing GAL), both identify a number of works called Nuzhat al-khāṭir, but all post-date FB’s composition.159 (31) Works (taṣānīf) of Harthama: FB cites the works of Harthama in the biography of Shaddād al-Ḥakīm (no. 22). It is unclear who this Harthama is, and what he wrote.160 Sources not cited

Having identified at least six literary genres in FB, it is worth noting the complete absence of the universal histories, such as the Tārīkh al-rusul wa-lmulūk, written by al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/932), and the adaptation into Persian by the Sāmānid vizier Balʿamī (d. ca. 363/974) who worked for the amīr ʿAbd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ (r. 343–350/954–61). We can also note the absence of sources on preIslamic Bactria, or even Sāsānian Iran. If we stay with al-Ṭabarī, for example, he cited the Khwādaynāmag (‘Book of Kings’), a Pahlavi text which had been translated into Arabic.161 Perhaps more relevant to the Balkh context (p.60) is the non-use of Pahlavi-to-Arabic translations that had been made by Balkhīs, such as the Kitāb-i Garshāsp by Abū al-Muʾayyad al-Balkhī, which is cited in the Tārīkh-i Sīstān (the latter was written mostly in 448/1062). The Tārīkh-i Sīstān also cites the Zoroastrian Bundahishn.162 Moreover, Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma epic (‘Book of Kings’) was completed in 400/1010 and presented to the Ghaznawid Page 23 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 sultan Maḥmūd (r. 388–421/998–1030), and other local historians make reference to this pseudo-historical source. Balkh is mentioned in the Avesta (Bāxδī),163 but still FB makes no mention of any written source on Balkh’s preIslamic past. One might argue that knowledge of these works was lost by the time the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ wrote, but only three decades earlier, for example, Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī (fl. mid-twelfth century), who stayed in various cities of Khurāsān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr including Balkh and worked in the service of the Ghūrid princes, mentioned Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma.164 FB limits its specificity on the sources of Balkh’s pre-Islamic history to generic references like ‘historians’ (ahl-i tawārīkh) or draws its information from oral folklore with statements like, ‘it is said’ or ‘[some] say’ (gūyand). This lack of specificity cannot be reduced to ideologically-charged prejudices of an Islamic ʿālim against non-Islamic sources. Muslim ṭabaqāt/tārīkh works tend to be vague on the pre-Islamic past. For example, al-Ṭabarī’s Taʾrīkh diverts in its accounts on ancient Persia from its usual isnād-heavy style, and the narrative is more prose-like with minimal referencing.165 FB’s focus on shrines is unusual for its genre. It is reminiscent of the pilgrimage guides, but FB does not cite any. For example, the Kitāb al-Ishārāt ilā maʿrifat alziyārāt (‘Guide to knowledge of pilgrimage sites’) by the Syrian scholar and ascetic ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr al-Harawī al-Mawṣilī (d. 611/1215) is written for the traveller and (p.61) covers the Islamic world.166 Other guides were written for devotees making pilgrimage to particular cemeteries in Cairo from at least the tenth century.167 It is not clear how FB may have interacted with this genre, but its description of miracles and visitation protocol—methods for marking a sacred space and perpetuating its temporal sacrality—are reminiscent of it.

How To ‘Read’ the Message As we have seen, FB is a patchwork of texts merged together and stemming from varying sources and genres, including the ṭabaqāt, faḍīla, and legal adab genres. The religio-administrative training of its author determined the use of more specialized sources. At this juncture it might be worth asking whether FB is in fact a work of tārīkh. To answer this question, it is worth reconsidering the scholarship on pre-modern tārīkh, both on the Arabic and Persian versions. The secondary literature holds that the earliest Arabic tārīkh were digests of disparate materials and discrete reports (akhbār) brought into a single narrative, beginning with compilations of al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892) and alṬabarī. Their model was followed by later writers of tārīkh, sometimes with abridgements or supplements (dhayls). FB’s first part resembles the pattern of juxtaposing discrete reports and may indeed be a dhayl of earlier versions from the ninth and tenth centuries when the locality focus became a sub-category of the tārīkh genre. Page 24 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 The evidence for earlier versions of city histories is multifarious. They were written throughout the Caliphate—in the East and West. I will only consider those stemming from the eastern Islamic world where local histories ended up being translated into Persian.168 Arabic (p.62) local histories in cities of the Persianate like Astarābād, Bayhaq, Bukhara, Gurgān, Herat, Isfahan, Nasaf, Nishapur, Qazvin, and Samarqand, and for Balkh itself are attested in the medieval sources at least as early as the mid ninth century AD. We have evidence for a ninth-century Arabic Tārīkh Marw, for example, by Aḥmad b. Sayyār al-Marwazī (d. 268/881).169 More importantly, we know from sources other than FB that a Tārīkh Balkh was written by Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl (no. 42, d. 316/928).170 Only a few of these Arabic forerunners survive.171 The compilations would normally focus on the noted men of religion who resided in a city. The authors of the locality-focused tārīkh works were legal and ḥadīth scholars themselves, and their sources were equally those of the muḥaddith, rather than of the historian.172 We can imagine that the Arabic FB resembled these characteristics of the ḥadīth-based genre, and its traces can still be felt. For our analysis of Persian FB, we also need to consider the development of Persian-language tārīkh works that were based on Arabic forerunners and emerged from the eleventh century onwards.173 These were not literal translations, but gave the genre a completely (p.63) new flavouring. The practice of writing tārīkh works in Persian is typically credited to the Sāmānid vizier Abū ʿAlī Balʿamī (d. ca. 363/974) who adapted al-Ṭabarī’s annalistic Tārīkh into Persian. He had a significant editorial hand, shortening isnāds and simplifying the presentation of multiple versions on a single event by selecting only one.174 Other significant Persian histories include the Zayn al-akhbār by ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Gardīzī (fl. early eleventh century AD), Abū al-Faḍl Bayhaqī’s (d. 470/1077) history of the early Ghaznawid sultans known as the Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī, the anonymous Mujmal al-tawārīkh wa-l-qiṣaṣ (c. 520/1126), and dynastic histories and chronicles that flourished in the Saljūq period.175 More important for our purposes is the growth of Persian local histories of which the earliest extant example is the anonymous Tārīkh-i Sīstān, most of which was written in 448/1062 with some later additions.176 Other examples are the Fārsnāma on Fārs province by Ibn al-Balkhī (c. 510/1116),177 who had no direct connection to Balkh despite his nisba, Ibn Funduq’s (d. 565/1169–70) Tārīkh-i Bayhaq and Ibn Isfandiyār’s Tārīkh-i Ṭabaristān (started 606/1210).178 As with the earlier Arabic local histories, the Persian city chronicles were written by scholars of law and ḥadīth rather than by court-patronized, universal historians.179 Ibn Funduq was a qāḍī, and FB’s Persian translator seems to have belonged to an important family of (p.64) local Balkhī ʿulamāʾ as well. Similarly, Minhāj al-Dīn Jūzjānī (d. between 664/1265 and 686/1287), who wrote the Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī after having fled to the Delhi Sultanate, was the qāḍī al-quḍāt there.180 Page 25 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 In order to appreciate the motivations and target audiences for Persian histories, which were essentially free translations or adaptations of Arabic local histories, I will consider Ibn Funduq’s description of the historian’s task in his Persian Tārīkh-i Bayhaq. In Ibn Funduq’s view, tārīkh should be easily understandable to the general public which is not conversant in the sciences and cannot read. Tārīkh should include accounts that can be kept alive and that people can pass on. This is important, according to Ibn Funduq, because the accounts of bygone conditions, the origins of the world, its kingdoms and people establish memory (khāṭir). The account should deter from oppression, bad decisions, or misconduct. Knowing how previous people of great standing resolved problems provides an example for solving today’s problems.181 Ibn Funduq’s philosophy of history, written only a few decades before the Arabic FB, is reminiscent of the statements in FB’s preface. In method, too, FB resembles the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq. Like the Shaykh al-Islām alWāʿiẓ, Ibn Funduq uses the muḥaddith’s tool of the isnād to authenticate his accounts, and he does not limit his biographical entries to simple formulaic notices. Both authors expand on the life stories of their subjects with anecdotes about them and curious details on their families, friends and people who sought their advice. The number of subject ʿulamāʾ profiled in both sources is restricted and selective. The Persian local histories-cum-prosopographies, like the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq and Persian FB, sit on the fence of the two genres of ṭabaqāt and tārīkh, and in so doing may actually represent a genre aimed at a broader élite that was not limited to scholars and people of religious learning. The readers (and listeners) may have included people working at the higher levels of the local administration, landlords and other literate citizens who would want to know about adab, in the sense of ‘the necessary general culture’ of the Arab and nonArab Islamic world. The literature of adab is described by Francesco Gabrieli as possessing ‘varied and pleasing erudition, which is not pure scholarship although it often also touches on, and handles scientific subjects, but which is centred above all on man, his qualities and his passions, the environment in which he lives, and the material and (p.65) spiritual culture created by him’. According to Gabrieli, this ‘Arab humanitas’ reached its peak in the ninth century.182 Might the Balkh history be a specimen of its survival into the later centuries, albeit in a mélange with other genres? The authors of the local histories often belonged to the religio-administrative class as qāḍīs or preachers (wāʿiẓ). They would have had frequent contact with this élite, and might have had an interest in influencing their opinions and conduct through their writings.183 The Persian adaptations of pre-existing local histories for a lay audience only continued the popularization which had started when Arabic was the medium of such texts. Elements of adab—the literature of rules, regulations and protocol of conduct and procedure—that had already existed in Arabic texts were further fleshed out in the Persian adaptations. Thus Arabic-to-Persian Page 26 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 translations are not just the de-codings or re-encodings of meaning, but also of form to more familiar patterns. Hence Jerome Clinton pointed out on the phenomenon of premodern Arabic-to-Persian translations: ‘We tend to think of translation as principally a matter of thematic content, but often what is most influential in shaping a new tradition, or reshaping an old one, is the importation of new forms’.184 The reason for converting the pre-existing texts from scholarly to general adab needs to be understood. Perhaps these new forms of Persian local history were aimed first at a learned, though not necessarily religious scholarly audience. They may originally have taken the form of transcriptions in Arabic from lectures (amālī) delivered in restricted sessions (majlis) in private homes. The amālī would eventually have been edited and cut down so that they could be read to an informal audience of peers.185 (p.66) In other words, translations of pre-modern Arabic texts into Persian provided not only for continuity but also for a blending with indigenous cultural codes and traditions. The Persianized Arabic local histories, like the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, therefore, do not necessarily represent a new trend with a conscious agenda for achieving political autonomy from the caliphate. Rather, their adaptation, translation and circulation simultaneously reflected and consolidated local loyalties and the desire of urban notables to demonstrate that their native cities were major centres of Islamic asceticism and learning. This chapter has analysed one written history that has marked the social memory of Balkh. The modern reader of history might expect that an author sits down to write, plans a narrative, and then puts pen (or feather) to paper creating one holistic narrative. His (or her) readers will recognize ‘the work’ as such, much like we do today when we go to the bookstore and buy a book. This is, however, not the story of local histories in the medieval Islamic world. A text such as the early thirteenth-century Faḍāʾil-i Balkh probably was not known by that name in its time, and the authorship was also less than crystal clear. In fact, what probably happened is that writers started producing brief pieces of writing and reports from the arrival of Islam in the eighth century. These were transmitted either orally or in writing to subsequent generations of scholars over the next three to four hundred years during which time the texts were emended, embellished, and some were merged with each other. The written testaments were safeguarded in libraries, perhaps just personal libraries that may have been as simple as chests of family or village treasures. By the late twelfth century, one scholar began collating the disparate texts and accounts on Balkh under a common narrative theme in a way that had not been done before. The work was completed just six years before the Mongol advances into Balkh, which gave a severe blow to the city (and its written works, perishing in the flames following the raids). Then, by what seems to have been happenstance, the Balkh compilation was found in a single manuscript: one that had survived the swelling Page 27 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 fires and general looting. Now well into the period of Mongol rule over Balkh—in the last quarter of the thirteenth century—one man from the local élite thought it worth making the information found in this compilation more accessible. He had it translated from Arabic—the language of a confined group of scholars— into the commonly spoken language in the area: Persian. Excerpts from this compilation could now be read (p.67) to an audience that may not have been in the habit of reading, or indeed may have been illiterate (albeit probably still educated and knowledgeable about ‘the ways of the world’, i.e. adab). Balkh’s history transmitted through the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh could now start to find a life of its own, thus, setting a framework for the social memory of the place. Balkh is not alone in this form of history making. Comparanda from Bukhara, Samarqand, Nishapur, Isfahan, and Bayhaq, albeit with variations in form, display a similar ‘meta-form’ and literary progression. Like the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, the works provide early Islamic ḥadīth on the city, topographical surveys and qualitative prosopographies on men who came to represent the merits of the place. What made this kind of history writing necessary or desirable? Some modern scholars have been quick to see local history-writing as an expression of a desire in the ‘non-Arab’ lands to exercise political autonomy from the caliphal centre, and perhaps even to reject all things ‘Arab’. Such premeditated actions are not apparent in the texts, however. The content and format were adopted largely from an Arabic-language tradition, but through a form and with cultural codes that came from a Persian tradition. A literary tradition of writing the history of cities in a ‘Perso-Islamic’ style ensued: perhaps it was a compromise that served both the local city interests and the wider caliphal interests. The city inhabitants who prided themselves on having ancient roots in their cities were now well grounded in an Islamic tradition, and the caliph and his administration could appreciate the foreign cultures that formed an integral part of the dār alIslām. This is the version of history that has marked our social history of Balkh and its sacred landscape, which shall form the subject of discussion in the next chapter. Notes:

(1) Elements of this chapter have been published in my article, ‘The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its Place in Islamic Historiography’, IRAN 50 (2012), 79–102. (2) All have been edited and published, but the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh suffers from an inadequate edition (which is currently being revised by the Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project based at the University of Oxford). The editions are: Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ and ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī, Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, ed. ʿAbd alḤayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1350/1971) [abbreviated by me to ‘FB, ed. AḤḤ’]; Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, ed. Aḥmad Bahmanyār ([Tehran]: Kitābfurūshī-yi Furūghī, [1317/1938]); Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Mudarris Raẓawī ([Tehran]: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1351/1972–3); al-Ḥākim al-Nīshāpūrī b. al-Bayyiʿ, Tārīkh Nīshāpūr, in Richard N. Page 28 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Frye, The Histories of Nishapur (London: Mouton, 1965), and its continuation by al-Ṣarīfīnī, in al-Muntakhab min kitāb al-Siyāq li-tārīkh Naysābūr, ed. Khālid Ḥaydar (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1993); al-Nasafī, al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Naẓar Muḥammad al-Fāryābī (Riyadh: Maktabat (al-) Kawthar, 1412/1991), and ed. Yūsuf al-Hādī (Tehran: Mīrāthi-i Maktūb, 1378/1999); the Persian Qandiyya, ed. Īraj Afshār (Tehran: Maktabat al-Kawthar, 1334/1955). All of the other local histories have been studied and/or used by modern scholars far more than FB has. See Kalimullah Husaini, ‘The Tarikh-i Bayhaq of Zahiru’d-Din Abul Hasan ‘Ali b. Abil Qasim Zayd al-Bayhaqi’, Islamic Culture 33 (1960), 188– 202; and by the same author, ‘Contribution of Zahiru’d-Din al-Bayhaqi to Arabic and Persian Literature’, Islamic Culture 34 (1960), 77–89; ‘Historical Information from Ibn Funduq’s Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, IRAN, 48 (2010): 81–106. Parvaneh Pourshariati, ‘Local Histories in Early Medieval Iran and the Tārīkh-i Bayhaq’, in Ir Sts 33 (2000), 133–64; Richard Frye (ed.), The History of Bukhara (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954), xi–xx; Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); Jürgen Paul, ‘The Histories of Samarqand’, St Ir 22 (1993), 69–92; and also on Samarqand, James Weinberger, ‘The Authorship of Two Twelfth Century Transoxanian Biographical Dictionaries’, Arabica 33 (1986), 369–82. (3) See, for example, Richard Bulliet, ‘City Histories in Medieval Iran’, Ir Sts 3 (1968), 104; Berndt Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien’, ZDMG 136 (1986), 536. (4) Richard Frye, ‘City Chronicles of Central Asia and Khurasan. Ta’rix-i Nīsāpūr’, in Zeki Velidi Togan’a Arma․ğan. Symbolae in Honorem Z. V. Togan (Istanbul: Maarif basĭmevi, 1950–-55), 405. (5) Bulliet, ‘City Histories’, 104–9. (6) C. E. Bosworth, ‘The Persian Contribution to Islamic Historiography’, in Richard Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh (eds), The Persian Presence in the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 235. (7) Charles Melville, ‘Persian Local Histories: Views from the Wings’, Ir Sts 33 (2000), 9–11. (8) Wadad al-Qadi, ‘Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Significance’, in George Atiyeh (ed.), The Book in the Islamic World. The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), 107–8. Also Ann Lambton, ‘Persian Local Histories: the Traditions behind Them and the Assumptions of their Authors’, in Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti and Lucia Rostagno (eds), Yād-Nāma in Memoria Di Alessandro Bausani (Rome: Bardi, 1991), 228–9.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (9) Pourshariati, ‘Local Histories’, 138–40; Jürgen Paul, ‘The Histories of Herat’, Ir Sts 33 (2000), 94–5. (10) Jürgen Paul, Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in vormongolischer Zeit (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1996), 21–3. (11) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 3 ff.; Persan-115, fol. 3b, line 9; and PAK, fol. 1a, line 9 render the name as Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Wāʿīẓ. C453-1, fol. 1b, lines 11–12 give a longer version with epithets, like baqiyyat al-salaf wa-ustādh al-khalaf, and omit the ‘b. Muḥammad’. The possible manipulation of the author’s name in Persan-115 was noted in Storey, I/ 2, 1296–7, and Stori/Bregel’, II, 1053–4, and is easily noticeable from Persan-115, fol. 1b (line 2) where parts of the name have been erased and written over. (12) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 36–7. (13) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 130, 166, 12 (in chronological order). These are all the dated biographical notices on the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ available to me. (14) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 371. (15) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 380. Scholars transmitted their knowledge in private libraries at their homes, although the madrasa already existed at this time. The Saljūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092) is famously credited with institutionalizing the educational system of the madrasa. J. Pedersen [-G. Makdisi], ‘Madrasa – I. The Institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish Lands’, in EI2, V (1986), 1126. (16) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 263. The anecdote matches the theme of generosity that is emphasized as an important element in the asceticism of ʿulamāʾ stressed in FB and com-parative sources. See Chapter 3 for more on this. (17) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 12. (18) The translator’s preface, and hence his name, are missing from Persan-115. This explains why Storey stated that the translator was anonymous. Storey, I/1, 122–3 and I/2, 1296–7. This is repeated in Stori/Bregel’, II, 1053–4. C453-3 and C453-1 give the name in fol. 1b (lines 6–7) and fol. 211b (lines 7–8) as ʿAbd Allāh [b. Muḥammad] b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī. (19) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 9–12. The translator specifies that he had just one Arabic manuscript at hand, and it is not clear how and from where his patron had acquired it. Al-Ḥusaynī, therefore, did not have the opportunity to collate or compare between manuscripts, which was common amongst medieval Muslim scribes. Andrew Peacock, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Balʿamī’s Tārīkhnāma (London: Routledge, 2007), 60.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (20) FB, ed. AḤḤ, xx (editor’s notes). (21) The excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 10 (lines 10–12). (22) Here, and on other occasions, al-Ḥusaynī does not provide a Persian translation, which may be an indicator of his limits in Arabic. It is not a text of ḥadīth with which al-Ḥusaynī would have been familiar through his training, given that it is an Arabic proverbial saying. All manuscripts, except C453-1 display multiple errors in rendering the Arabic correctly, which may have been reflected in al-Ḥusaynī’s original manuscript. They could also be scribal errors. However, only one of the three manuscripts stemming from the same original source uses correct Arabic, which indicates that this particular copyist mastered Arabic better than the source manuscript (perhaps al-Ḥusaynī’s original). (23) Read fa-l-ghafla. Error in C453-3, fol. 213, line 15: fa-l-fafla; error in PAK, fol. 1b.8: fa-l-ghaḍla. (24) Read al-baʿḍ. Error in Persan-115, fol. 4b, line 3: al-baghḍ. Correct in other manuscripts. (25) Read idh. Error in Persan-115, fol. 4b, line 3: idhā, also in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 10 (line 10). Correct in other manuscripts. (26) The excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 4–5. (27) The author uses the rhetorical figure of tajnīs here (maskan-taskīn-miskīn, takht-takhta, kāmgārī-kāmrānī), known as paronomasia. It is one of the most popular rhetorical figures in Arabic poetry and ornate prose. Wolfhart P. Heinrichs, ‘Tadjnīs’, in EI2, X (2000), 67–70. (28) Read sīrat, instead of sarīrat. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 4. (29) The excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 7 (lines 9–14); Persan-115, fol. 3b (lines 2–8); C453-1, fol. 3a (lines 7–11); C453-3, fol. 212b (lines 14–18); PAK, fol. 1a (lines 4–8). (30) Text between asterisks (*) is missing from C453-1, fol. 3a, line 9, and in exactly the same place in C453-3, fol. 212b, line 16. The copyist of one of the two, or of an antecedent, inadvertently skipped a line, causing a haplography. The text was still in place in PAK, fol. 1a (lines 5–6). (31) Read bi yak rāwī-yi aṣl. Var. illegible. PAK, fol. 1a (line 7). (32) Mongol rulers famously commissioned religious debates, which may have added pressure on Balkh’s religious figures. For example, Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286) chronicles a religious debate carried out under the aegis of Chinggis Khān (d. 1227) between Buddhists and shamans. The practice was still recorded in the Page 31 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 court of Möngke Khān (d. 1258), where the visiting Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck participated in a theological debate between Muslims, Buddhists and Christians. Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l-Faraj 1225–-1286, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, being the first part of his Political History of the World. Translated form the Syriac […], tr. Ernest A. Wallis Budge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), I, 355–6; William of Rubruck, ‘The Journey of William of Rubruck’, in Christopher Dawson (ed.), Mission to Asia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 189– 94. (33) ʿĀrif Nawshāhī, ‘Nuskha-yi nawyāfta-yi Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’, Maʿārif, 19/2 (1381/2002), 60–91. (34) Edgar Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits Persans (Paris: Imprimérie Nationale, 1905), 316–17, no. 519; Storey, I/2, 1296–7; II/1, 122–3; Stori/Bregel’, II, 1053–4. The Tashrīḥ-i Manṣūrī, usually referred to as Manṣūr’s Anatomy, composed in 1386 for a governor of Fārs by Manṣūr b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yūsuf b. Ilyās provides an interesting comparandum. Its undated manuscript held in Durham, North Carolina at the Duke University Medical Center Library, Historical Collections, is known as the ‘Trent Manuscript’. On the basis of terms occurring in it and other features Emilie Savage-Smith believes it was copied in the mid or early fifteenth century. Helen Loveday assesses from a photograph of Persan-115 that it dates to a slightly later period in the sixteenth century (based on the mould markings of the paper over transmitted light). Email communications with Drs Savage-Smith and Loveday respectively on 9 June 2008. (35) FB, ed. AḤḤ, xv (editor’s notes). (36) A handwritten note by Armain is inserted in the BNF’s bound copy. See also the notes of l’abbé Jourdain, ‘La Bibliothèque du Roi au début du règne de Louis XV (1718–-1736), journal de l’abbé Jourdain, secrétaire de la Bibliothèque’, in Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France, XX (Paris: H. Champion, 1893), 278; and Henri Omont, Missions archéologiques françaises en Orient aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles (Paris: Imprimérie Nationale, 1902), 748, 756. (37) Francis Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits persans. 1. Anciens fonds (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1989), 6–9. (38) Alfred Franklin, Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris: églises, monastères, collèges, etc, III (Paris: 1867), 37ff; Pierre de Carcavy and François de la Poterie, ‘Catalogue des manuscripts de la Bibliothèque du Seu Monseigneur le Cardinal Mazarin, fait par nous, M. Pierre de Carcavy et M. François de la Poterie, en consequence de l’Arest du Conseil de l’Estat du 12e Janvier 1668’ (Paris: 1668), 224; Léopold Victor Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 bibliothèque impériale (nationale). Étude sur la formation de ce dépôt, 3 vols (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1868–81). (39) Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits, 134. For examples of non-watermarked paper of the 15th century that is ribbed, see François Déroche, Islamic Codicology: An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script (London: Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2005), 279. (40) Blochet, Catalogue des Manuscrits, 316–7. (41) Nawshāhī, ‘Nuskha-yi nawyāfta’, 60–91. (42) Nawshāhī, ‘Nuskha-yi nawyāfta’, 61. (43) Nawshāhī, ‘Nuskha-yi nawyāfta’, 62–3. (44) Other manuscripts in this binding include a Sāʿatnāma, a Nawrūznāma, and Kitāb-i Mullāzāda by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al Bukhārī (n.d.). For further details, see Miklukho-Maklai, Persidskie: Tajikskie Rukopisi (Moscow: Nauka, 1964), II, 278 (entry no. 1977). (45) N. D. Miklukho-Maklai, Opisanie tadzhikskikh i persidskikh rukopisei instituta (Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1961), II, 86–93. It is not clear why the St Petersburg manuscripts were not included in Stori/Bregel’. (46) The seal’s stylistic characteristics can be found in the collection of seals in Golub Kurbanov, Bukarskie Pechati XVIII-Nachala XX Vekov (Katalog) (Tashkent, n.d.), 199–200 (nos. 32–7). (47) Russian Turkestan, administered as a Governorate-General, comprised the oasis region south of the Kazakh steppe and surrounded but did not include the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara (created in 1785, and included Samarqand, Bukhara and Balkh) and the Khānate of Khiva (created 1511 in historical Khwārazm). After the Russian Revolution in the 1920s the Soviet Socialist republics replaced this system. (48) Kun gives autobiographical data in a letter to Vladimir Stassov (d. 1906) of the St Petersburg Imperial Library, now called Public Library and deposted in collection no. 738, item no. 167, fols. 1a–2b, in the ‘Archive of V.V. Stassov’. The letter is dated 28 June 1886. I am grateful to Olga Yastrebova who assisted me in reading the letter at the library in August 2009. (49) Boris Dorn, ‘Über die vom General Adjutanten von Kaufmann dem Asiatischen Museum verehrten morgenländischen Handschriften’, Mélanges Asiatiques 7: 395. Kun was also in charge of the compilation of the famous

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 ‘Turkistan Albums’; a major collection of photos testifying to the different nationalities and customs that made up the populations of Central Asia. (50) The Asiatic Museum was established in 1818. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, it was renamed the Institute of Oriental Studies and moved to Moscow, but the manuscript collection was retained in St Petersburg. (51) Salemann denied the ‘false reports’ in the daily papers in early February 1892 that the St Petersburg University library had bought Kun’s collection from the Asiatic Museum. Kun’s heirs sold to the antiquarian bookseller Posrednik whatever they did not donate to the Museum. Carl Salemann, ‘Das asiatische Museum im Jahre 1890. Nebst Nachträgen’, in Mélanges Asiatiques—tirés du Bulletin de l’académie impériale des Sciences, St Pétersbourg, X (1891), 272, 277. Part of Kun’s collection was bought by E. K. Gartie who later donated it to the Asiatic Museum and to St Petersburg University. Svetlana Gorshenina, The Private Collections of Russian Turkestan (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2004), 121, n. 432. I thank Heather Sonntag and Firuza Abdullaeva for pointing me to sources relevant to questions on provenance of the two St Petersburg manuscripts. (52) Charles Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, in Chrestomathie persane à l’usage des élèves de l’École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes (Paris: École des langues orientales vivantes, 1883–85), I, 66–103 (Persian text), 69–94 (editor’s notes). (53) Ṣādiq Kiyā, ‘Yāddāsht-ī dar bāra-yi ārāmgāh-i zardusht dar Balkh’, in Īrān-i kudā 10 (1317/1938), 26–31. (54) Zarrīnchiyān noted that many page numbers were incorrect and that Ḥabībī’s listing of generic terms, such as ‘iron gate’, under the category of ‘Place Names’ was misguided. In his defence, Ḥabībī explained that from his base in Kabul he had not been able to check the proofs of the edition, which was being formatted and published in Tehran. See Ghulām-Riḍā Zarrīnchiyān, ‘Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’, Rāhnamā-yi kitāb 16/10–12, 1352/1974, 677–84; and ʿAbd alḤayy Ḥabībī, ‘Dar pāsukh-i intiqād bar Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’, Rāhnamā-yi kitāb, 17/7–9 (1353/1974), 593–601. (55) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 12. (56) Storey, II, no. 199, 135–7. I consulted the Bodleian manuscript 415 which only includes bābs 1–5 and most of 6 of the 16 bābs. (57) Storey, I/1, no. 507, 378. (58) Storey, I/1, no. 506, 376–8.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (59) For further details see Akhror Mukhtarov et al., Balkh in the Later Middle Ages (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1993), 6–11. (60) This is discussed in more detail by Ulrike Berndt, ‘Die Stadtgeschichten von Balkh’, unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Halle, 2000. (61) Maḥmūd b. Amīr Walī, Baḥr al-asrār, London, British Library, I.O. 1496, fols 305a–332a are on Balkh. On the manuscript, see Hermann Ethé and Edward Edwards, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the India Office (Oxford: Printed for the India Office by H. Hart Printer to the University, 1903– 37), no. 575, I, 230. The other manuscript is catalogued in Tashkent as IVANRUZ 7418. See Storey, I/1, no. 505, 375–6. (62) Muḥammad Muʾmin Balkhī, Jarīda-yi Balkh (Kabul: Ministry of Information and Culture, 1978). (63) Abū Ṭālib Mīr ʿĀbidīnī, Balkh dar tārīkh wa adab-i fārsī (Tehran: Nashr-i Ṣadūq, 1371/1972). (64) Muḥammad Maḥrūs ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh min alḥanafiyya wa-mā infaradū bihi min al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya (Baghdad: Wizārat alAwqāf, 1978), 2 vols. (65) Āzarmīdukht Farīdanī, Balkh – Kuhantarīn shahr-i īrānī-yi āsiyā-yi markazī (Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1997). (66) Mahdī Raḥmānī Walawī and Manṣūr Jaghatāʾī, Tārīkh-i ʿulamā-yi Balkh, 2 vols (Mashhad: Bunyād-i pazhūhishhā-yi Islāmī-yi Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī, 1383– 6). (67) FB, ed. AḤḤ, xxii–xxv (editor’s notes); Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 538–49. (68) In the fewest cases names of authors and titles of books are given in full. More often than not, authors’ names and/or titles of their written work are abbreviated or generic (e.g. ‘the book/composition (kitāb/taṣnīf) of [so-and-so]’). It is sometimes hard to tell whether FB’s author actually read the text, or is merely copying a reference to it. (69) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 10. (70) Generally the classes are grouped into ṭabaqāt al-ṣaḥāba (companions), ṭabaqāt al-tābiʿīn (successors), ṭabaqāt ṣighār tābiʿīn (young successors), ṭabaqāt tābiʿī al-tābiʿīn (successors of successors), ṭabaqāt tubbaʿ al-atbāʿ (those that continue in posterity). Ṭabaqāt works were written on people of varying disciplines—experts on ḥadīth, Qurʾānic exegesis, jurisprudence, asceticism and Page 35 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 mysticism, linguistics, medicine, sects, mathematics, music, astronomy, etc. Ṭabaqāt grew out of ḥadīth and rijāl literature, and its purpose was to trace those people who had established an original ḥadīth text, as well as their witnesses (isnāds) who authenticated any given historical statement. Ibrahim Hafsi, ‘Recherches sur le genre ‘ṭabaqāt’ dans la littérature arabe’, Arabica 23 (1976), 227–65. (71) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 57, 71. (72) Al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawārīkh, in Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 463, n. 4. (73) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 121, 226. (74) Al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān, 464, n. 1; TBg, XII, 47–8. (75) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 295, 316–19. (76) Al-Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yaḥyā Muʿallimī (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1962), XII, 244. (77) Al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān, 463, and n. 4. (78) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 537, 547. (79) Al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān, 464; Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 537; Najm alDīn al-Nasafī, Qandiyya, ed. Īraj Afshār (Tehran: Maktabat al-Kawthar, 1334/1955), 21. (80) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 371. (81) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 70, 186, 209, 326, 329, 341, 344. (82) Al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān, 463; Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad b. Yūnus alSamarqandī al-Madanī (d. 656/1258) wrote many works on fiqh of which numerous manuscripts survive (GAL S I, 655). He is often confused with Muḥammad b. Yūnus al-Ḥusaynī al-Samarqandī (d. 556/1161; GAL S I, 733). (83) Ibn Funduq al-Bayhaqī, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, ed. Aḥmad Bahmanyār (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Furūghī, 1317/1938), 21; Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-lwafayāt (Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1931–), IV: 97–8; Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, I, 289; Ibn al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1350–1/1931–2), II, 274; Albert Nader, ‘al-Balkhī, Abu ʾl-K․āsim’, EI2, I (1960), 1002–3. Ḥabībī transcribes from the St Petersburg manuscripts ‘Tārīkh-i Balkh’ (FB, ed. AḤḤ, 186, 209) where PAK only mentions a generic ‘Tārīkh’ (PAK, fols. 66b and 75b).

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (84) Ali Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh—ʾLes Ḿérites de Balkh’—Notes, corrections, et traduction abregée’. Thèse de doctorat d’université, Paris, Institut d’études iraniénnes library at the Université de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), 1963, 9. (85) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 279. (86) Albert Nader, ‘Al-Balkhī, Abu ʾl-K․āsim’, EI2, I (1960), 1002–3. (87) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 57, 62, 69. (88) Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh’, 8; GAS I, 294–97; Hafsi lists al-Wāqidī’s ṭabaqāt work amongst the pioneers for those engaged in the ḥadīth discipline. Hafsi, ‘Recherches’, 240. Also Stefan Leder, ‘al-Wāk․idī’, EI2, XI (2002), 101–3. (89) Chase Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 63, 66–7. (90) Hafsi, ‘Recherches’, 253–4. (91) One of the earliest specimens of this kind of writing was composed by Ibn Zabāla (d. late eighth century). Probably the oldest surviving work is the Kitāb faḍāʾil Miṣr by ʿUmar b. Muḥammad al-Kindī (d. after 350/961). GAS I, 343, 358. (92) Albrecht Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition. A Source-Critical Study (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1994), 53–5. (93) Sellheim, Rudolf, ‘Faḍīla’, EI2, II (1965), 728–9. (94) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 54. (95) Douglas Dunlop, ‘al-Balkhī, Abū Zayd’, EI2, I (1960), 1003. (96) Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, tr. Bayard Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 419; al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān, 467. (97) Yāqūt b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥamawī, The Irshād al-arīb ilā maʿrifat al-adīb: or, Dictionary of Learned Men of Yāqūt, tr. David Samuel Margoliouth (London: Luzac, 1923–30), I, 141–52, esp. 143. (98) Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, I, 289, cited in Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh’, 9. (99) The words faḍāʾil-i Balkh (‘the merits of Balkh’) and faḍāʾil-i Balkh wa shamāyil-i ahālī-yi way (‘the merits of Balkh and its people’) appear in the body of the text. See FB, ed. AḤḤ, 3, 43 ff. (100) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 177. (101) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 538, citing GAS I, 421, which lists one surviving manuscript of the Adab al-qāḍī of an Abū Yūsuf al-Qāḍī in Tunis. Page 37 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (102) Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, Fatāwā al-nawāzil (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmiyya, 2004), 383–7. (103) GAS II, 113, 133. (104) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 538; GAS I, 447. (105) GAS I, 447 lists thirteen manuscripts found in Turkey. Shariati’s contention that the work was not extant, therefore, is incorrect. Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh’, 8. On the nāzila genre, see (Ed.), ‘Nāzila’, EI2, VII (1993), 1052. (106) Joseph Schacht, ‘Abu ʾl-Layth al-Samarqandī’, EI2, I (1960), 137. This might be the 2004 Beirut edition of ‘Nawāzil fatāwā’ attributed to Abū al-Layth alSamarqandī, with facsimile copies of an unidentified manuscript. (107) The tafsīr has been published. See Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, Tafsīr alQurʾān al-karīm ʿBaḥr al-ʿulūmʾ, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Aḥmad al-Zaqqa (Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat al-Irshād, 1985). (108) GAS I, 447; GAL S I, 348. (109) Eyyüp Said Kaya, ‘Continuity and Change in Islamic Law: The Concept of Madhhab and the Dimensions of Legal Disagreement in Ḥanafī Scholarship of the Tenth Century’, in Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters, and Frank E. Vogel (eds), The Islamic School of Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 26–40. I thank Dr Kaya for sending me his index of names compiled from the Istanbul University manuscript of Abū al-Layth’s Nawāzil (no. A-3459). See also Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh, 2 vols. (110) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 312. (111) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 151. (112) GAS I, 433. (113) Ḥabībī reads ‘bayyināt’, but Persan-115, fol. 173 (lines 1–2) reads al-Dalāyil al-_._._._.ā; and PAK, fol. 1001 (lines 2–3) reads al-Dalāyil al-bunyāt?/nubiyāt). Ḥabībī suggests FB meant Dalāʾil al-nubuwwa (‘Proofs/Guide of Prophecy’) which is mentioned in other works, and he found a work by that name. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 286–7. (114) Al-Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, XII, 241–2. (115) GAL S I, 361, 619. (116) For variant titles, see Weinberger, ‘Authorship of Two’, 369–82. (117) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 195, n. 8. Page 38 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (118) G. H. A. Juynboll, ‘Mustamlī’, EI2, VII (1993), 726. (119) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 385, n. 2, 386. GAS I, 32. (120) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 330–2; also Jawāhir3, III, 76. (121) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 380. (122) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 220. Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ wa-ṭabaqāt alaṣfiyāʾ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī and Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda, 1932–8), VIII, 74–83, and X, 42–3. (123) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 328; Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, VIII, 43. (124) J. Pedersen, ‘Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī’, EI2, I (1960), 142–3. Hafsi lists this work amongst the innovators of the Ṭabaqāt of mystics. Hafsi, ‘Recherches’, 240. (125) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 169, 222, 225; al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ʿilm altaṣawwuf, ed. Maʿrūf Zurayq and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Balṭajī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1990), 393–4, 410. (126) Subkī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥulw (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1964–76), III, 76; Heinz Halm, ‘al-Ḳushayrī’, in EI2, V (1986), 526–7; AlQushayri’s Epistle on Sufism, al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fi ʿilm al-tasawwuf, tr. Alexander Knysh (Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007), 18–74. (127) Al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla, 391–2 (no. 4), 397–8 (no. 13), 398–9 (no. 14). (128) FB, ed. AḤḤ, xxii–xxv, 140, 223, 224, 283; Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, II, 999. (129) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 538. (130) This reading of the title is found in C453 and PAK (fol. 41b, line 4). Persan-115 (fol. 73b, line 7) renders it as the nonsensical (and non-existent) Kitāb Ḥaqāyiq al-ḥadāyiq (‘Book of Truths of the Gardens’). (131) FB, ed. AḤḤ, xxiii, 121 and n. 3; GAL S I, 918. (132) Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa is also the name of a didactic mystical poem written by Sanāʾī (fl. early twelfth century), who was born in nearby Ghazna and frequented the Ḥanafī and mystical circles of Balkh (see below). The Tehran edition of Sanāʾī’s Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa includes an anecdote on Ḥātim al-Aṣamm. Sanāʾī, Kitāb-i Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqa wa sharīʿat al-ṭarīqa, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī (Tehran: Sipihr, 1329/1950), 117; Sanāʾī, The First Book of the Ḥadīqatu ʿl-Ḥaqīqat or the

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Enclosed Garden of the Truth, tr. John Stephenson (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972), vii–xxxiii. (133) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 120, n. 1; Hellmut Ritter, ‘ʿAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn’, EI2, I (1960), 752–5. (134) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 91 and n. 7; 135–6. (135) Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), I, 255; and II, 21–2. (136) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 537. (137) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 262–3. These works are not listed in GAS or GAL. (138) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 40–1. Schefer reads ‘Mutanabbī’ which is incorrect. Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, I, 90 (notes). (139) Who exactly patronized Sanāʾī in Balkh is unclear, but in his Balkhī poems he addresses a certain Khwāja Muḥammad b. Muḥammad, an Abū Ḥāmid, as well as a qāḍī named Najm al-Dīn Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan Ghaznawī. They are not identifiable in FB. Sanāʾī was eventually chased out of Balkh by the henchmen of a patron. He fled to Sarakhs, whence he tried to file a complaint against his old patron through the raʾīs of Balkh. J. T. P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry—the Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 59–63. (140) De Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 194–9. (141) ʿUmar Khayyām’s ‘alighting’ in Balkh’s ‘Slave-Seller’s quarter’ in 506/1112– 3 is described by his contemporary Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī who was working in the service of the Ghūrid princes. Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Chahār maqāla, ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī and Muḥammad Muʿīn (Tehran: Kitābfurūshī-yi Zawwār, 1331/1952 [1910]), 98; and Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Revised Translation of the Chahār Maqāla (‘Four Discourses’), tr. E. G. Browne (London: Luzac, 1921), 71. (142) The skilful poet of qaṣīdas Anwarī had passed his latter years in Balkh. A satire on the people of Balkh entitled Kharnāma (‘Book of Asses’), which qualified Balkh as a town ‘filled with rogues and libertines’ and ‘destitute of a single man with sense’, was falsely attributed to him, whereupon the Balkhīs angrily paraded Anwarī through the streets with a woman’s headdress. The people were eventually pacified by Anwarī’s powerful friends, including the qāḍī Ḥamīd al-Dīn, author of the Maqāmāt-i Ḥamīdī. LHP, II, 365, 382. (143) De Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, 59–63, 91–112, 194–9. Also Storey, V, 519– 21.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (144) Murdār, lit. carcase; but murdār-khār means vulture. (145) The Persian version in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 40 reads: Chīst dunyā wa khalq wa istiẓhār? Khākdānī pur az sag wa murdār [-khwār]. Īn mar ān-rā hamī zanad mikhlab [khijlat, Persan-115], wa ān mar īn-rā hamī zanad minqār. Ākhar al-ʿumr jumla nīst shawand, wa-z hama bāz mānd īn murdār. FB’s editor Ḥabībī identified a variant in Sanāʾī’s Dīwān, using a Tehran 1335 edition not available to me. See FB, ed. AḤḤ, 40, n. 10. I found in an earlier Tehran edition of 1320/1941 a variant in the muqaṭṭaʿāt (i.e. brief homiletic poems) section on the religion of worldly people (dar madhhab-i dunyādārān): Īn jahān bar mithāl mudārīst, kargasān gard-i ū hazār hazār. Īn mar ān-rā hamī zanad mukhlib, ān mar īn-rā hamī zanad minqār. Ākhar al-ʿumr bar parand hama, wa-z hama bāz mānd īn murdār. Sanāʾī, Dīwān, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī (Tehran: Shirkat-i Ṭabʿ-i Kitāb, 1320/1941), n.p. (146) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 55 and n. 3: Raḥalnā ghudwatan min ahli Balkhin, ʿalā Balkhin wa-man fīhā al-salāmū. Aqamnā mā aqamnā fī surūrin [fī al-surūri is an error], warīfin innahum qawmun kirāmū. Idhā rumta al-muqāma bi-arḍi qawmin, fa-fī Balkhin yaṭību laka al-muqāmū. I thank Prof. Geert-Jan van Gelder for his help in the Arabic transcription of the poem. Metre: wāfir. (147) Al-Thaʿālibī, The Laṭāʾif al-maʿārif of Thaʿālibi: The Book of Curious and Entertaining Information, tr. C. E. Bosworth (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1968), 135–6. (148) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 344. (149) Ḥamīd al-Dīn Balkhī, Maqāmāt-i Ḥamīdī, ed. Riḍā Anzābī Nizhād (Tehran, 1365/1986); Henri Massé, ‘Ḥamīdī’, EI2, III (1971), 134; LHP, II, 299. (150) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 344. (151) Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Revised Translation, 14, 103. (152) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 41, 62–71. (153) Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh’, 8. (154) GAS lists a work by al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. ʿUthmān al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Qurashī (d. 180/796) who was an expert of akhbār al-ʿarab and poetry, and became governor of Medina. I could not find the titles of his works, but al-Wāqidī (d. 207/822) appears to have used them. GAS I, 266. (155) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 21. (156) Richard, Catalogue des manuscrits, 134. The Shaykh al-Islām’s laqab appears numerous times in Persan-115, hence Richard’s oversight is surprising. Page 41 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (157) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 228, n. 14; Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’: 538; al-Nasafī, al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Yūsuf al-Hādī (Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1378/1999), 578 (entry 1018). (158) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 176, 277. (159) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 538; Brockelmann lists nine works by this title and with extensions. GAL S III: 1028. The title appears in FB both in the short format as well as a longer one as Nuzhat al-khāṭir wa sar khidām al-fātir. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 176, n. 3. (160) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 186, n. 4. (161) Al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. V, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, tr. C. E. Bosworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), xix. (162) Tārīkh-i Sīstān, ed. Jaʿfar Mudarris Ṣādiqī (Tehran: Nashr-i Markaz, 1373/1994); tr. Milton Gold (Rome: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1976). (163) The reference is made in the Avesta’s Vidēvdād sub-sections 1.6 and 1.7. Avesta – Die Heiligen Bücher der Parsen, tr. Fritz Wolff (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1910), 317–18. (164) Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī provides us with the earliest notice of Firdawsī. Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Chahār maqāla, 98; Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Revised Translation, 71; Henri Massé, ‘Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī, Samark․andī, Aḥmad b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlīʾ, EI2, XIII (1995), 76. (165) Al-Ṭabarī, History of al-Ṭabarī, V, xix. (166) Al-Harawī al-Mawṣilī’s work has been translated by Janine Sourdel-Thomine as Guide des lieux de pèlerinage (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1952– 7); also by the same author, ‘al-Harawī al-Mawṣilī’, EI2 III (1971), 178. (167) These guides are listed in Josef Meri, ‘The Etiquette of Devotion in the Islamic Cult of Saints’, in James Howard-Johnston, Paul Hayward, and Peter Lamont Brown (eds), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 268–71. (168) See, for example, on the Ḥijāz, Harry Munt, ‘Writing the History of an Arabian Holy City: Ibn Zabāla and the First Local History of Medina’, Arabica 59 (2012), 1–34. (169) Storey’s bibliography and Bregel’s continuation list local histories which were written between the eleventh and the nineteenth centuries for Qum, Isfahan, Nāʿīn, Kāshān, Yazd, Fārs, Shabānkāra, Khurāsān, Herat, Kirmān, the Page 42 of 44

Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 Caspian provinces (Ṭabaristān, Rūyān, Ṭabaristān-Rūyān-Māzandarān, Gīlān, Gīlān-Daylamistān), Sīstān, Khūzistān, the Bakhtiyārīs, Azarbaijan, Bukhara, Badakhshān, Nishapur, Khiva, Merv, Samarqand, Ferghana, and Kashgār. Storey, I/1, 348–93; I/2, 1291–1302; Stori/Bregel’, II, 1008–1208. For a recent monograph on a set of local histories of one particular city (Qum), see Andreas Drechsler, Die Geschichte der Stadt Qom im Mittelalter (650–1350): politische und wirtschaftliche Aspekte (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1999). (170) Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, I, 289. (171) One is the Taʾrīkh Gurgān by Abū al-Qāsim al-Gurgānī (d. 427/1036). Its accounts follow a familiar pattern of including the Arab conquests, listing the ṣaḥāba and tābiʿūn who settled in Gurgān, the rulers, the building of the congregational mosque, etc. These accounts are coupled with biographical notices of more than 1,000 scholars. The work should not to be confused with the Tārīkh-i Jurjān written by al-Sahmī (b. mid-tenth century). Elton Daniel, ‘Historiography – iii. Early Islamic Period’, EIr, XII (2004), 337, 342. (172) An exception is Ibn al-ʿAdīm, who was a bureaucrat and a scholar, and drew not only on biographical sources but also on a rich body of political chronicles and geographical-administrative texts in composing his Bughyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīkh Ḥalab (only partly extant). R. S. Humphreys et al., ‘Taʾrīkh’, EI2, X (2000), 278. (173) Literary Persian emerged in the tenth century. For a useful study in this regard, see Julie Scott Meisami, Persian Historiography: To the End of the Twelfth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), and more recently, chapters in J. T. P. de Bruijn (ed.), A History of Persian Literature, Volume I, General Introduction to Persian Literature, gen. ed. Ehsan Yarshater (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009); and in Charles Melville (ed.), A History of Persian Literature, Volume X, Persian Historiography, gen. ed. Ehsan Yarshater (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). (174) Daniel, ‘Historiography’, 331–48. Andrew Peacock has argued convincingly that Balʿamī’s work is a recension in Persian rather than a direct ‘translation’. Peacock, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography, x, 5 ff. (175) Daniel, ‘Historiography’, 339–41; Husaini, ‘Contribution’, 77–89. See new translation by C.E. Bosworth as The Ornament of Histories: a History of the Eastern Islamic lands AD 650–1041: The Original Text of Abû Saʿîd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Gardīzī (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011); and Abū al-Faḍl Bayhaqī, Tārīkh-i Bayhaqi (Boston, MA: Ilex Foundation: 2011). (176) The Tārīkh-i Sīstān was continued later to cover Sīstān’s history up to 695/1295–6. Storey, I/1, 364; Stori/Bregel’ II, 1078–9.

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Writing about Place: Faḍāʾil-i Balkh 1 (177) Storey, I/1, 350–1; Stori/Bregel’ II, 1027–8. (178) Storey, I/1, 360–1; I/2, 1298; Stori/Bregel’ II, 1070–2. (179) The biographical material in the Tārīkh-i ʿālamārā-yi ʿabbāsī of Iskandar Beg Munshī, written in the early sixteenth century, is exceptional in its balanced presentation of military, religious and bureaucratic classes. Humphreys et al., ‘Taʾrīkh’, 287; Iskandar Beg Munshī, Tārīkh-i ʿālamārā-yi ʿabbāsī, ed. Īraj Afshār, 2 vols ([Isfahan], Muʾassasa-yi maṭbūʿāt-i ʿālī-yi Amīr Kabīr, 1334–5/1956–7). (180) Humphreys et al., ‘Taʾrīkh’, 286. (181) Ibn Funduq, Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, 10–13. For a translation of the excerpt, see Pourshariati, ‘Local histories’, 144. (182) Francesco Gabrieli, ‘Adab’, EI2, I (1960), 175–6. (183) On the different types of biographical works written in Persian, see A. K. S. Lambton, ‘Persian Biographical Literature’, in Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt (eds), Historians of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 141–51. (184) Jerome Clinton, ‘A Sketch of Translation and the Formation of New Persian Literature’, in Kambīz Eslāmī (ed.), Iran and Iranian Studies. Essays in Honour of Iraj Afshar (Princeton, NJ: Zagros, 1999), 290. (185) Tarif Khalidi, in his discussion of adab-like historical thinking as distinct from ḥadīth historiography in substance and form, attributes this remoulding of the conceptualization of the past to ‘new configurations of social class and political power’. The new genre had at its core ‘a closer examination of man’s inner being: not merely his conscience but his reason, will and psyche’. Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 112.

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The Sacred Sites and the City

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

The Sacred Sites and the City Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords In the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh the landscape is dominated by places of worship, pilgrimage and supplication of the spirits of previous generations of learned and pious people. Identifying these sites—a study of the shrine structures, their locations, and the people buried in them—is the first task of this chapter. Secondly, the chapter explores the origin of sacred sites, and their evolution throughout a vibrant history of religious transformations. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh establishes an ancient, sacred origin for Balkh’s sites, which begs the questions asked by F.W. Hasluck in the 1920’s about a comparable place: why were the sacred sites kept alive and not destroyed when the new religion was ushered in, and how much of their pre-Islamic ‘cultish’ power was retained once the site became Islamic? Was this transference simply of a ‘material’, or also of a ‘spiritual’ nature? Were the personality of the saint, local legends and customs just supplanted, or did they coexist? Keywords:   sacred landscape, holy sites, Islamic shrines, Islamisation, Buddhist stupas, mandala

We have seen that the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh is an account by a twelfth-century Balkhī who had an Islamic scholarly background, and whose perspective on the landscape around him was that of a pious man. Hence, it is not surprising that his interest in the landscape of medieval Balkh lay principally in the sacred sites of the city, and specifically the shrines of his scholarly predecessors. In the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh the landscape is dominated by places of worship, pilgrimage and supplication of the spirits of previous generations of learned and pious people. Identifying these sites—a study of the shrine structures, their locations, and the people buried in them—becomes the first task of this chapter. We will see that Page 1 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City shrines, in particular, had powerful influences on the daily lives and routines of city dwellers, on their relationships with the city, and on their decision-making in important matters. An understanding of Balkh’s sacred sites gives a unique insight into the daily lives of people in Balkh, and they tell us about relationships between pilgrims and the landscape. A second topic under review here concerns the enduringly fascinating question about the origin of sacred sites, and their evolution throughout a vibrant history of religious transformations. The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh establishes an ancient, sacred origin for these sites, which begs the questions already asked by F. W. Hasluck in the 1920s for Anatolia’s sacred sites: why were they kept alive and not destroyed when the new religion was ushered in, and how much of their pre-Islamic ‘cultish’ power was retained once the site became Islamic? Was this transference simply of a ‘material’, or also of a ‘spiritual’ nature? Were the personality of the saint, local legends and customs just supplanted, or did they co-exist, or possibly form a synthesis with the new ones?

(p.69) The Sacred Sites of Balkh The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh declares not only its shrines as sacred, but the entire city of Balkh is qualified with the metaphor of a sacred shrine and a ‘pure earth’.1 FB ties Balkh’s sacredness not to Islam in the first instance as one might expect from ‘Islamic historiography’. It rather attributes Balkh’s holiness to its antiquity that predates Islam as far back as the Old Testament. Thus, it was the Angel Gabriel who carried Balkh ‘as caressingly and softly as a bride’s sedan chair’, with the mission of delivering Balkh to Jerusalem (bayt al-maqdis) on the Day of Judgement, when all of Balkh’s inhabitants would attain salvation.2 Balkh was described as ‘the second city’ ever created; following the first city, a place called Awq (?)3 in India (bilād al-hind).4 In line with the renderings of these medieval local histories in the eastern Iranian world, the biblical traditions are intertwined with ancient Iranian ones. Thus, FB adds that the first builder of Balkh was the biblical Cain,5 and that Cain was succeeded in this task by the (p.70) (mythical) Iranian king Gushtāsp (see Plate 9). These narratives are packed with potent images associated with the Abrahamic and ancient Iranian traditions, taking us right back to a primordial past. FB is following what by its time had become a standard practice of its genre, to provide linkages with the Isrāʾīliyyāt traditions.6 The validity of such statements may be questioned; in fact, they need not be taken literally. However, what these assertions do is put pressure on Balkh to prove itself worthy of an almost unrivalled legacy. It seems that Balkh, given its ancient and illustrious history, provided the right canvas for the creation of an Islamic sacred landscape. Thus, FB states: Excerpt:7 Page 2 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City It is related by correct chains of transmitters (asānīd) that the Friend of God [Abraham]—may the prayers of the Merciful be upon him—had arrived at the city of Balkh. The messenger of God [i.e. the Prophet Muḥammad] said: Abraham, Friend of God, came to Balkh and reached the asp-rīs,8 which is the centre (maydān) of the city. He said to the angel who accompanied him and who guards the earth, and is called ‘Ṣalṣāʾīl’, or in some traditions, ‘Ṣarṣarmāʾīl’: ‘What is this place?’ [The angel] said: ‘Oh, friend of God! Stay here, for it is a blessed place. In it there [lies] a prophet’s grave’. And so Abraham—may peace be upon him—alighted at the time of the dawn prayer, and performed two rakʿas. When he finished his prayer, he turned to Balkh and said: ‘Oh God, make abundant (and in some traditions, ‘Abundant have been’) its rivers. Give the trees fruits, bless it, and give it plenty of legal scholars (faqīhs)’. In Balkh itself there are several sites our author considers as sacred. The Persian/Arabic word for ‘sacred’ he uses is ‘maqdis’ (as in the (p.71) Arabic name for Jerusalem, bayt al-maqdis, meaning ‘sacred house’). These sites are sacred on account of their special powers of place. Thus, in the introduction FB states: Excerpt:9 Today the shrines of these pure people [i.e. the authors of the books on Balkh] are mostly in this pure earth (khāk-i pāk), and like the treasures and tombs of kings, their graves are stored up and buried here. Their spirits in this sacred fold (ḥaḍīrat al-quds)10 make Balkh the glory of the witnesses of the Kings of Kings, whose blessings are all-encompassing (ʿizz shuhūd mālik al-mulūk ʿammat ālāʾuhu).11 While the author of FB does not give us a consolidated list of shrines,12 he consistently tells us about the shrines of particular people, often inviting the Balkhīs to visit and perform ritual acts at these sites on particular times or days of the week. In FB’s third part, consisting of the biographical compilation of seventy shaykhs (see full list in Appendix A), it becomes apparent that our author, the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ, knew the exact shrine locations in Balkh of twenty-seven profiled scholars. The shrines of the remaining forty-three shaykhs were either unknown to him, or stood outside of Balkh in other cities. The author visited the shrines of some of FB’s shaykhs buried in Wāshgird, Faryāb of Jūzjānān to the west, Gardīz near Ghaznīn to the south, and Tirmidh across the Oxus River to the north.13 The unknown shrines and those located outside of Balkh will (p.72) not concern us further as they have no immediate effect on the landscape of the city.14 It turns out that the twenty-seven shrines in Balkh are concentrated in five sites only. These are the: ‘Mound of Gushtāsp’ (tall-i Gushtāsp), Naw Bahār Gate, Page 3 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Bakhtī (or Yaḥyā?) Gate, Hindūwān Gate, and a place called ‘Panj r.sh’. The narrative on each of these sites focuses not just on the Islamic scholars who are buried here, but on other features of the sites that make them special and sacred. Let us start with the so-called ‘Mound of Gushtāsp’ (tall-i Gushtāsp, var. tall-i Vishtāsp). From FB’s accounts this site seems to have hosted some subsidiary sacred sites that are identified rather vaguely as ‘between the two mounds’ (Ar. bayna al-tallayn), ‘on top of the hill’ (Per. sar-i tall) and ‘centre’ or ‘central square’ (Per. maydān, asp-rīs). Six of Balkh’s shaykhs are buried on the Mound of Gushtāsp: Muḥammad b. Ābān al-Balkhī (no. 32, d. 244/858–9), Khalīl al-Ṣaffār al-Balkhī (no. 44, d. 326/937–8), Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad al-Mustamlī (no. 52, d. 376/986–7), Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Zhālī (no. 63, d. 517/1123), Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Qalānisī al-Ashmaʿwarī (no. 65, d. 535/1140–1) and Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī (no. 70, d. 584/1188– 9).15 From this it would appear that Tall-i Gushtāsp only came into Islamic shrine use in the ninth century, and continued to do so until at least the twelfth century. The Tall-i Gushtāsp served as the final resting place for the author’s teacher, which must have augmented the importance of the site in the eyes of our author. From FB’s introduction it becomes apparent, though, that Tall-i Gushtāsp did not only become a burial ground in the ninth century, but rather, that it had been the final resting place of some of the noblest figures going back to the days of the Old Testament. Excerpt:16 It is attributed to the Messenger [i.e. the Prophet Muḥammad]—may God’s prayers and peace be upon Him—that Job, the Forebearer—may God’s prayers be upon him—is buried on the Mound of Gushtāsp. (p.73) And at each gate there are 70,000 angels, praying and saying ‘Forgiveness’ (istighfār), ‘Glory’ (takbīr), ‘Praise’ (taḥmīd) and ‘Exaltation’ (tahlīl), and granting to the people of Balkh the recompense. Ḥammād17 says: ‘I was crossing paths with Abū Bakr Ḥ.b.sh (?), when he said to me: ‘Oh Khurāsānī! [26] Come, so that I can give you some good news’. I hastened towards him. He said: ‘Job, the Forebearer—peace be upon him—is from Balkh’. It is reported by Ḥammād that a prophet is buried in the city of Balkh, and because of his tomb mis-fortune was driven from the city. They have attributed to Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān18 that in one of the villages (dīh) of Balkh there is a village called Bāt, and it is [the site of] a prophet’s shrine. Similarly, it is said that the tomb of Abū Naʿāma b. ʿAdawī19 is in the village of Bāt, where he was buried in the year 89 [after the hijra]. It is one of those famous shrines and delightful spots [of Balkh]. Another of Page 4 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City these places is the cemetery of the maydān which they call ‘Sar-i Tall’, and this is at the Mound of Vishtāsp [var. Gushtāsp]. In the Persian writing, Gushtāsp is written with the letter gāf [instead of a wāw]. They attribute to ʿUmar b. Hārūn20 this statement: ‘I left Balkh in the pursuit of knowledge and boarded a ship that was headed for Baṣra. I arrived at a place that had watermelons and a community lived there. One of the men from the city asked me: ‘From which city do you come?’ I said, ‘From the city of Balkh!’ He said, ‘Do you know the maydān?’ ‘No’, I said. My mother, who was accompanying me on the trip, said, ‘Yes, I know it’. The man said the great truth: ‘A prophet is buried Between the Two Mounds.’ It is said by Muqātil b. Sulaymān21 that with (p.74) His own blessed hand, He [the Prophet Muḥammad?] pointed to those two mounds where Job’s shrine lay. And to Ḥasan [al-] Baṣrī,22 may God’s mercy be upon him, they attribute that Job, the Forebearer, is in a city called Balkh, and that he lies in a place called maydān, and that it is said that Job, the Forebearer, and Gushtāsp are both buried in the maydān. And one of the famous mosques is the Mosque of the Tomb (maqbar), and it is said that there is the tomb of a prophet in that mosque. The purpose of these somewhat repetitive accounts is clear: to prove the authenticity to the contention that the Tall-i Gushtāsp in Balkh is ancient and most blessed. This authenticity is sought by citing the successor to a Companion of the Prophet (tābiʿ) and ḥadīth transmitter Abū Saʿīd b. Abī al-Ḥasan Yasār alBaṣrī (d. 110/728). Anthropologists have shown that mounds occur commonly across cultures, regions and periods as shrine sites, together with other elevated places, such as mountains and tumuli.23 The importance of high physical spaces might also explain Balkh’s poetic Persian epithet, ‘Balkh-i bāmī’ (Balkh of the elevation’).24 One need only think of the impressive Christ statue on the peak of the 700-metre high Corcovado mountain that overlooks the stunning cityscape of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The statue of ‘Cristo Redentor’ (Christ, the Redeemer) is not only a symbol of Christianity but is the icon of the city in which many syncretic religions are practised. It seems that the Tall-Gushtāsp enjoyed a similar kind of iconic status, rather than being a religious symbol. This is the interesting point to be taken from the account of the Tall-i Gushtāsp: that to the people who lived in Balkh over the centuries—whether under Buddhist, Islamic, or other religious influence—the site transcended the ephemeral power of the day: its power was immutable and constant. The place survived the vicissitudes of time. To be sure, the Tall-i Gushtāsp was not adopted by the new religion of the day without re-packaging its symbolic codings to (p.75) match the language and imagery associated with Islam. However, adopted it was, and not abandoned—because sacred and iconic it continued to be.

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The Sacred Sites and the City Moving away from the iconic Tall-i Gushtāsp for a moment, it can be discerned from FB that the vast majority of the scholars’ shrines at Balkh—fifteen out of twenty-seven to be exact (56 per cent)—were in fact located at one particular gate: namely, the ‘Gate of Naw Bahār’.25 At this site, we also find the earliest shrine that is recorded in FB: that of the early mystic Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10, d. 163/779–80).26 The Naw Bahār Gate continued to consistently house the shrines of other shaykhs of FB all throughout the eighth to the 12th centuries. Others buried here are FB’s profiled scholars, Wasīm b. Jamīl al-Thaqafī (no. 15, d. 182/798), ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23, d. 215/830), Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5), Muḥammad b. Mālik al-ʿArabī al-Balkhī (no. 33, d. 244/858–9), Aḥmad b. Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 34, d. 247/861–2), Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl (no. 36, d. 261/874–5), Naṣīr b. Yaḥyā al-Balkhī (no. 37, d. 268/881), Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Iskāfī (no. 47, d. 333/944–5), Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 57, d. 475/1082), Muḥammad b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī (no. 59, 481/1088–9), Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Najjār al-D.arīr al-Balkhī (no. 61, d. 511/1117–8), al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī (no. 64, d. 532/1137–8), ʿUthmān b. ʿUmar al-Ghaznawī (no. 66, d. 536/1141–2), and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Bisṭāmī (no. 69, d. 562/1166–7). The shaykhs who were buried at the Gate of Naw Bahār had nothing in common beyond being learned and pious: some had distinguished themselves as legal scholars (faqīhs) or judges (qāḍīs), others as renunciants (zāhids). Nearer to the time of the author when the ʿulamāʾ had become more of a structured corpus (see next chapter on this) we find that the ʿulamāʾ of the highest echelons at the local level (notably, the shaykh al-Islāms) were buried at this place. Also interred here are the ʿAlids of Balkh, who distinguished themselves as direct descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad’s cousin and son-in-law, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. They were buried together in a family lot (ḥaẓīra). (For more on this family, see the next chapter.) The places of birth and residence of the men buried at the Naw Bahār Gate (p.76) varied, but they all spent some time in Balkh during their ‘careers’ as scholars, and most of them died here. So why is there such a heavy concentration of shrines at the Naw Bahār Gate? Judging from the author’s sources discussed in the previous chapter, it does not appear to be the result of skewed reporting—say because he used a pilgrimage guide for this particular site. We find the answer in FB itself. Excerpt:27 It is attributed to Anas b. Mālik, may God be pleased with him, through the messenger of God [i.e. the Prophet Muḥammad]—may God honour Him and His family and grant Him peace—that there is in Khurāsān a city called Balkh. Verily, it has four gates (darwāza). Around this city are running rivers and countless trees. At each of its gates there are seventy thousand angels that steadfastly guard the city until the Day of Resurrection.

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The Sacred Sites and the City The authority cited here, Anas b. Mālik (d. ca. 91–93/709–11), is early and distinguished, and serves FB’s author to add authenticity to the account that a number of Balkh’s city gates were sacred. The gates’ sacredness is explained on account of their function as protectors of the city: keeping the enemy outside at bay, and guarding the city’s inner sanctity. Some powerful imagery that can speak to the Muslim listeners and readers is used to highlight this. The 70,000 angels are a trope. They are, for example, also found in Narshakhī’s Tārīkh-i Bukhārā (‘History of Bukhara’) on the ancient gates of Bukhara (Uzbekistan). Another biblical (and Qurʾānic) image found in both the Tārīkh-i Bukhārā and FB is the analogy that the Angel Gabriel carried the city from heaven to earth as softly as ‘a bride taken to the house of her betrothed’.28 Then there is the use of the number ‘seven’. In the Islamic tradition (and in other religions), numbers that include the digit ‘seven’ are by definition holy, and its multiples even augment this number’s occultistic power.29 The four gates of Balkh are even named after some of the Qurʾān’s most powerful phrases, as we saw in a passage found in the excerpt (p.77) given earlier: ‘Forgiveness’ (istighfār), ‘Glory’ (takbīr), ‘Praise’ (taḥmīd) and ‘Exaltation’ (tahlīl).30 What of the other gates of Balkh? Two others, the putative Bakhtī/Yaḥyā and Hindūwān gates, were also used as shrine sites for FB’s ʿulamāʾ. They provided the space for two shaykhs each who lived in the tenth and eleventh centuries (nos. 45 and 54; 49 and 51 respectively).31 We shall return to the city gates as markers of the landscape later on. However, the question that remains is: why is it that the Naw Bahār Gate is so popular as a burial site for FB’s shaykhs right from the beginning of Islam in Balkh until the time of our author five centuries later? To answer this question, we need to consider the accounts in FB on the Naw Bahār Gate, as well as its namesake, the famous ‘Naw Bahār of Balkh’. In the historical passage of FB (part one), we learn that the Umayyads put their energies into strengthening the Naw Bahār Gate. In 124/741–2, three gates or gateways (abwāb) of iron were built to flank the Naw Bahār Gate, which was the main gate that led into the city.32 Then, two of the ‘iron gates’ were removed by the early ʿAbbāsid governor ‘Khuzāʿī’—presumably Ziyād b. Ṣāliḥ al-Khuzāʿī (d. 135/752–3). One he had moved to his personal villa (sarāy), and the other was sent to the neighbouring town of Khulm (Ṭukhāristān)—presumably as a gift to a local ruler there. By the time the author was ten years old, the last of these ‘iron gates’ was still visible, but by the time he wrote the book it had disappeared.33 The detailed focus of FB’s author on the Umayyad gates almost distracts us from what is a critical point: the main gate had already existed before the arrival of the Umayyads. This gives us evidence that the Naw Bahār Gate had a preIslamic past, much like its namesake, the much-written-about and admired ‘Naw Bahār of Balkh’. It is to this site that we shall now turn: a digression that proves Page 7 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City necessary given the importance of this shrine complex. What was the Naw Bahār’s pre-Islamic function and what happened to it after the arrival of Islam? Naw Bahār has tickled the imaginations of peoples in the area since antiquity, but also modern historians and archaeologists of (p.78) today, and it still remains elusive in many respects. The author of FB describes the Naw Bahār of Balkh in this way: Excerpt:34 Naw Bahār was built by the Barmakids (barāmika)35 and the Barmak (barāmak) was from [the] J.b.a-khān? [area of Balkh?]36 Faḍl b. Yaḥyā37 is from the Barmakid family. He summoned the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh at the Naw Bahār Gate, and said to them: ‘My ancestor is famous for having built Naw Bahār, the sanctuary of the Magians. Set me a task that can absolve me of that shame’. The ʿulamāʾ and ascetics (zāhids) all agreed that he should build a water channel (jūy) running through the middle of the city. In the year [175],38 he dug a water channel (jūy) through the middle of the city. And in another passage:39 In ʿAjam 40 during the Time of Ignorance (jāhiliyya) [i.e. in the pre-Islamic period], [the Naw Bahār] was the sanctuary (kaʿba) and temple (p.79) (maʿbad) of the Magians (mughān). It is attributed to Ibn Shawdhab,41 that the Devil (iblīs)42 has his home in Khurāsān, which they call ‘the Naw Bahār of Balkh’. Every year, he dons the garb of a pilgrim (iḥrām gīrad) and visits that house. And the sanctuary of the Magians and the temple of the ʿajamīs was of this ilk. They also transmit from Ibn Shawdhab that at the beginning of each solar year the great and noble [men] of Ṭukhāristān, Hindūstān and Turkistān and the lands of ʿIrāq, Syria and Greater Syria would come to and celebrate for seven days at Naw Bahār. This account is highly distorted and confounds the Buddhism that was practiced here with the religious practices and geographic spread of Zoroastrianism and possibly other Iranian religions branded as ‘heretical’.43 This inaccuracy reflects our author’s lack of familiarity with Buddhism, and is typical of early Islamic historiography in general.44 Irrespective of its inaccuracy, the account repeats what is well known in its time about the Naw Bahār: that it was an important pre-Islamic place of worship and pilgrimage. It had a resounding impact on people from near and far. In order to obtain a more accurate picture of the Naw Bahār, one has to resort to other sources, the best of which are the pilgrims’ travel accounts written by Chinese Buddhist monks. They visited the Naw Bahār standing outside the city (walls) of Balkh in the seventh and eighth centuries.45 Hsuien Tsang went to Balkh in the (p.80) early 630s AD, just a decade or two before the first Muslim raids began. The monk describes the site in details that speak to a Buddhist Page 8 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City audience. According to Hsiuen Tsang, the entire city of Balkh (Ch. Poho) contained 100 Buddhist convents that housed 3,000 monks. Naw Bahār was by far the largest of the monasteries, and its monks studied the religious teaching of the Shravakayāna, to which Hsuien Tsang refers by the pejorative name ‘Hīnayāna’ (‘Lesser Vehicle’). This is a reference to early forms of Buddhism that must have continued in Balkh.46 Hsiuen Tsang described that the cupola was covered in hard plaster and was ornamented with various precious stones. Thus, the Naw Bahār seems to have had a typical dual constellation of temple (Sk. stūpa) and monastery (Sk. vihāra) that is ubiquitous to Buddhist architecture.47 Hsiuen Tsang goes on to describe that around the Naw Bahār’s main stūpa stood ‘several hundred’ lesser stūpas dedicated to those monks who had attained ‘saintship’ (Ch. lo-han, Sk. arhat).48 Stūpa reliquaries are common to Buddhist practice, and the similarities (p.81) with the Muslim tradition of shrine building and veneration has not been overlooked by scholars of Islamic architecture.49 Even though the shrines of FB’s time are largely unidentified today, we know from the written account in FB that they were ‘qubbas’ or ‘gunbads’, which means ‘dome’ (other terms used to denote shrines or graves are the generic turba, mashhad, qabr and maqbara).50 If we look just outside the old Balkh site we find a possible prototype of these qubbas in a shrine known as Bābā Ḥātim that has been dated to the eleventh century (see Plate 10). Its dome is made of unbaked and fired brickwork, while the base is covered in stucco decorations and a large band of epigraphy running around the opening.51 While it is not possible to declare an influence of Buddhist shrine practice on the (p.82) early Muslims in Balkh, Naw Bahār makes the hypothesis more plausible.52 There is other evidence for the Naw Bahār’s Buddhist use. The term used in FB to denote the keeper of the Naw Bahār temple, ‘barāmika’, is etymologically linked to the Sanskrit pramukha, which is a title for ‘priest’ or ‘superior’.53 Scholars generally accept that there is also an etymological link between the Sanskrit nava vihāra, meaning ‘new monastery’ and the Persianized naw bahār. A similar argument has been made for the etymological link between vihāra and the place name ‘Bukhara’.54 Ibn al-Faqīh describes that flags were flown on top of the cupola of the Naw Bahār’s central building, which in some languages was known as ‘al-ustūn’. The flying of flags on a cupola is a common feature in Buddhist temples, and ‘alustūn’ is orthographically similar to al-ustūp, the Arabicized rendering of the Sanskrit term for shrine, stūpa.55 Ibn al-Faqīh recorded that round arches and 360 prayer cells surrounded the site in which devotees carried out their (monastic) services and slepṭ The cupola measured 100 cubits (45.72 metres) in circumference and the same size in height.56 Perhaps a comparison with the ‘massive’ standing Buddhas of Bamiyan gets us closer to imagining the colossal size of such a stūpa. The Naw Bahār’s cupola would have stood higher than the smaller of the two Buddhas, and just 10 metres shorter than the larger Buddha. Page 9 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City The massiveness of the Bamiyan Buddhas is grasped if one looks at Edmund Melzl photograph taken in 1958 of a Volkswagen Beetle parked between the feet (p.83) of the large Buddha.57 It would have meant that the stūpa was visible from miles away along the generally low-lying panorama of the Balkh oasis. Just as the glistening golden-domed Haram al-Sharīf is Jerusalem’s icon, so was the Naw Bahār for Balkh. Much of our attention has focused so far on the Naw Bahār’s main temple site. But the barāmika also commanded many slaves, we are told, and the Naw Bahār was more than a temple and monastery: it was a vast estate. Thus, writes Ibn alFaqīh (fl. 289/902), the Naw Bahār [estate] comprised an area of 8-by-4 farsakhs (48 × 24 km) [in the more detailed Mashhad manuscript the area is given as 7 farsakhs in diameter, which is perhaps 7 square farsakhs, so 42-by-42 km]. This would mean that the Naw Bahār territory covered at least two-thirds of the Bactran oasis.58 This may surprise an Islamic historian, but not scholars of Buddhism. The combination of religious site and landownership is common in the Buddhist context. Patrons donated parts of their land, the priest bestowed ‘merit’ (Sk. punya) upon them, which brought the patrons closer to their last rebirth (the Buddhist’s final goal of nirvana). In return, the monasteries obtained revenues that enabled them to tend to the religious buildings and the attached estates. One can imagine the amazing wealth that the Barmakids of Balkh could have possessed by the time the Muslim armies arrived at the gates of the city. It foreshadows, in a way, the great importance this family was to attain in the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Coming back to our original question of what made the Naw Bahār Gate worthy of being the most frequented pilgrimage site on account of its many shrines, it would appear that here again it was the site’s (p.84) pre-Islamic sanctity that was adopted and continued by the Muslims. The conversion narrative in FB associated with the site is striking which is why I will repeat it here. Excerpt:59 Faḍl b. Yaḥyā60 is from the Barmakid family. He asked for a meeting with the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh at the Naw Bahār Gate, and said to them: ‘My ancestor is famous for having built Naw Bahār, the sanctuary of the Magians. Set me a task that can absolve me of that shame.’ The ʿulamāʾ and ascetics (zāhids) all agreed that he should build a water channel (jūy) running through the middle of the city. In the year [175],61 a water channel (jūy) flowed through the middle of the city. The main character in the story is al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā b. Khālid b. Barmak (d. 193/808), who became governor of Khurāsān under his father’s vizierate and in Hārūn al-Rashīd’s (d. 170–93/786–809) ʿAbbāsid caliphate. This is the time of the Page 10 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Barmakid glory, before the tragic demise of this family that is perhaps best known from the stories in the Arabian Nights. The Barmakids were descended from the family of the Buddhist priests and keepers of the Naw Bahār of Balkh. It is significant that the purported meeting is placed at the Naw Bahār Gate, where al-Faḍl ‘admits’ that his ancestors had built the ‘heathen’ Naw Bahār. This crime is ‘forgiven’ once al-Faḍl builds a canal that can water the city. To have water running through a city in a desert oasis such as Balkh was the height of luxury. With this act of generosity and moral authority the Naw Bahār and the Barmakid role in its upkeep before Islam were effectively pacified. After such a pacification act it became unnecessary to destroy or even re-name the Naw Bahār. And while some of the Arab conquest (Ar. futūḥ) literature reports that the Naw Bahār was destroyed by the Umayyads, this account does not hold ground when compared to the archaeological evidence and many (p.85) other narratives.62 It is probably safe to assume that the Muslim attacks indeed targeted the all-too-visible Buddhist temple of Balkh.63 As we saw earlier, its cupola was lofty; it would have risen well above Balkh’s flat landscape, and would have marked the city from all angles and vantage points. It would have become a necessity for the Muslim conquerors to take over this reminder of Balkh’s jāhiliyya, which was also its landmark. All too often, invaders attack a city’s iconic features because they are potent symbols of the old order, but the bulk of these structures is retained. Transferring such sites to the new order is a powerful statement for the recently conquered populace. One need think only of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul which was transferred from iconic Christian status when Constantinople was the Byzantine capital to a mosque after the conquest of the city by the Ottomans in (p.86) AD 1453. Christian iconographic decorations were covered, but the structures remained as before.64 The Naw Bahār actually appears as a functioning site in FB in the early ninth century, albeit not as an active site of Buddhist (or Islamic) worship. The account in which we find this tangential mention relates to the shaykh ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23, d. 215/830), ‘who spoke in Persian (bi al-fārsiyya)’ while defining zuhd as an act of offering one’s body for hire (bi ijāra dādan) ‘at the Naw Bahār [emphasis added]; to pull a skillet of clay, and carry a pot of earth on the head’.65 FB’s author interjects here to explain that the Naw Bahār was at this time a place where construction workers (mazdūrān) offered their services for hire.66 So far this exploration of the sanctity of Balkh’s Islamic shrine sites—the Mound of Gushtāsp and Naw Bahār Gate—has shown a complicated layering of levels of burial that continued across time. This temporal ‘depth’ of place below ground gave profoundness of space in the present, above ground. While our discussion has focused on shrines in the city, villages, too, were affected. We read in a previous excerpt that a prophet’s shrines lay in a village named Bāt.67 Moreover,

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The Sacred Sites and the City even mosques in the city were built on top of places where previous ‘prophets’ were known to lie. FB explains: Excerpt:68 Amongst the well-known mosques is the Mosque of the Tomb, and they say that it, too, includes the shrine of a prophet. Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān sat at the ʿAbd al-Azīz Maqbarī Mosque, and said: ‘In this mosque lies the grave of a prophet, and I am taking many good blessings from it.’ They have attributed to Abū Muṭīʿ [al-Balkhī]69 that that shrine is beneath70 our minaret [of the Mosque of the Tomb]’. (p.87) Kathīr b. Ziyād,71 may God’s mercy be upon Him, has said that ‘in the Mosque of Dūst Karābīsī72 in Dashtak is a prophet’s tomb (marqad).73 Sometimes I have seen a light shining from that holy place (zāwiya), that is, from under the minaret’. The narrative in FB appears to be somewhat distorted. In some ways, though, such details are irrelevant. What matters to the author is that Balkh’s holy Islamic sites are built on top of and in succession to their pre-Islamic use. Incidentally, Paul Schwarz made the observation from al-Maqdisī’s account on the Umayyad jāmiʿ mosque of Balkh (the site has not yet been found) that one needed to descend a set of stairs to enter it. Schwarz infers that the subterranean platform may well indicate that the mosque was built on top of a pre-Islamic site that was converted by the Umayyads in Balkh.74 We have no archaeological evidence that confirms this, but we find a similar trend in Bukhara, and perhaps even in Samarqand.75 The fifth and final sacred site in FB is the shrine of the Shaykh al-Islām Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Nuṣayrī (no. 53, d. 411/1020) said to lie at (p.88) a place called ‘Panj r.sh’ (‘Five Mounds’?). He was the first Shaykh al-Islām of Balkh according to our author. The Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ adds that the shrine was known in his time, and stood near the Nuh Gunbadān (‘Nine Domes’).76 This is the only shrine to FB’s shaykhs that is located here, and should be treated as an aberration rather than the norm. There is one Nuh Gunbad site in Balkh, better known today by its more recent name Ḥājjī Piyāda (‘Barefoot Pilgrim’), stemming from a folk tradition of a pious pilgrim who travelled to Mecca with no shoes on. The remains of the nine-domed structure with beautifully carved columns stand 3 km outside the walls of Balkh (see Plates 11a and 11b).77 DAFA has been excavating the lower levels of the mud-brick site, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture is carrying out important conservation work on the refined decorative façade. DAFA’s research has led to the discovery of a miḥrāb which confirms that at some point the site functioned as a mosque. However, none of the Arab geographers mention it, and FB only mentions the nuh gunbadān in passing without specifying that it might be a masjid. FB is usually meticulous about Page 12 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City identifying the mosques of Balkh as masjid, such as Maqbarī masjid built in 142/758;78 (p.89) the masjid of Shihāb b. Maʿmar (no. 25, d. 216/831–2);79 the masjid of Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl (no. 36, d. 261/874);80 the masjid of Muqannaʿ at Mūmak Square (farrākh);81 the masjid of the arrow-makers (kamāngarān);82 the Ḥarb masjid at the dār al-ḥarb which is named after a certain Ḥarb b. ʿArwān al-Saʿīd;83 the Sharaf al-Dīn masjid named after an ʿAlid Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī (no. 64, d. 532/1137–8) at the cemetery (gūristān) of Balkh;84 and the Mosque (masjid) of Dūst Karābīsī at a place called ‘Little Desert’ (dashtak).85 FB even mentions village-level masjids. What is perhaps more relevant for our purposes is that the architectural model based on four columns at the axes of a central square, surrounded by an outer wall, thus forming nine roofing elements covered in domes, has pre-Islamic precedents. The architectural style is found in early Iranian mosques, such as at Kirmān, and continues into Saljūq times. Perhaps it is worth making a cautious suggestion that the style had survived not necessarily (or only) in form of a mosque but as a pre-Islamic, or perhaps even palatial building type as well.86 (p.90) When wiping the dust off the columns, blue and white painted stucco can be seen, as well as stud holes perhaps for holding semi-precious stones.87 One palace we read about in FB and other sources is the ‘Naw-shād’ of Prince Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās (r. 233–59/847–73). The timing would match Lisa Golombek’s identification of the stucco carvings as being reminiscent of Samarra. The period we are dealing with is not so much ‘ʿAbbāsid’ for Balkh, but Banījūrid.88 At this time, at least thirty years had passed since the Barmakid demise, which was effectively the end of the ʿAbbāsids’ direct hold over Balkh. Therefore, is it not possible that this structure—a part of the Naw-shād palace complex built by Prince Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās—was spared the devastating advances of the Ṣaffārid Yaʿqūb al-Layth who is credited with destroying Naw-shād in 258/872?89 Its decorations are also reminiscent of the Sāmānid tomb to Ismāʿīl (r. 279–95/892– 907).90 What then is the ‘Panj r.sh’? If we read r.sh as resh (= mound), then one would need to pinpoint a site near the still-standing Nuh Gunbad of old Balkh. Given the general prevalence of smaller mounds throughout the site this is not impossible. Warwick Ball has often suggested in his Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan that the lesser mounds in the Balkh area may be mud-brick stūpa remains (see Figure 2, for example).91 (p.91)

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The Sacred Sites and the City We may recall the account of the seventh-century Chinese pilgrim Hsiuen Tsang that around the Naw Bahār’s main stūpa stood ‘several hundred’ lesser stūpas dedicated to those monks who had attained ‘saintship’ (Ch. lo-han, Sk. arhat).92 Might the burial of the eleventh-century Shaykh al-Islām have followed a tradition practised by pious Buddhist scholars centuries before him? Any conclusions to this effect would only be conjecture, and we shall have to treat the Panj r.sh site as an aberration until further archaeological evidence comes to light.

Fig. 2. Charkh-i Falak (‘Ferris Wheel’) ‘stūpa’ beyond the walls of Balkh. (Azad, 2009).

(p.92) The Sacred Landscape of Balkh So far the individual sites that were sacred have been outlined, including their functions as Islamic shrines, their pre-Islamic origins, and the process of their conversion to Islam. Can we locate these sites on a map, and by doing so, what kind of sacred landscape emerges? It is a sad irony of history that the tenthcentury geographers of Balkh, where the influential ‘Balkhī school’ of Islamic geography was founded, have left us no trace of the maps they might have drawn of the city. Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Balkhī (d. 322/934) after whom the school modelled its approach, had written a geography of the region with numerous maps, but these do not survive.93 Whether he produced a more detailed map of the Balkh area remains an open question. The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project is still working on its reconstruction of a map, but its preliminary map is given in Plate 12, and should hopefully provide a useful guide to the reader for the remainder of this chapter. We have to resort to satellite imagery, such as Google Maps, to get an idea of the topography. The site of ‘Old Balkh’ (36°46′N, 66°54′E) can be clearly discerned in the satellite image.94 It lies in Afghanistan’s north-west in what is largely an extensive, abandoned urban site. Old Balkh stood in the plains, sandwiched between the Alborz Mountains (also called Bābā Kūh) to the south and the Oxus River (Amu Darya) to the north (see maps in the beginning of this book).95 The old city of Balkh is marked still today by a massive set of walls. Unfortunately, FB merely refers to these walls in an all but mythical account of how they were built in antiquity. I will still cite it because of the lovely detail FB includes on how people organized the work to build it. (p.93) Page 14 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Excerpt:96 Gushtāsp ordered the people of the country to gather all the men together and for ten years they were occupied in building the city of Balkh. They appointed women to the city and the province (wilāya) to govern amongst themselves and to have authority (wilāyat mīdāshtand). The city wall was divided up amongst the men to be built.97 When Gushtāsp started to build Balkh, the first brick (khisht) to be laid snapped and broke in two. The king was perturbed by this, and the sign of his disappointment was seen on his forehead. When the ʿulamāʾ and ḥakīms98 saw him in this state they said: ‘The king must not be sorrowed by this because the breaking in two of the brick is proof that the water, land and air of this city will be agreeable to any stranger who comes here’. Shaykh al-Islām [al-] Wāʿiẓ says that there are various traditions about the building of Balkh, and that there is no remedy for the fact that we have to accept all these traditions. Each of these accounts has been certified so that the traditions do not become corrupted,99 and it is admissible that all the traditions are correct. Because, on the authority of Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān al-Qāḍī100—may God have mercy on him—it is said that the city of Balkh was ruined twenty-three times, and that: ‘If this time the city is destroyed, it will not be repaired until the Day of Judgement; it is proper that after devastation there should be reconstruction and recovery’. This citation also tells us a lot about the author: how he uses the narrative of Balkh’s multiple devastations in the past as an example of (p.94) how Balkh doggedly rises up again on its feet, no matter how badly it is beaten to the ground. The account has a rhetorical value that emphasizes Balkh’s steadfastness and rejuvenation as an eternal city that will be freed on Judgement Day. This may have been a necessary boost of morale for a population that in the time of the author was suffering many corrupt rulers, presumably the Khwārazmshāhs of the time, or their predecessors, the Qarakhitāy and their Qarakhānid and Ghūrid vassals. It is to the old archaeological reports of DAFA written in the 1950s and 1960s, and the pre-modern Arab geographers’ accounts that one must turn to obtain a better idea of the shape of Balkh’s walls. Even just walking the area of old Balkh where extensive sections of the city murals remain reveals that the city consisted of a most far-reaching network of walls that ran along many kilometres, sometimes in a non-linear fashion. One circumscribed an elevated round citadel area of some eight hundred metres in diameter that was surrounded by a moat.101 It stood at the northern tip of the ‘old Balkh’ site (and is still clearly visible on a satellite image) on a circular, elevated fort known today as the ‘Bālā Ḥiṣār’. Together with the non-contiguous Tepe102 Zargarān

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The Sacred Sites and the City mound to its east, DAFA archaeologists Marc Le Berre and Daniel Schlumberger called this ‘Bactres I’, which they dated simply to ‘the pre-Islamic period’.103 The other set of walls ran along the foot of the southern end of the Bālā Ḥiṣār and extended southwards to form a verticle rectangle-shaped lower city (shahristān in Barthold’s words;104 rabaḍ according (p.95) to the Arab geographers).105 Le Berre and Schlumberger dated this addition of a lower city (which they called ‘Bactres IA’) to simply ‘the pre-Islamic to early Islamic period’, by which they might roughly have meant the seventh to the tenth centuries. The walls of a ‘Bactres II’ to the east (which circumscribes the Tepe Zargarān) have been dated to the ‘pre-Mongol period’ as well.106 It would seem that FB’s shrines would fall within the areas of Bactres I, IA, and II. Aerial and satellite imagery confirms what the visitor can see: that these wall sets were adjacent to one another. The tenth–twelfth-century Arab geographers paint a similar constellation of walls and gates.107 In addition, they report of a massive, third wall with a 72-km diameter. It had circumscribed the entire Balkh oasis, and was pierced by gates as well—twelve of them, each equidistant to a symmetrically opposed gate. It would not have been visible to the residents of Balkh city, and seems to have been already in disuse when the geographers were writing.108 (p.96) What happens when we mark the sacred sites of Balkh on this map? If the Tall-i Gushtāsp is indeed what is known today as ‘Tepe Zargarān’ in ‘old Balkh’, then we can locate it as a conical mound that cuts through the eastern wall of Balkh’s lower city, or shahristān (see city map in Plate 12). On Tepe Zargarān the French ceramicist Jean Gardin identified glazed polychrome ceramics from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.109 This periodization coincides with the dates of the men buried here according to FB. It appears possible that Tepe Zargarān provided the eastern limit for an extended inner city (i.e. beyond the serpentine wall), while it may also have served as a non-contiguous (religious) site.110 Some of the more recent coin, ceramic and architectural finds of the DAFA excavations at Tepe Zargarān point to its preIslamic use as well (see Figures 3a and 3b). But investigations are ongoing and are awaiting publication. (p.97)

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The Sacred Sites and the City (p.98) The old gates are too small to be seen on Google Maps, but walking through the area reveals the remains of gates that were circumscribed by some of the city walls. If one were to take ‘Bactres I and Bactres IA’ only as the city in FB’s time, one might be able to locate the gates at the cardinal points of the compass (see Plate 12).111 This thesis can be confirmed only partially from the remains, but finds some support through comparisons with other pre-Islamic/early Islamic cities in the eastern Iranian

Fig. 3a. On Top of Tepe Zargarān or the ancient Tall- i Gushtāsp? (Azad, 2009).

world.112 The four gates may have been circumscribed by the city walls that surrounded the rectangular inner city and rabaḍ, as indeed the Turkish historian Zeki Velidi Togan suggested.113

The first gate identified by Togan is the Naw Bahār Gate (it was renamed the Gate of Aḥmad Khiḍrawayh, and is known as Bābā Kūh Gate today) at the southern point.114 Its remains pierce the south wall (p.99) and one can walk Fig. 3b. Detail of excavated Hellenistic though the gate today (the wall remains from Tepe Zargarān. (Azad, is clearly visible on satellite 2009). imagery, reflected in Plate 12 here, as a straight-looking white line). A small canal still runs through it, reminiscent of the one described in FB as having been built by the Barmakid al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā (d. 193/809).115 None of the inner quarters is visible today, but FB explains that the gates provided the starting points of the major avenues that spliced the city into eleven districts or quarters (kūys).116 And where can we find the namesake of this gate—the Naw Bahār temple? The French archaeologist Alfred Foucher’s suggestion in the 1940s, that the site known today as ‘Tepe Rustam’ standing outside the southern wall of Balkh and the Naw Bahār Gate is the much-acclaimed and ancient temple of Naw Bahār, still remains current (see Plate 13). The site has not been excavated in any detail, however, and the easily friable baked and mud-brick with which it has Page 17 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City been constructed means that much of the decorative and structural detail has crumbled. Foucher measured Tepe Rustam’s quadrangular base to be 54 × 54 metres (sunk to 9 metres below the surface). He discerned that four staircases flanked it at the four cardinal points. The base was topped by a similar arrangement of staircases. Using Gandharan stūpas as comparanda, Foucher suggested that the three-tiered base held a cupola of 43 metres in diameter (see Figures 4a and 4b). If one walks along the Naw Bahār Gate today and the bit of wall that embraces it, as well as the area around the Naw Bahār at Tepe Rustam, one is struck by the multitude of lesser domed shrines that stand there. They often come with inscribed cenotaphs dated to the fifteenth century and after (see Plates 14a and 14b). And not too far away is the much-lauded Tīmūrid-period shrine of Khwāja Abū Naṣr Pārsā (see (p.100)

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The Sacred Sites and the City (p.101) (p.102) Plate 15). It is likely that the currently existing shrines and cenotaphs replaced earlier ones, including those mentioned by FB that go back to the eighth century. By extension, therefore, it seems possible that Buddhist reliquaries (Sk. stūpas), which were domed as well, had stood here long before the Muslims started to build their shrines.

If we go back to the gates, Togan appears to suggest that the second gate, Balkh’s Hindūwān Gate, stood at the northern point of the lower city.117 This places the Hindūwān Gate near the old Hindūwān caravanserai in the part of the shahristān/rabaḍ that borders the foot of the Bālā Ḥiṣār. The name of the caravanserai probably derives from the strong mercantile links with India. Balkh was a hub in the long-distance trade where merchants from India and Turkistān met along the socalled ‘Silk Road’.118 The strong trade links with India won Balkh the label in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam as the ‘warehouse (bār-kada) of India’.119 A brief excerpt in FB explains the major traffic of long-distance traders that converged upon Balkh. Excerpt:120 [T]his city was a hub for peoples and a good stoppingplace (manjaʿ) for caravans (al-qawāfil). No other city has been shown to match this, except Mecca during Page 19 of 43

Fig. 4. Foucher’s Reconstruction of the Naw Bahār Temple and Plan of the Site.

The Sacred Sites and the City the pilgrimage (ḥajj). And (Délégation archéologique française en every year, caravans arrive, Afghanistan). one after the other, from Hindūstān. The traders would bring fine aromatic roots (ʿaqāqīr), fragrances (ʿaṭriyyāt) such as aloes-wood (ʿūd),121 camphor (kāfūr) and the like; delicious sweet things (ḥalwiyāt), such as sugar and sugar-candy (fānīd);122 a multitude of precious goods (p.103) of unlimited value; pretty slave girls (kanīzakān-i māhrūy) and silver-limbed slave boys (qullāmān-i sīm andām) from Turkistān;123 Tamghājī silver coins;124 Farghāna silk; precious stones and many jewels that are beyond description and explanation. The tenth-century Arab geographer al-Maqdisī mentions what must have been the negative consequences of such a rush of travellers: ‘vices are widespread, and city riots are brutal’.125 Travellers were housed in the perfunctory caravanserais, and the archaeological evidence currently rests with ‘l’ancien caravanserai’ identified by Foucher, which McChesney links to the forty-nineroom caravanserai of the Sallākh-khāna quarter mentioned in waqf documents from Balkh of the sixteenth century. Its remains lie at the foot of the Bālā Ḥiṣār’s southern walls in the inner city.126 Togan also reports to have found the third sacred gate of Balkh: the Bakhtī/ Yaḥyā Gate which he says had stood where the current (p.104) ʿAkkāsha Gate stands at the eastern wall, towards Tepe Zargarān.127 If we follow the chār-sū model of a north–south, east–west orientation, then we might assume that the final fourth gate of Balkh mentioned in the written sources was located at the western end of the rectangular lower city.128 The sacred landscape, consisting of the four sacred gates at cardinal points, with walls that circumscribe a holy mound might be reminiscent of Buddhist mandala landscapes which you find represented in Buddhist temple structures like the Naw Bahār of Balkh. It would not be surprising for Balkh’s sacred landscape to have been narrated in this way while it was still firmly rooted in the Buddhist tradition. The Islamic narrative of FB defines the city’s earth as ‘pure’ (khāk-i pāk); it is blessed and protected by its pre-Islamic prophets and kings. As we saw earlier, the Muslim saints’ shrines were superimposed upon the ancient sacred sites of the city, much like Charles Ramble found for Tibet’s sacred sites.129 FB gives Balkh the metaphorical likeness of the qubbat al-Islām (‘dome of Islam’).130 It conjures up the physical image of a city that is protected by a large dome. If we factor in the gates that are described as sacred, then the imagined dome is like a protective halo that circumscribes the symmetrical constellation of four gates at the cardinal points of the compass, and one elevated space, the Tall-i Gusthāsp. What emerges is reminiscent of Buddhist mandala-city landscapes that have orientations to the cardinal points of the compass, elevated spaces such as stylized depictions of the sacred mountains Kailash or Mehru, and sometimes a Page 20 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City circular halo-type structure placed on top. One (p.105) parti-cular relevance might be the Tibetan mandalas that have been suggested as depicting an unidentified sacred place in northern Afghanistan from which the founder of the Tibetan Bonpo religion originated (see Plate 16).131 The Islamic cartographic tradition was well established by the ninth century as part of the geographical tradition (notably, of the Balkhī school mentioned earlier), and it may well have included schematic maps of cities. Topographical maps of individual cities or temple-cities existed in the Hellenistic and Buddhist traditions. It is by no means implausible, for example, that Balkh’s sacred landscape was depicted in the wall paintings at Naw Bahār mentioned by the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam.132 However, we do not have any medieval maps of Balkh, and much of our current knowledge is based on guesswork at this stage. I should hasten to add that it is only in rare instances that one can superimpose a depicted mandala landscape onto an actual map and find a one-to-one match.133 Mandala landscapes tend to be metaphorical more than descriptive. (p.106) One conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis of FB’s narrative on the Balkh sacred landscape—and no doubt, one that will raise eyebrows—is that not only were Balkh’s Buddhist sites converted, but by default, its Buddhist landscape as a whole. Even though the Buddhist codes and practices are no longer dis-cernable, the iconic value and symbolic power of the landscape continued—now in the guise of Islam. And while much of this conclusion may be based on conjecture, the adoption and adaptation of sacredness would by no means be unique to this region; it would rather add to an array of already established examples confirming this phenomenon. Shrine visitation and veneration

It was not enough to keep the memory of the shrines alive by mentioning them in texts like FB or by building commemorative structures. The inhabitants of the city had to visit them, communicate with the spirits of the dead, and seek blessings and answers to their prayers from them. In some cases, FB provides specific instructions on ritual practices associated with the visitation of these shrines. This kind of narrative is, in fact, unusual. The Arab geographers, while recognizing Balkh as the ‘granary of fiqh’,134 for example, do not mention the shrines of the ʿulamā. Other pre-Mongol urban histories also do not give as much attention to shrines. The Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, for example, does not mention the shrine of the Sāmānid ruler Ismāʿīl I (r. 279–95/892–907). On Samarqand, the Qandiyya mentions the shrine of the Companion of the Prophet, Qutham b. ʿAbbās (d. 57/677), but this text probably represents a post-Tīmūrid recension.135 FB seems to have tapped into a different corpus of literature. We can find comparanda for FB’s shrine focus in the faraway Islamic West. Twelfth-century authors in Mamluk lands were telling (p.107) their audiences about the shrines of Muslims in an environment when the crusader threat was Page 21 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City still real. The shrines formed part of a sacred geography, and provided protection to the Muslim populace.136 I would not find it surprising if a parallel reaction occurred in Balkh. As a frontier city as well, Balkh was constantly under threat from the north-eastern non-Muslims. This threat from outside may have necessitated FB’s author and textual predecessors to emphasise Balkh’s protection-giving shrines. The external threat may also have compelled the populace to carry out shrine visitations. FB directly encourages the inhabitants of Balkh to respect and participate in shrine veneration.137 The Shaykh al-Islām who compiled the Arabic FB in 610/1214 travelled himself to the tombs of a number of Balkh’s shaykhs in Bukhara, Faryāb (Jūzjānān), and Wāshgird.138 Some of Balkh’s shaykhs chose their final resting places while still alive with the desire to be appropriately accessible for shrine (p.108) visitations. The famous author Abū Isḥāq al-Mustamlī, we are told, chose for his grave site a spot on top of the mound of Balkh that could be accessed by pilgrims ‘without their having to step on the graves of other dead people’.139 The miracles and visitation protocols mentioned in FB include miracles at the saints’ tombs, such as the emanation of light and the smell of musk.140 The qāḍī Shaddād al-Ḥakīm (no. 22, d. 214/829–30) in his grave at the top of the mound and Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854) at Naw Bahār Gate answered people’s prayers.141 FB’s Arabic author met the spirit of Muḥammad b. ʿUmar alWarrāq al-Tirmidhī (no. 40, d. 294/906–7) at his grave in Tirmidh.142 Visitation rituals are mentioned in relation to the shrine of a number of Balkh’s shaykhs. For example, every Balkhī was expected to go to the grave of Wusaym b. Jamīl al-Thaqafī (no. 15, d. 182/798) at the Naw Bahār Gate once per week.143 In another case, the shrine of Muḥammad al-Faqīh al-Balkhī (no. 41, d. 305/917–18) was circum-ambulated seven times.144 The city’s inhabitants, says FB, visited the grave of the great faqīh Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49, d. 362/972–3) at the Hindūwān gate on Saturday mornings.145 From the discussion of twenty-seven shrines dating from the eighth to the twelfth centuries earlier in this chapter it has been seen that the sites of the Islamic shrines have a pre-Islamic origin—not only as a functional structure of the city in the form of gates, for example, but also as places of burial, specifically. Thus, there was a direct transference of shrine veneration from the times of pre-Islamic to Islamic rule and religious adherence. The big question that people want answered is whether or not elements of the previous religious cult were incorporated in the new one. If yes, were these ‘survivals’ simply material (mere re-use of a building and practices associated with it), or did they have a higher, spiritual value?

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The Sacred Sites and the City A model for categorizing the different types of ‘transference’ was offered by F. W. Hasluck who studied almost one hundred transferred sanctuaries in Turkey. Some transferred sanctuaries continued to be used for religious purposes by the ‘new-comers’, that is, the (p.109) rulers who were adherents of another religion. Others were ‘arrested’, that is, fell into disuse due to ‘untoward incidents’ (some would say, black magic, i.e. earthquakes, minarets being struck by lightning, the plague, etc.) or due to their secularization and conversion to civil use.146 In the Turkish context, the transference occurred between Christian and Muslim, and ‘pagan’ and Muslim/Christian practices in urban and rural contexts. Hasluck also establishes that in some cases believers of the Islamic and Christian faiths frequented one and the same site together, perhaps at different times of the day or week.147 He discredits those who have romantic notions of seeing survivals of old religions in new ones. Here Hasluck is aware that the question of religious survivals is not without ideological repercussions. The aim is often to point to the sameness of religions within a humanist programme of egalitarianism, or perhaps anti-racism, anti-Orientalism, and so on. What this study on Balkh has shown is not a survival and inter-mixing of religions as such. We find rather, on a more general level, the acceptance of the power of place, irrespective of the political or social order in a given time. Specifically, in the early Islamic period of Balkh, the adoption of the city’s preIslamic sacred spaces continued the vital notion of protection and ultimately, salvation. In the Islamic conversion narrative, this was particularly pertinent for Balkh’s Buddhists, who were not even part of the wider group of ‘the people of the Book’ (ahl al-kitāb), that is, Jews, Christians or Zoroastrians. The apotheosis of its sins was Nīzak Ṭarkhān: the infidel who had resisted Qutayba’s (d. 96/715) Umayyad armies. Balkh’s sacred spaces emerge as literary legitimizing devices for an Islamization of Balkh: their antiquity and protective qualities kept Balkh on the right path, even in times of temptation, to prevent it from departing from the true religion. The dead became the essential elements of Balkh’s landscape imagined by the living. Their spirits inspired communion, blessing and knowledge, and most of all, protection. Accordingly, FB transmits a ḥadīth attributed to a certain Ḥammād that: ‘A prophet is buried in the city of Balkh, and because of his shrine evil was driven from the city’.148 In order for the (p.110) protection and communion of these spirits to attain their hold over the entire city (shahr) of Balkh, their repositories—the graves—had to be located in places from which they could exercise their protective roles vis-à-vis the city-dwellers. These were the city’s gates, walls and mounds. We cannot deny the possibility that the sacred sites also happened to coincide with less desirable plots of land and may have been chosen as burial places for financial reasons. However, FB does not tell us so. On the contrary, it emphasizes that each of Balkh’s gates, for example, that served as burial places was surrounded by a profusion of greenery, Page 23 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City perfumes, and fertile crops. With such an august heritage of shrine culture, it is perhaps no wonder that the shrine of the Prophet’s cousin ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, was discovered in Balkh:149 one of the most sacred shrines for Muslims, particularly for Shīʿites, today (see Plate 17). The configuration of a Shīʿite holy site in what has traditionally been a Sunnī terrain emphasizes yet again that sanctity has no borders. Notes:

(1) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 9–10. (2) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 14, n. 1. Read tabdīl al-arḍ ghayr al-arḍ: ‘The day the earth shall change to another earth, and the heavens too; and they shall appear before Allāh, the One, the Conqueror’ (Q. 14: 48). FB emphasizes that all inhabitants will be saved because ‘those who do not fear God will be forgiven thanks to those who do’. (3) Yāqūt notes that the mythical Iranian king Ṭahmūrāth built a city in India on the top of a mountain called Awq. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1955), V, 113. Al-Masʿūdī locates Awq in Sīstān, in Murūj al-dhahab, ed. Charles Pellat (Beirut: Manshūrāt al-Jāmiʿa al-Lubnāniyya, 1966–7), V, 108. Ḥ abībī also found a Sīstānī Awq in the anonymous Tārīkh-i Sīstān and Gardīzī’s Zayn alakhbār [ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥ ayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1347/1968)]. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 15, n. 1. (4) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 14–15. The idea that Adam when he descended upon earth landed in al-hind is encountered frequently in Muslim historiography. The most common tradition is that he alighted on a mountain in Sarandīb (Ceylon). J. Pedersen, ‘Adam’, EI2, I (1960), 177. Examples can be found in al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), I, 119–21; Kisāʾī, Vita prophetarum (Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ), ed. Isaac Eisenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1922–3), 51. The bilād al-hind of medieval Arabic historiography refers broadly to the regions east of the Indus River. S. Maqbul Ahmad, ‘Hind – i. The Geography of India according to the Mediaeval Muslim Geographers’, EI2, III (1971), 404–5. (5) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 15–17. The identification of Abel as a sacrifice to God, and of Cain as tyrant or evil fire worshipper is an image used in Arabic exegetical, ḥadīth, Prophet-ical and historiographical sources of the time. G. Vajda, ‘Hābīl wa K․ābīl’, EI2, III (1971), 13–14; also Waltraud Bork-Qaysieh, Die Geschichte von Kain und Abel (Hābīl wa-Qābīl) in der sunnitisch-islamischen Überlieferung (Berlin: Schwarz, 1993), 19–105. (6) R. Sellheim, ‘Faḍīla’, II (1965), 728–9. (7) The excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 23.

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The Sacred Sites and the City (8) The toponym ‘asp-rīs’ has an ancient origin, and was already mentioned in the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta (as well as in the Shāhnāma and later Arabic sources) as a mythical square (maydān) that is two thousand paces (gam) in length. Gholam Reza Zarrinchian criticized the editor of FB, ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī for mistaking asp-rīs as a specific toponym rather than a generic one in ‘Faḍāʾil-i Balkh’, Rāhnamā-yi kitāb 16/10–12 (1352/1974), 677–84. Also CPED, II, 1749; and identification of asfrīs (var. asp-rīs) for ‘city gates’ and later the ‘maydān’ of a city in Jean Aubin, ‘Eléments pour l’étude des agglomérations urbaines dans l’Iran mediéval’, in Albert Hourani and S. M. Stern (eds), The Islamic City (Oxford: Cassirer, 1970), 68–9, 73. (9) This excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 9–10. (10) The allusion here is that Balkh is as holy as Jerusalem (al-quds). (11) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 9. (12) There are other place-focused sources that provide such lists. See for example, the fourteenth-century text of Junayd Shīrāzī, Shadd al-izār fī ḥaṭṭ alawzār ʿan zawwār al-mazār, ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī and ʿAbbās Iqbāl (Tehran: [s.n.], 1328/1948–9); and its Persian version in Tadhkira-yi Hazār mazār: Tarjuma-yi Shadd al-izār (Mazārāt Shīrāz), ed. Nūrānī Viṣāl (Shiraz: Kitābkhānayi Aḥmadī, 1364/1985–6). (13) These places may still have pertained to the administrative region (balada) of Balkh, which covered much of the pre-Islamic cultural area of ‘Bactria’. Ninth/ tenth-century Arab geographers tell us that Balkh commanded over (‘Balkh madīna yattaṣilu bi ʿamalihā’) the districts of Ṭukhāristān, Khuttal, Panjshīr, Badakhshān and Bamiyan and all the territories that pertained to it (including Ghazna). Al-Yaʿqūbī, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1860), 117; trans. Gaston Wiet, Les Pays (Cairo: l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1937), 101; al-Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb Masālik al-mamālik, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1927), 275–6; Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1873), II/2, 447. (14) Not all shaykhs were buried in the same place where they died. Thus, for example, Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49, d. 362/972–3), who reputedly died in Bukhara, was transferred to Balkh where he was buried at the Hindūwān Gate. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 299. (15) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 245, 288, 318, 350, 354, 370. (16) These excerpts are taken from FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 25–6. (17) Schefer suggests that this Ḥammād is Abū Ismāʿil Ḥammād (d. 176/792–3), son of Abū Ḥanīfa, who is noted for his integrity and saintliness. Charles Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, in Chrestomathie persane à l’usage des élèves de l’École Page 25 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City spéciale des langues orientales vivantes (Paris: École des langues orientales vivantes, 1883–5), I, 80–1. But this would not explain why Ḥammad is addressed as ‘Khurāsānī’. Ḥabībī states that there are too many Ḥammāds to be sure, but suggests that this might be Ḥammād b. Ḥamīd Khurāsānī mentioned by alBukhārī. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 25, n. 5. (18) Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (d. 142/759–60) is FB’s seventh shaykh. (19) Ḥabībī identifies him as ʿAmr b. ʿĪsā b. Suwayd b. Hubayra al-ʿAdawī, known as Abū Naʿāma Baṣrī, a renowned muḥaddith. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 26, n. 2. (20) Ḥabībī identifies this person as ʿUmar b. Hārūn b. Yazīd b. Jābir Balkhī (d. 196/811–12), known as Abū Ḥafṣ, a mawlā of Thaqīf. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 26, n. 3. Schefer comments that he died in Balkh, and that the shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq said of him that he was a sea of knowledge and could recite 50,000 traditions. Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, I, 81 (notes). (21) Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8, d. 158/774–5). He taught ḥadīth, kalām and tafsīr at the Jāmiʿ Mosque of Balkh. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 93. Further references given in Berndt Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, ZDMG 136 (1986), 439; GAS I, 36ff. Also M. Plessner—[A. Rippin], ‘Muḳātil b. Sulaymān b. Bashīr al-Azdī alKhurāsānī al-Balkhī’, EI2, VII (1993), 508–9. (22) Abū Saʿīd b. Abī al-Ḥasan Yasār al-Baṣrī (21/642–110/728) was a famous preacher in Baṣra belonging to the class of successors to the Companions of the Prophet (tābiʿūn). Hellmut Ritter, ‘Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’, EI 2, X (2000), 247; Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, I, 72; FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 17, n. 3. (23) Paul Devereux, Sacred Geography: Deciphering Hidden Codes in the Landscape (London: Gaia, 2010), 13–14. (24) Joseph Marquart, Ērānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenacʿi (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1901), 87–91. This epithet has also led to some con-fusion amongst historians between Balkh and Bamiyan. (25) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 119, 196, 221–2, 246, 249, 252, 257, 296, 331, 336, 345, 347, 350, 355, 363. (26) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 119. (27) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 25. (28) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 13–14, 25; Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 31; tr. Frye, 22. The number seven and its multiples is a common trope. (29) Lawrence Conrad, ‘Seven and the Tasbiʿ. On the Implications of Numerical Symbolism for the Study of Medieval Islamic History’, JESHO 31 (1988), 42–73. Page 26 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City (30) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 25. (31) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 291, 323 (at Bakhtī/Yaḥyā gate); 299, 311 (Hindūwān gate). (32) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 18–19. It is unlikely that they were actually made of iron, but may rather have been painted to look like it. (33) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 36. (34) The excerpt can be found in FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 19. (35) ‘Barāmika’ is the Arabic form of ‘Barmakid’. Kevin van Bladel, ‘Barmakids’, EI3; V. Barthold and D. Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, EI2, I (1960), 1033. (36) Ḥabībī reads Jibākhān, based on a parallel from a manuscript of the Majmaʿ al-gharāʿib written around 970/1562–3 by Sulṭān Muḥammad b. Darwīsh Muḥammad (one copy is deposited in Institut Vostokovedeniya Akademii Nauk (IVAN), Uzbekistan, ms. no. 1494). Apparently, it states that ‘the Barmākid family built a house (khāna) in Jibākhān that measured 100 by 100 gaz, and was 200 gaz high. Kings and people from all around the world came to visit it. It was ruined during the caliphate of ʿUthmān’. Also V. V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: Luzac, 1968 [1928]), 77. Schefer reads ikhtājyān, meaning ‘tribute-payers’. Another possible reading is jibākhāna, i.e. arsenal. CPED, 355. See also Zeki Velidi Togan on the ‘Djabba khan’, in ‘The Topography of Balkh down to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century’, CAJ 14 (1970), 282. The Turkish historian visited the site in 1968 for two days and based most of his textual analysis on the seventeenth-century Maḥmūd b. Amīr Wālī’s Baḥr alasrār. (37) The Barmakid al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā (d. 193/809) was appointed the governor of Khurāsān by the ʿAbbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809). Barthold and Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, 1034. (38) The year actually given in this passage from FB is ‘158’, but it cannot be correct. The reign of the Barmakids is usually understood to cover the period of 170/786–187/803, when Yaḥyā b. Khālid b. Barmak (d. 190/805) was the vizier of Hārūn al-Rashīd. The more probable year of ‘175’ is given in a later passage from FB referring to these events. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 37. Barthold and Sourdel, ‘alBarāmika’, 1034. (39) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 46. (40) ʿAjam, a term that generically refers to the non-Arab lands, probably means ‘Persia’ here. See Francesco Gabrieli, ‘ʿAdjam’, EI2, I (1960), 206.

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The Sacred Sites and the City (41) Ḥabībī identifies him as ʿAbd Allāh b. Shawdhab Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān alBalkhī (d. 156/772–3). FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 46, n. 4. Also Muḥammad Maḥrūs ʿAbd alLaṭīf Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh min al-ḥanafiyya wa-mā infaradū bihi min almasāʾil al-fiqhiyya (Baghdad: Wizārat al-Awqāf, 1978), I, 59. (42) A. J. Wensinck and L. Gardet, ‘Iblīs’, EI2, III (1971), 668. (43) Elton Daniel, The Political and Social History of Khurasan under Abbasid Rule, 747–820 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979), 125–56; Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), esp. 106–7, 117, 178, 386. (44) Daniel Gimaret, ‘Bouddha et les bouddhistes dans la tradition musulmane’, JA 257 (1969), 273–316. (45) By way of comparison of extra muros settlements, Bukhara in the fifth to the eighth centuries included settlements in principalities that surrounded the central area. Such settlements included Paykent, for example, which stood outside the walls of Bukhara. Every subsequent settlement was fortified too. Aleksandr Naymark, ‘The size of Samanid Bukhara: a note on settlement patterns in early Islamic Mawarannahr’, in Attilio Petruccioli (ed.), Bukhara—The Myth and the Architecture (Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999), 45–6. (46) Later phases of Buddhism, notably the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, do not preclude the use of early forms of Buddhism. For example, although Tibetan Buddhists primarily follow Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, all monks follow a disciplinary code that belongs to a now-vanished Hīnayāna school, Mulasārvastivādin. Richard Gombrich, Étienne Lamotte, and Lal Mani Joshi, ‘Buddhism in Ancient India’, in Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich (eds), The World of Buddhism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991 [1984]), 77–89. (47) Foucher posited that the structure known today as Takht-i Rustam on the other side of the road opposite the Tepe Rustam temple site was the monastery of Naw Bahār. Alfred Foucher, La vieille route de l’Inde de Bactres à Taxila (Paris: Les Éditions d’art et d’histoire, 1942–7), 83–98. Hsiuen Tsang’s report that the vihāra stood just south-west of the stūpa supports this contention. Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, tr. Samuel Beal (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1906), I, 46. On Buddhist templemonastery architecture, see Étienne Lamotte, Jean Dantinne, and Sara WebbBoin, History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Šaka Era (Louvain-laNeuve [Belgium]: Université catholique de Louvain, Institut orientaliste, 1988), 311–13. For a more extensive survey of this architecture in India and its neighbouring regions and in China, see Robert Fisher, Buddhist Art and Page 28 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 29–124. The Bactrian sites of Kala-Kafirnihan and Ajina Tepe north of the Oxus also provide important parallels. Boris Litvinskij et al. studied the archaeology and literary sources including an important Ceylonese text in The Buddhist Monastery of Ajina Tepa, Tajikistan: History and Art of Buddhism in Central Asia (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 2004). Also Boris Litvinskij, and Tamara I. Zejmal’, ‘Kalai-Kafirnigan – Problems in the Religion and Art of Early Mediaeval Tokharistan’, East and West 31/1–4 (1981), 35–66. (48) Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, I, 46. (49) Robert Hillenbrand mentions the thesis that Buddhist monasteries provide one of the possible sources for the shape of the Iranian madrasa, in Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 174–5. Buddhologist von Hinüber states that: ‘the encounter between Buddhism and Islam did not, however, result in the immediate destruction of monasteries […] Buddhism and Islam coexisted side by side for centuries in many places […] Buddhist monasteries were still functioning […] even long after the coming of Islam’. Oskar von Hinüber, ‘Expansion to the North: Afghanistan and Central Asia’, in Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich (eds), The World of Buddhism (London: Thames and London, 1991 [1984]), 107. (50) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 9, 15, 26–7, 34, 36, 52ff. Grabar highlights the variety of terms that are used to denote the physical constructions over people’s graves, including qubba/gunbad meaning ‘domes’ (a prevalent form); turba meaning ‘tomb’; imāmzāda to express their religious, almost ecclesiastical meaning; wālī or marbaṭs meaning ‘places of a holy personage’ indicating the relationship to a local hero; maqāms simply meaning ‘places’; mashhads meaning ‘places of witnesses’, i.e. martyria sensu stricto thus implying a commemorative value. Sometimes, the terms qaṣr (‘castle’) and dargāh (‘palace’) are also encountered. Oleg Grabar, ‘The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures’, Ars Orientalis 6 (1966), 7–46. (51) It is known as the Tomb of al-Ḥātim in the Imām Ṣāḥib area (36′ 39˝ N, 66′ 30˝ E) in Balkh province, and has been dated to the Ghaznawid period. The attribution of the tomb to the saint Ḥātim al-ʿAsamm (d. 237/857–8), FB’s nineteenth shaykh, has no historical basis. The reading of a possible patron’s name as ‘Sālār Khalīl’ in its external epigraphy is also not conclusive. Asadollah Melikian-Chirvani, ‘Remarques préliminaires sur un mausolée Ghaznévide’, Arts Asiatiques 17 (1968), 59–92; Janine Sourdel-Thomine, ‘Le Mausolée dit de Baba Hatim’, REI 39 (1971), 293–320; A. D. H. Bivar, ‘The Inscription of Sālār Khalīl in Afghanistan’, JRAS 2 (1977), 145–9. Other possible prototypes were studied by G. A. Pugachenkova, notably the Bābā Rushnāʿī tomb, possibly an eleventhcentury building type also found in Tirmidh. It is located outside of Balkh’s city wall to the south-west, and built of brick with a square base and a shallow Page 29 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City pointed dome. G. A. Pugachenkova, ‘Little Known Monuments of the Balkh Area’, Art and Archaeology Research Papers 13 (1968), 31. (52) A recent study by Johan Elverskog provides a groundbreaking synthesis of the secondary research on the contact between Buddhists and Muslims in medieval Central Asia. Johan Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). (53) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 46; Barthold and Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, EI2, I (1960), 1033. (54) Richard Bulliet, ‘Naw Bahār and the Survival of Iranian Buddhism’, Iran 14 (1976), 140–5; W. Barthold and R. N. Frye, ‘Bukhara’, EI2, I (1960), 1293. The term bahār also denotes the season of spring in Persian. (55) Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism, 311–13. (56) Ibn al-Faqīh, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje ((Leiden: Brill, 1967), 322–4; and the facs. ed. of the Mashhad ms contained in Collections of Geographical Works by Ibn al-Faqīh, Ibn Faḍlān, Abū Dulaf al-Khazrajī, ed. Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, 1987), 321–4. Also on Ibn al-Faqih’s source, see ‘Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Kirmānī and the Rise of the Barmakids’, BSOAS 57/2 (1994), 268–82. Hsiuen Tsang (Si-Yu-Ki, 46) had estimated the cupola to stand about 200 feet (60 metres) high. (57) This fantasic image can be viewed in Llewelyn Morgan’s The Buddhas of Bamiyan (London: Profile Books, 2012), 14 (Figure 4). (58) Arezou Azad, ‘Faḍāʾil-i Balkh: A Text, Scholars and the City in Pre-Mongol Central Asia’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, submitted 18 January 2010, 208. Azad highlighted that a vast estate that would have covered much of the Balkh oasis was attached to the religious sites of the Naw Bahār. She bases herself on the account in the de Goeje manuscript. The Mashhad ms is added to the studies of Étienne de la Vaissière [‘De Bactres à Balkh, par le Nowbahar’, JA 298/2 (2010), 517–33] and Kevin van Bladel [‘The Bactrian Background of the Barmakids’, in Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit YoeliTlalim (eds), Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 64–5]. They point out that a distinction is made in the de Goeje manuscript which situates the lands of the Naw Bahār in a so-called Rūwān/ Zūwān area of Tukhāristān, while the Mashhad manuscript specifies that they were situated in the Balkh oasis specifically. (59) The excerpt is from FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 20. (60) The Barmakid al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā (d. 193/809) was appointed the governor of Khurāsān by the ʿAbbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809). Barthold and Sourdel, ‘al-Barāmika’, 1034.

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The Sacred Sites and the City (61) See note 38. (62) We do not know how long the temple site served as a place of worship after the Islamic conquest. Early Arab historians’ accounts provide contradictory reports. According to al-Balādhurī, the Naw Bahār’s Buddhist stūpa-vihāra complex was destroyed during the campaigns under the caliph Muʿāwiya (r. 41– 60/661–80) in the 650s AD. Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 409. Al-Ṭabarī, while also reporting on the attacks in the 650s, mentions elsewhere that Nīzak Ṭarkhān went to pray at the Naw Bahār during his rebellion against Qutayba b. Muslim in 90/709, which would imply that the site was not destroyed 40 years earlier. Al-Ṭabarī does not mention any tension surrounding the Naw Bahār or Balkh, contending that al-Rabīʿ b. Ziyād al-Ḥārithī was the governor of Khurāsān and ‘conquered Balkh peacefully’ [in 51/671]. Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), II/1, 156; II/3, 1490; tr. Khalid Blankinship, The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. XXV: The End of Expansion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 27, 163. Even by the tenth century, the anonymous geographical treatise known as Ḥudūd al-ʿālam describes the remaining royal buildings (bināhā-yi khusrawān) and the Naw Bahār’s decorations, including painted images (naqsha) and wonderful works (kārkard). These are presumably secco or fresco murals and carvings on the temple’s plastered walls that had survived into the author’s time. Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, rev. ed. Maryam Mīr-Aḥmadī and Ghulām-Riḍā Warharām (Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Dānishgāh-i al-Zahrāʾ, 1383/2004–5), 311. The paintings at Varakhsha palace and at the ‘maison aux peintures’ in Samarqand may provide comparanda for Naw Bahār’s paintings. See Aleksandr Naymark, ‘Returning to Varakhsha’, The Silk Road Newsletter 1/2 (2003), 915–17; Frantz Grenet, ‘Maracanda/Samarkand, une métropole prémongole—sources écrites et archéologie’, in Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 59/5–6 (2004), 1064–6, and pl. A–D. (63) In fact, most of the Arabic historical accounts of Balkh’s conquest are focused largely on the Naw Bahār temple. Al-Ṭabarī is very specific about its location as standing about 250 metres (two ghalwas) away from the city. AlṬabarī, Tārīkh, II/3: 1490; tr. Blankinship: 27, and n. 132 indicating that a ghalwa is a measure equalling one-twenty-fourth of a farsakh. The distance between the south wall and the Tepe Rustam site, purported to be the Naw Bahār temple’s remains, is almost double that. (64) Hasluck, Christianity and Islam, 9–13. (65) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 199–200. (66) FB adds that the ruling caliph at this time, the ʿAbbāsid al-Maʾmūn (r. 196– 218/812–33), cried when he heard this touching elaboration on ascetisicm (zuhd) and fear of God (waraʿ). FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 199–200. It is also possible that what is Page 31 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City meant here by ‘Naw Bahār’ is the gate in an abbreviated form, rather than the Naw Bahār temple. (67) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 26. (68) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 27. (69) Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (d. 214/819–20) is FB’s fourteenth shaykh. (70) P–13b.12: dar zīr-i … ’ is inserted above the line, so may read dar only— inside the minaret. (71) Ḥabībī identifies him as Abū Sahl Kathīr b. Ziyād Azdī ʿAtakī Baṣrī, a muḥaddith in Balkh. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 27, n. 8. Schefer identifies him as Kathīr b. Ziyād, a Companion of the Prophet who participated in the Battle of Qādisiyya. Charles Schefer, ‘Fezhaili Balkh’, I: 81 (notes). He is also listed in FB as one of the four greatest zāhids of Balkh. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 42. (72) See note 85 below. (73) ‘Dashtak’ is an area (maḥallāt-ī) of Balkh, in which Qutayba b. Saʿīd alBaghlānī (d. 204/854–5), who is FB’s thirtieth shaykh, lived. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 238. (74) Paul Schwarz, ‘Bemerkungen zu den arabischen Nachrichten über Balkh’, in Jal Dastur Cursetji Pavry (ed.), Oriental Studies in Honour of Cursetji Erachji Pavry (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 438. (75) Narshakhī states that the site of Bukhara’s jāmiʿ mosque built in 94/712–13 was formerly a botkhāna. See Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 67; tr. Frye, 48. Regarding Samarqand, Soviet and then Franco-Uzbek archaeological excavations followed an account by al-Ṭabarī that the Friday Mosque of Samarqand was built on top of a temple of idols. The Franco-Uzbek campaigns revealed a hybrid palace underneath the site of the mosque of a period attributed to the last Umayyad governor Naṣr b. Sayyār (d. 131/748). Frantz Grenet, ‘Le palais de Naṣr ibn Sayyār à Samarkand (Année 740)’ in Étienne de la Vaissière (ed.), Islamisation de l’Asie Centrale: processus locaux d’acculturation du VIIe au XIe siècle (Paris; Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 11–28; also Grenet, ‘Maracanda/Samarkand’, 1062; citing inter alia al-Ṭabarī, ed. M. J. de Goeje, II/2, 1245–6; tr. Hinds, The History of al-Ṭabarī. Vol. XXIII (New York: SUNY Press, 1990), 193–4; also Yuri Karev, ‘Un palais islamique du VIIIe siècle à Samarqand’, Studia Islamica 29 (2000), 273–96. (76) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 320. (77) In a recent article, Chahriyar Adle suggests that the Nuh Gunbad was built by the Barmakid governor Faḍl b. Yaḥyā (d. 193/808). Recent carbon dating of the brick used to build it homed in on the eighth and ninth centuries. Chahriyar Page 32 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Adle, ‘La Mosquée Hâji-Piyadah/Noh-Gonbadân à Balkh (Afghanistan), un chef d’œuvre de Fazl le Barmacide construit en 178–179/794–795?’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (CRAI) (séances janvier-mars 2011) (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2011), I, 589 ff. The floorplan was provided by Pugachenkova in ‘Nuh Gumbed v Balkhe’, Sovetskaia Archeologiia 3 (1970), 241–50; and has been reproduced by various scholars, including Robert Hillenbrand, ‘ʿAbbāsid mosques in Iran’, in Studies in Medieval Islamic Architecture, 2001: 101. Lisa Golombek identified the stucco carvings, a distinctive style with a vocabulary of motifs consisting of grape-leaves, vinescrolls, palmettes, and fir-cones, as being best represented in Samarra, the Iraqi city 125 km north of Baghdad founded by the ʿAbbāsid caliph Muʿtasim (d. 227/842). Golombek, ‘The Abbasid Mosque at Balkh’, Oriental Art 15 (1969), 177. The ‘Masjid-i Chahār Sutūn’ at Tirmidh has the same nine-domed floorplan (Hillenbrand, ‘ʿAbbāsid mosques’, 102, Figure 19). A shrine lying adjacent to the Nuh Gunbad wall has been recently identified by a plaque as belonging to the said Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Nuṣayrī, although I would not be able to confirm such an unequivocal statement. (78) Balkh’s ṭābiʿ Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (d. 142/759–60) had his judge’s offices there. FB also relates a tradition that the grave of Job lay beneath the minaret of the Maqbarī masjid. The origin of the mosque may have a link to a certain ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Maqbarī mentioned in FB. This man donated his land and villa (sarāy) in the time of the governor Jaʿfar al-Ashʿath. His property must have been extensive given that various structures were built on it: a castle (qaṣr) for the governor (wālī), a prison converted to an educational institution (madrasa), and the Maqbarī mosque. See Persan-115, fol. 13b; PAK, fol. 9a; C453-1, fol. 7a; C453-3, fol. 216a. Ḥabībī reads ‘Miʿbarī’ for Maqbarī. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 27, 85. (79) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 207. (80) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 253. (81) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 207. The Muqannaʿ masjid bears the nickname of the famous ‘veiled’ rebel in Mā warāʾ al-nahr who flourished during the Caliphate of alMahdī (r. 158–69/775–85). This is the only reference to the rebel al-Muqannaʿ in FB. Narshakhī claims Muqannaʿ was born in Balkh. Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, 90; and tr. Frye, 66. (82) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 50. (83) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 43. (84) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 351. (85) Persan-115, fol. 14a, line 1 reads ‘Karābīsī’ (Ḥabībī reads karānisī). A karābīsī is one who deals in fine linen (CPED, 1019). A place called dashtak Page 33 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City appears in the biography of Abū Rajāʾ al-Thaqafī (no. 30, d. 240/854–5) who was from Baghlān district. See FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 27, 116–17, 238. (86) For other examples of nine-domed structures, see Terry Allen, Five Essays on Islamic Art (USA: Solipsist Press, 1988), 79–83; Geoffrey King, ‘The Nine Bay Domed Mosque in Islam’, Madrider Mitteilungen 30 (1989), 332–90; Bernard O’Kane, Studies in Persian Art and Architecture (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995), 121; Alireza Anisi, ‘The Masjid-i Malik in Kirman’, Iran xlii (2004), 137–57. King argues rather convincingly that Creswell’s contention that this building type had a funerary purpose cannot be sustained. King, ‘Nine Bay’, 383–5; K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 1932–40), II, 246–8. (87) The paint may be a later feature, but it is surprising that none of the art historians who visited the site mentions it. (88) For a recent study of the Banījūrids based on archaeological evidence, see Pierre Siméon, ‘Hulbuk: Architecture and Material Culture of the Capital of the Banijurids in Central Asia (Ninth-Eleventh Centuries)’, Muqarnas 29 (2012), 385–421. (89) Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, II/3, 1490; tr. Blankinship, 27; ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Gardīzī, Zayn al-akhbār, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1347/1968), 11; FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 20–1, 39. The destruction of Naw-shād reputedly took place after Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās fled from the Ṣaffārid encroachments onto Balkh and obtained refuge in the Sāmānid territory of Samarqand. The ruining of Naw-shād famously left Dāwūd saddened beyond consolation. He returned to Balkh and died there a year later. C. E. Bosworth, ‘Bānījūrids’, EI2, XII S (2004), 125; Barthold, Turkestan, 77–8. (90) The tomb is briefly described in C. E. Bosworth, ‘Sāmānids – 1. History, Literary Life and Economic Activity’, EI2, VIII (1995), 1026–9. (91) Ball records stūpa sites in the eastern Balkh area called Charkh-i Falak, Āsyā-yi Qunak and Chihil-dukhtarān sites. The Charkh-i Falak (see Figure 2) is located five kilometres east of old Balkh on the old route to Mazār-i Sharīf. It consists of the remains of a mud-brick stūpa— a cylindrical drum on a square base, and there are many more ruins southwards of the site. The Āsyā-yi Qunak five kilometres south-east of old Balkh has a very high narrow circular mound of mud eighteen metres high and resembles a stūpa. There are many ruins in its vicinity. The Chihil-dukhtarān site, three kilometres south-east of old Balkh and near the Āsyā-yi Qunak, is a large irregular mud-brick structure that may be a stūpa as well. Warwick Ball, Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1982), II, 72 (no. 191). (92) Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, I, 46. Page 34 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City (93) Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt, ‘al-Balkhī, Abū Zayd’, EI3. (94) The site lost its importance in the nineteenth century when most of the inhabitants moved to the new provincial capital of Mazār-i Sharīf 21 km eastwards. (95) There was never just one ‘Old Balkh’. Like other historical cities, Balkh’s confines shifted over time. It is still not known with any certainty which of the urban remains of ‘Old Balkh’ were inhabited during given periods. Today, ‘Balkh’ is principally understood to denote the province of which Mazār-i Sharīf is its capital. (96) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 21–2. (97) The wall ramparts are still visible in Balkh today (see Plate 3). According to Rodney Young, the earliest fortification of the lower city of Balkh dates to the second century (built with large sun-dried brick at Bālā Ḥiṣār). Rodney Young, ‘The South Wall of Balkh-Bactra’, American Journal of Archaeology 59 (1955), 268. A pre-Kushan dating is also given in Marc Le Berre and Daniel Schlumberger, ‘Observations sur les remparts de Bactres’, in Bruno Dagens, Marc LeBerre and Daniel Schlumberger (eds), Monuments Préislamiques d’Afghanistan, MDAFA series, vol. 19 (Paris: Librairie G. Klincksieck, 1964), 76. (98) Radtke suggests that the laqab, ḥakīm (pl. ḥukamā), as it is used in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, refers to mystics – not of the neo-platonic but of the ascetic and dogmatic and juridical schools. See Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 551. Chabbi refers to the school of the ḥukamāʾ of Balkh. Jacqueline Chabbi, ‘Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques au Khurāsān’, Studia Islamica 46 (1977), 69, n. 2. (99) Read: mutanāqiṣ. Ḥabībī reads mutanāqiḍ, which means ‘contradictory’. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 22, line 8. However, the reading of ‘defective’ appears to me to match the meaning of this sentence better. (100) Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān al-Qāḍī is FB’s seventh shaykh. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 85–9. He originated from Kirmān, and the Umayyad General Qutayba made him commander, and nominated him qāḍī of Chaghāniyān and then of Balkh after the conquests of both. At an advanced age, Mutawakkil declared himself anti-Abū Muslim, for which he was killed in 142/759 by the governor of Balkh. He lived until the age of 90 according to some authors, and according to others until he was 104. He carried out his functions as qāḍī for 52 years. Also Schefer, ‘Fezhaili’, 78 (notes); Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 539; and Wilferd Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa in Khurāsān and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism’, Der Islam, 59 (1982), 38 and n. 25.

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The Sacred Sites and the City (101) A moat is also mentioned by al-Maqdisī, in Kitāb Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-ʿaqālīm, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1906), 301–2; tr. Basil Collins and Muhammad Hamid al-Tai, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions (Doha, Qatar: Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, and Garnet, 1994), 265–7. (102) The term tappa (‘tepe’) is aptly described by Gerhard Doerfer, in Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung älterer neupersischer Geschichtsquellen, vor allem der Mongolen- und Timuridenzeit, in 4 vols (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1963–1975), II, 450. (103) Marc Le Berre and Daniel Schlumberger, ‘Observations sur les remparts de Bactres’, in Bruno Dagens, Marc Le Berre and Daniel Schlumberger (eds), Monuments Préislamiques d’Afghanistan, MDAFA series, vol. 19 (Paris: Librairie G. Klincksieck, 1964). (104) FB does not use the term shahristān. (105) Al-Yaʿqūbī, Kitāb al-Buldān, 117; tr. Wiet, 101, n. 4, citing Barthold (Turkestan, 78), that the statement must be taken to refer not to rabaḍ alone but to the city (so inner city plus rabaḍ, or what we might call the ‘lower city’ versus the Bālā Ḥiṣār, or ‘upper city’). The term rabaḍ does not appear in FB, but is commonly used by medieval and modern scholars. The translation into English as ‘suburb’ should be considered with caution. Bulliet already pointed out in relation to Nishapur—and this could roughly apply to Balkh—that the rabaḍ ‘contained the city’s markets, the main congregational mosque and the Dār alImāra or Government Building. Quite clearly, therefore, the rabaḍ was not suburban but contained the functional core of the city’. Richard Bulliet, ‘Medieval Nishapur: a Topographic and Demographic Reconstruction’, Studia Islamica 5 (1976), 72. (106) Le Berre and Schlumberger identify the western wall extensions as ‘Bactres III’ which are dated to the Tīmūrid period. These walls shall not concern us here. (107) Al-Yaʿqūbī mentions two inner walls (sūr al-madīna, and sūr al-rabaḍ). Reportedly, they stood ‘wall-behind-wall’ (sūr-khalaf-sūr) and were one farsakh (i.e. 6 km) apart. Al-Yaʿqūbī, al-Buldān, 117; tr. Wiet, 101. The middle wall is said to be five farsakhs apart from the outer wall, and one farsakh from the third wall. Mukhtarov et al. assumed that Balkh’s walls were concentric but the ambiguous use of khalaf (‘behind’) can also imply an adjacent arrangement. Mukhtarov et al., Balkh in the Later Middle Ages (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1993), 13. The walls are also reported by the Chinese pilgrim Hsiuen Tsang who visited Balkh in the 630s, twenty years before the major Muslim invasions into Balkh began. He states that the urban centre Page 36 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City was ‘strongly fortified’, and had a circumference of ten kilometres (i.e. twenty li) —presumably the equivalent of two or three kilometres in diameter. Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki, 43–4. (108) Al-Yaʿqūbī, al-Buldān, 117; tr. Wiet, 101. Building such a large wall reflects the perceived threat of invasions. The walls did eventually give way to the invaders from the north. By the tenth century, the large wall appears to have fallen into disuse. Maintaining them would have incurred a huge dent in the state coffers. The wall separated the oasis from the steppe (raml), which is known today as the Afghan Karakum desert. Ya‘qūbī states that this ‘large wall encloses the village farms (ḍiyāʿ) and cultivated lands of Balkh […] and outside the wall there is no cultivation or farms or villages, only the sands’. The current distance between the Oxus River and the nearest mountain is about eighty kilometres (see Maps 1–3). The course of the Oxus has changed over time or was diverted, but this would not affect the distance significantly. See B. Spuler, ‘Āmū Daryā’, EI2, II (1965), 455. The wall diameter measurement of 72 km is perhaps an exaggeration, but it indicates that antique Bactra was capacious, and that the wall circumscribed almost the entire oasis. Such wall magnitudes were by no means unusual. Paul Schwarz assessed that a similarly large wall had circumscribed a medieval triple city of Khwārazm. Schwarz, ‘Bemerkungen’, 435. For places that would have been circumscribed by Balkh’s large wall, see Ball, Archaeological Gazetteer, II, 257, 498 (map). The extensiveness of the oasis is also represented in the remains of Bactra’s intricate and advanced system of dams and irrigation. A shast-band gate (‘Gate of Sixty Dams’) mentioned by alIṣṭakhrī (Masālik al-mamālik, 278); Ibn Ḥawqal (Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 448; tr. Kramers, 433) and the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (p. 311) also point to the presence of many dams in the city, suggests Schwarz. (109) Jean-Claude Gardin, Céramiques de Bactres, MDAFA series, vol. 15 (Paris: Librairie Klincksieck, 1957), 89, Figure 32. Islamic-period coins were also found at Tepe Zargarān, but Gardin does not specify the period, stating only that the coins were ‘musulmanes’. Gardin, Céramiques, 119–20. The latest DAFA excavations appear to have unearthed, inter alia, Ghaznawid coins at Tepe Zargarān, but this is to be confirmed by the team of BACH experts. (110) Ball also suggests that an archaeological urban site just to the east of Balkh’s Bālā Ḥiṣār, 600 × 200 m in area and up to 10 m in height, dated to the tenth to the thirteenth centuries and known as the Shahr-i Hindūwān, may have been a medieval urban extension of Balkh as well. This thesis still needs to be verified. Ball, Archaeological Gazetteer, entry no. 1043 (lat. 36045′ N, long. 66055′ E), I, 244. (111) FB mentions just three gates, but the tenth-century Arab geographers Ibn Ḥawqal and al-Maqdisī mention four other gates—the Wākhta (or Raḥba), Yahūdī, Shast-band, and Ḥadīd gates—bringing us to possibly seven (one of Page 37 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City which may well be one of the Umayyad ‘iron gates’ that had survived). Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 447–8; tr. Wiet, 432–3; al-Maqdisī, Kitāb Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-ʿaqālīm, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1906), 301–2; tr. Collins and al-Tai, 265–7. (112) Heinz Gaube described the constellation of a rectangular city as an ‘eastern Iranian-Central Asian city type which stretches from the southern fringes of the Iranian Lut desert, east of the Lut and Kavir to the cities of Central Asia, of which Merv and Bukhara are excellent examples’. Other cities he mentions that are representative of this type are Bam, Zaranj (the old capital of Sīstān) and Herat. See Gaube, ‘Iranian Cities’, in Salma K. Jayyusi et al. (eds), City in the Islamic World, 2 vols (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 174–7; more recently, Frantz Grenet, ‘Crise et sortie de crise en Bactriane-Sogdiane aux IVe–Ve s. de n. è.: de l’héritage antique à l’adoption de modèles sassanides’, in La Persia e l’Asia Centrale da Alessandro al X secolo (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1996), 367–90; and Frantz Grenet, and Claude Rapin, ‘De la Samarkand antique à la Samarkand médiévale: continuités et ruptures’, in Roland-Pierre Gayraud (ed.), Colloque international d’archéologie islamique (IFAO, Le Caire, 3–7 février 1993) (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1998), 387–402. (113) My suggestions for the locations of the gates of FB match more or less those of Zeki Velidi Togan. Togan studied a larger number of gates (eleven in total) for which he could find textual evidence from earlier and later sources than FB and which he located either along the Bālā Ḥiṣār or the lower city. Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 277–88. (114) Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 281. Akhror Mukhtarov et al. report that the Naw Bahār Gate was standing in the Mazār-i Sharīf Museum from 1962 onwards. Two halves of the gate were bi-folding and made of carved wood. He also refers to a 1922 photo by M. G. Vecheslov in which the gate had an arched opening which was no longer visible when he visited. Mukhtarov et al., Balkh in the Later, 23, citing M. G. Vecheslov, ‘Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki v Afghanistane’, in Afganistan: Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1924), 138. There were of course several gates of Naw Bahār. The one mentioned by Mukhtarov is most likely not one of the three original Umayyad gates. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 35. (115) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 19–20, 38. The same constellation is noted for Samarqand. Grenet found that in all periods a canal penetrated the south wall of Samarqand. Grenet, ‘Maracanda/Samarkand’, 1054. (116) FB specifies that the Naw Bahār [Gate] led into dār-i Ḥarb b. ʿArwān alSaʿīd. It was renamed to kūy-i dūktarāshān (spindle-sharpeners). The second kūy was dār-i Muhallab b. [al-] Rāshid, which was renamed to kūy-i chaknawīsān (cheque-writers). The third was dār-i farāwja. The fourth was dār al-furāt; fifth, dār-i sukkarī [i.e. sugarmakers or sweet-sellers]; sixth, dār-i Muqātil b. Page 38 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Sulaymān, which was renamed kūy-i nawand; seventh, dār-i ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [al-] Maqbarī; eighth, dār-i Muqātil [al-] Maqbarī; ninth, dār-i Muhallab; tenth, dār-i Abū Fāṭima; eleventh, dār al-ijtihād. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 43–4. (117) Togan states in the text that the gate is located to the east of the city, but places it on his hand-drawn map (rather messily) in the centre of the northern point of the lower city. Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 280, 288. (118) This much-debated term is most amply described in the recent work by Valerie Hansen, who overturns the traditional view that it was one continguous road, and contends rather that it consisted of many sub-roads. The Silk Road: A New History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1, 5. (119) Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 311. (120) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 47–8. (121) Muslim geographers often mention aloes-wood (al-ʿūd) as a commercial commodity coming from the mountains of Assam, and the Indian variety is described as the best in the world. S. Maqbul Ahmad, ‘Hind – i. The Geography of India according to the Mediaeval Muslim Geographers’, EI2, III (1971), 409. (122) Muslim geographers commonly mention fānīd, or fānīḍ (Sanskrit phaniṭa), as a commercial commodity of India. Sugar-cane (qaṣb al-sukkar) is usually described by historians of Sind and Makran, where sugar-candy is made from it in abundance. Ahmad, ‘Hind’, 408. (123) The countries of the Jaxartes where the chief industry of the merchants was the slave trade are listed in Guy Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1930 [1905]), 487. (124) Read sawmhā-yi ṭamghājī. Ḥabībī seems to prefer the reading, ṭafghājī [FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 48, n. 1]. The medieval author may be referring to the coins minted by Ibrāhīm Tamghāj Khān, the former Böri Tigin (r. ca. 444–60/1052–68), the Qarakhānid ruler of Khurāsān (using Uighur and Arabic script). During this time, the dirham remained the standard coin circulating in Transoxania. There is testimony of a waqfiyya for Ibrāhīm Tamghāj Khān’s madrasa in Samarqand. C. E. Bosworth, ‘Ilek-khāns or Ḳarakhānids’, EI2, III (1971), 1115; also Michael Fedorov, ‘Qarakhanid Coins of Tirmidh and Balkh as a Historical Source, New Numismatic Data on the History of the Qarakhanid Dominions of Tirmidh and Balkh’, Numismatic Chronicle, 163 (2003), 262. (125) The geographer adds, rather disparagingly, that the city is ‘boring, far from the main roads, and its routes are difficult’. Al-Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, 301–2; tr. Collins and al-Tai, 265–7.

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The Sacred Sites and the City (126) Foucher, Vieille route, I, 59 and pl. 5; Robert McChesney, ‘Reconstructing Balkh: the vaqfīya of 947/1540’, in Devin DeWeese (ed.), Studies on Central Asian History in Honor of Yuri Bregel (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2001), 210 and Figure 5. The centrality of Balkh’s longdistance market is unusual if we compare its bazaar with that of Rayy, Ahwaz or Isfahan where the markets were located in the suburbs. Schwarz suggests that, as in Ardabīl, the foundation of the Bālā Ḥiṣār may in fact have served as storage places for merchants’ goods. Schwarz, ‘Bemerkungen’, 435. Scott Levi suggests that the name by which Balkh’s citadel became known in the post-Mongol literary sources—qalʿa-yi hindūwān (‘Castle of the Indians’)—may relate to the presence of Indian merchants there. Scott Cameron Levi, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 54; Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 288 (map); also Barthold, Turkestan, 26. Ḥabībī suggests that it was at the Hindūwān Gate where Indian slaves were exhibited for sale. FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 299, nn. 3–4. But it is also where one of FB’s most important scholars is buried, the scholar Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49, d. 362/972–3). (127) Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 280–1. Mukhtarov et al.’s suggestion that the Hindūwān Gate is the ‘eastern gate’ of Balkh, while the Bakhtī (Yaḥyā) Gate is the western gate is not accompanied by evidence and will therefore not be given serious consideration. Mukhtarov et al., Balkh in the Later, 27. (128) Perhaps even a predecessor to the seventeenth-century gate listed by Togan as the ‘Dervaze-i jabba khan’? Togan, ‘Topography of Balkh’, 282, 288. (129) Charles Ramble, ‘The Creation of the Bon Mountain of Kongpo’, in Alexander Macdonald (ed.), Mandala and Landscape (Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 1997), 134. The dynastic rulers in this case were the early kings of Tibet. (130) It is an epithet of other cities too. Narshakhī calls Bukhara the ‘dome of Islam’ in Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī, 77; tr. Frye, 56. (131) There are some serious hypotheses that ‘Olmo Lungring’, the place identified as the home of the originator of the Bon religion (the indigenous religion of Tibet that preceded Buddhism’s arrival there in the seventh century), might correspond to an area in northern Afghanistan. For this and other hypotheses, see Dan Martin, ‘Olmo Lungring, A Holy Place Here and Beyond’, in Samten G. Karmay and Jeff Watt (eds), Bon, the Magic Word: the Indigenous Religion of Tibet (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2007), 99–123, particularly 110ff; also Charles Ramble, ‘Gaining Ground: Representations of Territory in Bon and Tibetan Popular Tradition’, The Tibet Journal, Spring 1995. (132) In the fifth century, Greek mosaics depicted the city of Jerusalem. Tibetan, Chinese and Indian topographical maps also survive, as well as later Ottoman maps of cities. See J. B. Harley and David Woodward, The History of Cartography, 3 vols (Chicago: University of London Press, 1987); also Svatopluk Page 40 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City Soucek, Piri Reis and Turkish Mapmaking after Columbus (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1996); and Susan Gole, Indian Maps and Plans: From Earliest Times to the Advent of European Surveys (New Delhi: Manohar, 1989). More recently, Natasha Heller described the impressive map of Wutai that visualizes pilgrimages from the Dunhuang caves (Mogao Cave 61) that were excavated in the tenth century. See her chapter entitled, ‘Visualizing Pilgrimage and Mapping Experience: Mount Wutai on the Silk Road’, in Philippe Forêt and Andreas Kaplony, The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 29–50. (133) One famous mandala-shaped temple city is the Barabudur on Java, Indonesia. See the classic exposition on this by Paul Mus in his Barabudur: Sketch of a History of Buddhism Based on Archaeological Criticism of the Texts, tr. Alexander Macdonald (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts & Sterling Publishers, [1953] 1998). (134) Al-Maqdisī, tr. Collins and al-Tai, 266. (135) Al-Nasafī, al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand, ed. Yūsuf al-Hādī (Tehran: Mīrāth-i Maktūb, 1378/1999), 677–8; Barthold, Turkestan, 91. FB also mentions Qutham b. ʿAbbās’s shrine and the madrasa that was attached to it, which had flourished in Qarakhānid and Saljūq times. See FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 339; also C. E. Bosworth, ‘K.utham b. al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib al-Hāshimī’, EI2, V (1986), 551. On the transmission of the Qandiyya, see James Weinberger, ‘The Authorship of Two Twelfth Century Transoxanian Biographical Dictionaries’, Arabica, 33 (1986): 369–82. (136) In addition to the studies mentioned in the introduction of this book, see recent studies on shrine architecture and visitation rituals by Thomas Leisten, Architektur für Tote: Bestattung in architektonischem Kontext in den Kernländern der Islamischen Welt zwischen 3./9. und 6./12. Jahrhundert (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1998); Christopher Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Ethel Wolper, Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003); Werner Diem and Marco Schöller, The Living and the Dead in Islam: Studies in Arabic Epitaphs, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004); Leor Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); and Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260) (Leiden: Brill, 2007). (137) Early medieval scholars disagreed on the modalities for the structures and types of rituals associated with Islamic commemorative structures, but no Page 41 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City scholar expressly forbade the practice of pilgrimage. According to Josef Meri, the Ḥanafī were particularly tolerant of the practice, while the Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) voiced one of the strongest criticisms. See Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymiyya (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1991), cited in Josef Meri, ‘The Etiquette of Devotion in the Islamic Cult of Saints’, in James Howard-Johnston Paul Hayward and Peter Lamont Brown (eds), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 267–8. (138) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 36–7, 130, 166, 12. (139) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 318. (140) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 251. (141) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 186, 222. (142) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 262. (143) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 155. (144) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 275–6. (145) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 299. (146) Hasluck, Chrisianity and Islam, 24, 38. (147) Hasluck, Chrisianity and Islam, 75 ff. (148) FB, ed. AḤ Ḥ , 26. Emphasis added. (149) Robert McChesney gives a detailed account on the origins of the ʿAlid shrine in Waqf in Central Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 21–45, esp. 30 and n. 34. McChesney explains that a small treatise on the rediscovery of the shrine is attributed to ʿAbd al-Ghafūr Lārī (d. 912/1506), who was a student of the Heratī scholar-poet, Mawlānā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492). It was subsequently picked up by Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamchī Isfizārī in his history of Herat, the Rawḍāt al-jannāt begun in 897/1491. The standard account of the rediscovery of the tomb is given by Khwāndamīr (d. 942/1535–6), the Heratī grandson of Mīrkhwānd. Khwāndamīr included it in his completion of his grandfather’s Rawḍat al-ṣafāʾ, and in his own work, the Ḥabīb al-siyar. It is interesting that FB does not mention ʿAlī’s shrine at all, even though we do have a contemporary account from Granada by Abū Ḥāmid alGharnaṭī (d. 565/1170) who stated that that the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law was buried in al-Khayr, near Balkh. Al-Gharnāṭī, Tuḥfat al-albāb (or al-aḥbāb) wanukhbat al-aʿjāb, in Gabriel Ferrand, ‘Le Tuḥfat al-albāb’, JA 207 (1925), 1–148, 195–304. Apparently, the site was only ‘re-discovered’ in the Tīmūrid period. Page 42 of 43

The Sacred Sites and the City

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter describes the scholars of Balkh whose shrines exemplified the protective qualities of Balkh’s sacred landscape. The chapter argues that it was not important whether the scholars were born or even died in Balkh, but only that they had resided in Balkh at some point in their lives. Other factors, such as madhhab (legal school) can only be demonstrated for a subset of the shaykhs in two lineages going back to Abū Ḥanīfa, the eponymous founder of the Ḥanafī madhhab, and ending in the tenth century. The same can be said of factors like wealth and kinship. Thus, even the prosopographies of FB demonstrate the magnetic powers of place. It is the mere presence of such men in Balkh that renders the city holy. The chapter then expounds on the ‘character of sanctity’, i.e. how it is portrayed in the biographies of Balkh’s seventy scholars profiled in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh. The character of the ʿulamāʾ’s sanctity was most pronounced in their role as protectors against the random vicissitudes of the political establishment of Balkh. The chapter argues that the characterization of sanctity in the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh represents a layered and complex set of dynamics in the relationship between ʿulamāʾ and political rule. Keywords:   Islamic scholarship, political Islam, Islamic legal schools, madhhab, urban governance, shrines, medieval Islamic history

Seventy Islamic scholars, seventy spirits that embody the sacred landscape of Balkh; this is the way FB presents its local history. Who were the seventy people that were chosen to exemplify the merits of Balkh? Why were they chosen and not others, and why did they become the embodiments of Balkh’s landscape? Were these seventy people selected because they belonged to a particular school Page 1 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape of thought? What exactly was meant by ‘Islamic scholar’ during the early period when scholarship was not yet professionalized? What were the relations of scholars to the secular leaders they encountered? Finally, how do the virtues associated with these scholars impact the landscape of Balkh? Identifying the ʿulamāʾ as actors in early medieval society introduces a set of difficulties (for a full list of FB’s ‘ulamā’, see Appendix A). While ubiquitous in the sources they are hardly a closed group. R. Stephen Humphreys has surveyed the scholarship on the ʿulamāʾ of the early Islamic and medieval period and concludes that they constituted ‘a heterogeneous group that is neither a socioeconomic class, nor a hereditary caste, nor a legal estate nor a profession’.1 This gives us an idea of who the ʿulamāʾ were not; but then who were they? Humphreys brings home the need for the social historian to pay special attention to this question not only because it presents a gap in the current state of research, but also because the ʿulamāʾ are omnipresent in the sources available to us, both as subjects and (p.112) authors.2 This makes a study of them almost obligatory. The main literary genre that tells us about the ʿulamāʾ in the early and medieval Islamic period is that of the biographical dictionary—a genre already discussed in Chapter 1. It often consists of paraphrases or abridgements of the lives of ʿulamāʾ from a single original text written by members of the ʿulamāʾ themselves.3 Although it would be misleading to generalise about the rest of society on the basis of stories of the lives of the ʿulamāʾ, we can use a precise, critical knowledge of their behaviour towards one another and with non-ʿulamāʾ to ‘develop a sense of the patterns of social action which were available to medieval Muslims generally’.4 One of my guiding questions will therefore be what collectivity the ʿulamāʾ of FB represented. Collectivity is an important concern if we consider Humphreys’ contention that in their ideal self-image the ʿulamāʾ ‘embodied the values of the community and saw their work as a collective enterprise’.5 If we want to deal with the ʿulamāʾ as social actors, Humphreys adds, then one of our chief goals must be to define the types of collectivities with which they identified. Previous studies ascertain collectivities that were professional in function and recruitment (e.g. the madhhab), and others that were reflective of social groupings (or ‘constitutive-societal’), such as affiliations to clans, factions, and urban settlements. The madhhab was a crucial collectivity from the ninth century on. While madhhab as a professional institution (versus a body of legal (p.113) doctrine) has been studied, the methods for a social study of madhhab are still in their infancy.6 The work of Henri Laoust of the late 1950s and early 1960s on the Ḥanbalī madhhab, and that of George Makdisi were pioneering,7 but were limited to understanding the ʿulamāʾ as members of institutions. These works have been superseded by Roy Mottahedeh and George Makdisi.8 Heinz Halm’s Page 2 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape study of the Shāfiʿī madhhab has provided a catalogue of materials (lists of qāḍīs and family trees of Shāfiʿīs).9 On the medieval Ḥanafī madhhab in the eastern Islamic lands (and their predecessors in Iraq) we have four main studies. Gustav Flügel outlines the Ḥanafī scholarly lineages by hierarchical class (ṭabaqa) based on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century ṭabaqāt works,10 and partly on Mirza Kemal Pasha’s study on the doctrinal aspects of the Ḥanafī (p.114) madhhab.11 Flügel’s classification, despite its datedness, served Bernd Radtke as a reference for the identification of FB’s ʿulamāʾ from a range of general works.12 Flügel’s classification is complemented by Muḥammad Mudarris’s study on the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh and their contributions to fiqh.13 Mudarris’s sources are locality-focused only, and he lists Balkh’s shaykhs throughout history and their positions on questions related to legal scholarship ( fiqh). From both works the Ḥanafīs emerge as developers and supporters of the doctrine of ijtihād, or raʾy (the degree to which jurists could exercise their independence in deciding on legal matters). In an important article, Wilferd Madelung explores the links between the early Ḥanafīs and the so-called Murjiʾa of Khurāsān and Transoxania. The murjiʾa were those who believed that conversion to Islam could be limited to a mere declaration of allegiance to the religion, and not require the practice of Islamic rites. This movement was particularly popular in the faraway lands of the caliphate. However, Madelung’s qualification of Balkh’s early qāḍīs as ‘Ḥanafīs’ may benefit from review.14 As shall be seen, the identification with madhhab did not happen as early as one might expect. A more recent study by Eyyüp Kaya considers the Ḥanafī madhhab in its local context and finds that Ḥanafī circles in tenth-century Balkh, Bukhara, and Iraq developed their own corpora of law based on local customs and realities. The local focus of Kaya will be particularly relevant to this chapter. Kaya found that the Ḥanafīs traced their history to an eponym, but that by the tenth century the emphasis tended to be regional. The jurists of Balkh and Bukhara needed to adapt their masters’ legal opinions which reflected the realities of eighthcentury Iraq to those of tenth-century Khurāsān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr (Transoxania).15 Kaya’s argument that madhhab (p.115) should be studied within its regional context is convincing, and it makes FB the right source for studying the early madhhab. Some studies have considered ʿulamāʾ collectivities to be marked more significantly by common social traits, such as family lineage (nasab), membership of political factions, and common settlement. Richard Bulliet concludes from quantitative data collected in two of Nishapur’s biographical dictionaries of the tenth to the twelfth centuries that the ʿulamāʾ constituted a ‘patriciate’ of the city. The patriciate was split along ‘Ḥanafī’ and ‘Shāfiʿī’ lines, the former representing a conservative aristocratic party and the other a Page 3 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape progressive one.16 Inter-marriage was key to consolidating the patriciate. Bulliet’s study is resourceful and exhaustive, but he unifies the group of ʿulamāʾ with a term and concept called ‘patriciate’ that is not found in his base texts.17 We will avoid superimposing exotic terms, and search for concepts applied by FB itself as the method for ascertaining the kind of collectivity to which the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh belonged in the eyes of FB’s author. Humphreys argues that perhaps the most successful efforts to comprehend the ʿulamāʾ are those that focus on the socio-political system as a whole, rather than on the ʿulamāʾ only. Ira Lapidus, who studied urban life in Mamluk Cairo and Syria and included two chapters on the ʿulamāʾ, provides a good example.18 Humphreys favours the approach taken by Jean-Claude Garcin, who studied the ʿulamāʾ through the example of Qūṣ in Egypt. The society in question is regional, a perspective that Humphreys considers to be ‘more reflective of Islamic history’ and one to be followed wherever possible.19 Thus, Garcin’s local perspective on the social collectivities of the ʿulamāʾ complements Kaya’s study of their local professional collectivities. FB, as a local history with extensive biographies of the ʿulamāʾ, lends itself well as a source for understanding the collectivities of the ʿulamāʾ of both types.

(p.116) Religious Distinctions and Affiliations Who were the seventy people profiled in FB’s biographical section (part 3)? We can find one common denominator: they are all addressed with the honorific title of ‘shaykh’,20 all compiled and recited Prophetic ḥadīths and studied the Qurʾān, and all of them were ‘scholars’ (ʿulamāʾ).21 Thus, each of the seventy ʿulamāʾ is, by definition, interested in knowledge, or ʿilm in the Islamic context. Within this coterie, however, we find variations in the particular skills an individual ʿālim posseses, and the roles he carries out in his religious circle and in society. Thus, some scholars had acquired a particular expertise on legal matters, others had excelled in the practice of asceticism (zuhd): an exercise that brought the believer closer to God. And yet another set took to arms to battle the nonbelievers (kāfirs) and convert them to the right religion that is Islam. Let us consider each of the areas of distinction in FB separately. Qurʾān scholarship

An intimate knowledge of the Qurʾān as the fundamental text of Islamic scholarship, the ability to comment on it (tafsīr) and to recite (qirāʾa) from it by heart were basic prerequisites for an ʿālim of Balkh. In a shorter list of great men from Balkh in FB’s historical section (part one) the first four are noted for their proficiency in the Qurʾānic sciences (commentary and reading).22 Their high place in the list makes evident where FB’s priorities lay. The four Qurʾān readers were early scholars of the seventh and eighth centuries: Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (no. 2, d. 100/718–9, 105/723–4, or 106/724–5), ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (no.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape 6, d. 135/752–3), Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5, d. 135/752–3), and Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8, d. 158/774–5). On the other hand, only a few works of Qurʾān commentary (tafsīr) are identified in FB as emanating from the city’s prominence in this field of ʿilm. One is the well-known tafsīr work by Abū al-Layth (p.117) al-Samarqandī (no. 51, d. 376/987) which survives and has been published.23 In addition, Abū Bakr b. Amīrak b. al-Rawwās al-Balkhī (no. 54, d. 413/1022–3), who remains obscure to my sources, is credited by FB with having written a tafsīr by the title of Kitāb alkabīr.24 Compilers of Prophetic traditions and makers of the law

Ḥadīth scholarship is highly valued, and a number of Balkh’s shaykhs are lauded as shaykh al-muḥaddithīn and ḥāfiẓ al-riwāya.25 However, FB provides no grouping for ḥadīth scholars (muḥaddithūn) on their own. This is perhaps because all of FB’s shaykhs are muḥaddithūn already, and an intimate knowledge of the sayings of the Prophet (ḥadīths) was only a means to an end: to uphold Islamic law (sharīʿa) and administer justice. The principal developers, implementers and communicators of the sharīʿa according to FB were judges (qāḍīs) and jurisconsults ( faqīhs), as well as sages (ḥakīms) and preachers (imāms). In total FB profiles thirteen qāḍīs, making this the largest sub-group amongst Balkh’s seventy ʿulamāʾ. Jürgen Paul rightly guessed that FB would shed light on the qāḍī system of Balkh.26 On a more general level, FB confirms what we already know about the pre-modern qāḍī system, namely that the right to appoint qāḍīs rested with the caliph (or sultan), while the qāḍīs’ legitimacy required the community’s endorsement.27 According to FB, Balkh had four qāḍīs in (p.118) the eighth and ninth centuries, whom he calls the ‘quḍāt arbaʿa’ (‘the four qāḍīs’). They seem to have set the standard of practice and professionalism for Balkh’s judges. They were: Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (no. 7, d. 142/759–60), ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 11, d. 171/787–9), ʿAbd Allāh alRammāḥ (no. 18, d. 197/812–3) and Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14, d. 204/819– 20).28 After the illustrious beginning of the Islamic justice system in Balkh, the tide turned and Balkh was stripped of its qāḍī-ship. The last qāḍī of this period was Layth b. Musāwir (no. 26, d. 224/838–9 or 226/840–1). After receiving a letter from the ʿAbbāsid caliphate (dār al-khilāfa) decreeing that all people should accept the createdness of the Qurʾān (Qurʾān makhlūq ast)—a historical event that shook the entire Islamic caliphate, and known as the ‘miḥna’, or ‘testing’— Layth had declared the decree idolatrous (kufr). He resigned from his post of qāḍī, and that was the end of the qāḍī system in Balkh for two hundred-plus years.29 Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) provides more detail on the miḥna. The letter to which FB refers was issued by the caliph al-Maʾmūn in Rabīʿ I 218/April 833. The Page 5 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape policy was accompanied by a process of ‘testing’, which effectively meant a vetting of qāḍīs and faqīhs according to their beliefs in the createdness of the Qurʾān. The miḥna lasted throughout the caliphate for about fourteen years. Like in Balkh, it caused many qāḍīs throughout the caliphal domains to resign or suffer persecution. However, the assertion that the qāḍī system was eradicated altogether is highly unusual. FB contends that the administration of justice in Balkh was left during the following two hundred-plus years exclusively to the ‘aṣḥāb al-maẓālim’.30 The maẓālim system was widespread throughout the Persianate, and constituted a public complaints tribunal in which the ruler passed judgement on cases brought by the aggrieved directly, rather than going through a judge.31 In other (p.119) places the two systems coexisted with no clear division of labour or jurisdiction, resulting in overlap and competition.32 FB suggests that in Balkh, too, there was a good deal of conflict between the two justice-making mechanisms. If FB is right, it was not until the Ghaznawid dynasty ruled over Balkh in the eleventh century that the city had its own qāḍī again in the person of Abū Bakr b. Amīrak b. al-Rawwās al-Balkhī (no. 54). Six more qāḍīs follow him: ʿAbd al-Raḥīm alṢayrafī (no. 55, d. 454/1062), al-Ḥasan al-Wakhshī (no. 56, d. 471/1078–9), Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 57, d. 475/1082), Khalīl al-Sijzī (no. 58, d. 481/1088–9), alḤusayn al-Maḥmūdī (no. 60, d. 506/1112–3) and Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad Abī al-Qāsim al-Balkhī.33 The chronology of events in FB is striking indeed. It is not impossible that it results from a corruption of the text, or a factual error on the part of the author. Notably, FB’s four manuscripts provide variations in a list of qāḍīs given in Layth b. Musāwir’s (no. 26, d. 224/838–9 or 226/840–1) biography.34 Leaving the chronological gap aside, we can now, thanks to FB, establish a much fuller listing of Balkh’s qāḍīs than the brief list in the frequently cited work of Heinz Halm. When collating the qāḍī lists in FB’s manuscripts we obtain eleven names. In addition to these, FB’s part three includes the biographies of seven more qāḍīs. Three further qāḍīs of Balkh are listed by Halm. This brings us to an unprecedented list of twenty-one qāḍīs in Balkh (p.120) between the eighth and twelfth centuries (a full list is provided in Appendix B).35 Having established that Balkh had a steady flow of qāḍīs in the pre-Mongol period (although with a possible two-century hiatus), what was FB’s attitude towards the qāḍī as an ʿālim? There is no doubting that qāḍīs had a prominent place in FB, despite their being political appointees and having dedicated links to rulers. In a sense, the political dimension was secondary to place: it mattered above all that they were the qāḍīs of Balkh. Some of the qāḍis held the post of chief qāḍī, indicating that there were numerous qāḍīs working in one given time and that they were organized in a hierarchy. The implication of a hierarchy of judges is first made in relation to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 18, d. 197/812–13), whom FB calls wālī al-quḍāt. The term, however, does Page 6 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape not seem to refer to an official title, but to be an epithet related to his judicial craftsmanship.36 The better-known title of qāḍī al-quḍāt first appears in the biography of the Shaykh al-Islām ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ṣayrafī (no. 55, d. 454/1062) who served in Balkh during the Saljūq period.37 Five more men of Balkh bore the title of qāḍī al-quḍāt (nos. 56–58, 60, 62). By comparison, Émile Tyan charted out that the office of qāḍī al-quḍāt developed in four stages. Since the time of Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809), the qāḍī al-quḍāt had been the highest judicial authority, much like the vizier was the highest executive power after the caliph. There was only ever one qāḍī al-quḍāt, but the Fāṭimids and subsequently various other kingdoms and principalities set up the institution on their own account.38 Ann (p.121) Lambton provided more specificity on the office as it developed in the Saljūq period and is described by the Saljūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092) in his Siyāsatnāma.39 Clearly, more specificity is needed on this question, but in the very least FB indicates that the qāḍī al-quḍāt institution in Balkh as in other cities of the Saljūqs existed from the mid-eleventh century. Jurisconsults ( faqīhs)

As we move up in the chronology of FB’s biographies, the nomenclature of the various ʿulamāʾ becomes more specific. Those who interpreted the law and issued non-binding legal opinions ( fatwās) become known as faqīhs from the early ninth century onwards. We read in FB’s anecdotes the cases they studied, which as may be expected are matters of family law, personal hygiene, food and drink. Those who stand out as exceptional faqīhs are al-Qāsim (b.) Zurayq (no. 20, d. 205/820), who is followed by Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā al-Balkhī (no. 37, d. 268/881) and Abū Bakr b. Shādhān (no. 38, d. 267/880).40 Four more shaykhs of the tenth century feature as exceptionally good faqīhs: Muḥammad al-Faqīh alBalkhī (no. 41, d. 305/917–18), Khalīl al-Ṣaffār (no. 44, d. 326/937–8), Saʿīd alʿĀlim (no. 45, d. 328/939–40) and Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (no. 51, d. 376/987).41 Men of conscience (ḥakīms)

Some civil disputes were not elevated to the courts, but were handled through more informal conflict resolution methods. The purveyors of informal mechanisms are called ḥakīm (lit. ‘wise’) in FB. Men labelled this way are respectable and learned members of Balkhī society whose advice provided a source for informal justice-making and dispute resolution. The ḥakīms were not so much a sub-set of (p.122) ʿulamāʾ that had defined bureaucratic roles as members of the ʿulamāʾ with a certain level of reputation, wisdom and knowledge to whom people turned naturally for advice. Two of FB’s shaykhs specifically identified as ḥakīms are Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19, d. 237/857–8) and ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23, d. 215/830).42

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape The ḥakīms are counted by FB as members of the ʿulamāʾ, but do not hold any other title such as faqīh or imām (on the latter, see below). They are people of high moral character and in good standing who acted in their communities as informal mediators. Members of the governing élite also sought the ḥakīms’ advice on the selection of candidates for formal and informal positions amongst the ʿulamāʾ. Thus, when he was sick and frail, the people asked ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23) who would fill his shoes. ʿIṣām pointed to Shihāb b. Maʿmar (no. 25).43 Another shaykh whom FB calls a ḥakīm is Khalaf b. Ayyūb (no. 21). The caliph alMaʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33) appointed him as the qāḍī of Balkh to follow Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14), but Khalaf declined the offer. Khalaf was thrown into prison, where he later died.44 FB tells us Khalaf was a student of Abu Ḥanīfa’s direct disciple Muḥammad b. Ḥasan [al-Shaybānī] (d. 189/805), which indicates that a ḥakīm also might have received the training of a master ʿālim.45 The prestige of a ḥakīm is also evidenced in FB’s account that Khalaf received the highest honours at his funeral when the Sāmānid governor Nūḥ b. Asad (d. 228/841–2) delivered his eulogy.46 Thus, the accounts in FB suggest that the ḥakīms were held to high educational standards just like other ʿulamāʾ, but as unofficial scholars they represented a (p.123) different power base. Their standing came from the enjoyment of autonomy and the perceived legitimacy to act as impartial mediators on behalf of the lay population.47 Preachers and representatives of the ʿ ulamā ʾ

Preaching Islam to the lay population in a mosque, and carrying out the Friday service (khuṭba) in the central ( jāmiʿ) mosque are also activities FB values highly. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās b. Abī al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī al-Ashburghānī (no. 65, d. 535/1140–1) was the preacher (imām) of the jāmiʿ mosque of Balkh. His teacher Muḥammad b. Aḥmad [b.] Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid alBalkhī (no. 70, d. 584/1188–9) was a great imām and khaṭīb (al-ṣadr al-imām and akhṭab al-khuṭabāʾ).48 Then again, perhaps it was not their preaching that assured these men a place in the list of Balkh’s select seventy, but the fact that they bore the title shaykh alIslām. J. H. Kramers and Richard Bulliet found that the title appeared in Khurāsānī sources from the late tenth century onwards, and that there was only ever one shaykh al-Islām in a region at any given moment. The title was bestowed upon the most respected ʿālim of a region.49 FB tells us that the first person to hold this title (ism) in Balkh was Abū al-Qāsim Yūnus b. Ṭāhir alNaṣīrī/Nuṣayrī (no. 53, d. 411/1020).50 After him FB lists two more shuyūkh alIslām: Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad Abī al-Qāsim b. Abī al-Qaṣīr al-Balkhī (no. 62, d. 511/1117–8) and Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Zhālī (no. 63, d. 517/1123).

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (p.124) The author of FB was also a shaykh al-Islām, and we know that he held the title in his forties when he completed FB in 610/1214. Judging from the long periods between the death dates of FB’s shuyūkh al-Islām, it seems that Balkh did not always have a shaykh al-Islām, and that, as Kramers found for other places in Khurāsān, no two overlapped. It would seem that the function of the shaykh al-Islām was to act as some kind of representative of the ʿulamāʾ. What exactly his role entailed, and what kind of jurisdiction he had remains unclear. Piety and self-restraint (zuhd)

FB understands zuhd as a practice of self-restraint, kindness, dignity and charity. Four men are singled out in FB’s listing of Balkh’s seventeen great men in the historical part of the book for having achieved an exemplary level of asceticism (zuhd). Their names are Abū Sufyān Kathīr b. Ziyād, who is identified only as the leader of an army troop (ṣāḥib al-jaysh) and not included in the biographical compilation;51 Ibrāhīm b. Adham Manṣūr (no. 9, d. 161/777–8); Wusaym b. Jamīl (no. 15, d. 182/798); and Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10, d. 163/779–80). These four zāhids were later appropriated by the Sufi hagiographies as forerunners of Sufi mysticism. After them Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1) and the ḥakīm Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19, d. 237/857–8) gained prominence in the Sufi tradition of Khurāsān and the western Islamic lands.52 The zāhid Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1) is particularly interesting for modern scholars searching for transmissions of traditions between Buddhists and Muslims. The tradition describes him as a prince, who one day gave up all his worldly belongings (valued at 300,000 dirhams) and left his palace to travel widely in search of wisdom. He eventually became a blue-dresser (azraqpūsh), meaning (p.125) an ascetic.53 The similarities between this account and the biographies of the life of the Buddha are unmistakable. In one account FB even links Shaqīq to Buddhist monks, whom the shaykh allegedly encountered during a business trip to Turkistān. He visited a Buddhist temple (botkhāna) there, where he saw monks (lit. ‘servants’, Ar./Per. khādim) with shaved heads prostrate themselves before Buddhist statues (bot).54 What zuhd is not in FB is to be a hermit or celibate, or to engage in extreme activities of renunciation or deviance like the dervishes described elsewhere.55 To FB the zāhid was an Islamic scholar who also practised moderate levels of self-restraint and charity. Balkh’s shaykhs pursued the practice of zuhd through various ritual acts, including the minimization of speech,56 measured food intake, regular fasting,57 little or no sleep,58 much prayer and meditation,59 compassion and charity,60 shrine pilgrimage and veneration (ziyāra),61 (p.126) honesty (rāstgūy),62 impassioned sight,63 and miracle-making (karāma).64 The goal was a ‘healthy mind’. FB cites Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), founder of the Ḥanbalī madhhab, who purportedly told Balkh’s shaykh Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19) that ‘a healthy mind’ could only be attained ‘by avoiding ignorance (  Page 9 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape jahl) and by not coveting (ṭamaʿ) anything that the ignorant possess’.65 Thus, zuhd and ʿilm go together. A zāhid is unconcerned with the world, but not necessarily someone seeking mystical communion with God. The latter would possibly be a Sufi. It is noteworthy that the term ‘Sufi’ never appears in FB. It is of course possible that this absence reflects the marginality associated with the term until the late ninth century.66 However, acceptably orthodox Baghdadīs called ‘Sufis’ in their lifetimes seem to be found from the mid ninth century onwards. Such persons begin to appear in Nishapur at about the end of the first quarter of the tenth century, and the term evidently spread from there to the rest of Khurāsān and Transoxania (Tārīkh-i Bukhārā uses it, for example).67 FB’s time is when some of the best-known Persian Sufi poetry was composed by poets like Sanāʾī (fl. 508/1114–5), ʿUmar Khayyām (d. ca. 517/1123) and ʿAṭṭār (d. ca. 617/1221). And yet, FB does not (p.127) mention Sufism, even when writing about those who became known primarily as Sufis or ʿārifs. One possible reason is that this aspect of their lives was simply not relevant to FB. What mattered was their role as ʿulamāʾ, and the practice of sober asceticism was mentioned merely as a reinforcement of that role. We may also be witnessing the non-institutionalized mysticism, ‘du type présoufi’, identified by Jacqueline Chabbi to have existed in Nishapur and western Khurāsān in the tenth century. She found that modern scholars who had analysed specialist (i.e. Sufi) sources a posteriori assigned to pre-modern mystics a faulty ‘pseudo-homogeneity’. Chabbi, on the other hand, also studied ‘nonspecialist’ (i.e. historical and contemporary) sources. She identified a group of people who were simply ḥadīth transmitters and were particularly inclined towards asceticism.68 Thus, it would seem that Chabbi guessed correctly that Balkh would evidence a similar ‘pre-Sufi’ type of mysticism like the one in Nishapur.69 Fighting for Islam (the ghāzī)

In FB a number of ʿulamāʾ were also praised for their achievements as warriors of the faith, or ‘ghāzīs’. The ghāzīs were fighter-saints, imbued with mystical qualities, and spending time in ribāṭs. ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23), for example, visited the ribāṭs of Isfījāb and Wāshgird along the northern frontier with the Qarlūq lands.70 FB includes two types of fighter-saints amongst the seventy shaykhs of Balkh described in part three. The first constitutes those who conquered Balkh for the Umayyads, like ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Sāʾib. He is nicknamed ‘Bridges ʿAṭāʾ’ (‘Qanāṭir ʿAṭāʾ’, no. 4, n.d.)71 on account of having (p.128) built bridges over the moat to the fortress of the Turkic rebel prince Nīzak Ṭarkhān.72 This great feat enabled General Qutayba b. Muslim to bring the prince down in 90–1/708–10. Another fighter-saint and near-contemporary of the first was ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (no. 6, d. 135/752–3). Originating from Jūzjān, ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī Page 10 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape was a client (mawlā) of the Arab Muhallabī clan. He had distinguished himself as one of Balkh’s greatest Qurʾān scholars, and it was the ʿulamāʾ of Khurāsān and Iraq who convinced ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī to make the long journey to al-Shām, where he fought the kāfirs.73 The second group of ghāzī-shaykhs consists of those who set off after the conquest of Balkh to extend the frontiers of Islam eastwards and northwards. Interestingly, these men in particular appear in the later hagiographical sources as the earliest Sufis. Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1), who was mentioned earlier as the Buddha-like mystic, not only travelled to the east as a merchant, but also parti-cipated in the fight ( ghazw) against the infidel there. At Kūlān, a place between Khuttalān and Wāshgird in the north-east, Shaqīq was martyred in battle.74 (p.129) Another ghāzī extending the dār al-Islām from Balkh was the imām Ḥārith b. Sulaymān (no. 13, d. 199/814?). He was a direct disciple of the founder of the Ḥanafī madhhab Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767), and teacher of Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 194/809–10). He joined the Muslim troops in the occupation of Chāch (or Shāsh, the later Tashkent) and Ferghana in Mā warāʾ al-nahr (both in modern-day Uzbekistan, Kirgizstan and Tajikistan) together with his friend, the qāḍī of Tirmidh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Khālid (n.d.). At their hands 100,000 non-Muslims (kuffār) were converted to Islam.75 Jacqueline Chabbi showed in her study of early Khurāsānī mysticism that narratives like the one on Shaqīq aim at emphasizing that zāhids were not ‘professional’ mystics. The protagonists’ primary interest still lay with their respective professions (usually as traders). They collected ḥadīth when they could, experimented with asceticism, and occasionally fought for the faith.76 The changing and incomplete coterie

What our analysis of the characteristics of Balkh’s pre-modern ʿulamāʾ shows so far is that they were not a ‘closed group’, but still formed a distinct coterie. An ʿālim was a chosen ( guzīda) person with exceptional knowledge of what had been written, who practised moderate renunciation, and occasionally engaged in religious battle ( ghazw). However, it should not be supposed that this coterie remained the same over time. A quick glance at the listing of FB’s ʿulamāʾ in Appendix A will show that there is a much greater representation of scholars in the eighth century (fifteen scholars, 21 per cent) and ninth century (twenty-four scholars, i.e. 31 per cent) when the city was presumably smaller and less uniformly Muslim than it later became. The reason for this high number of scholars for the early Islamic period is not clear, but may represent the large migrations of Arabs and Muslim scholars to Balkh in this period. The (p.130) tapering off in the tenth (thirteen scholars, i.e. 19 per cent) and eleventh centuries (seven scholars, i.e. 10 per cent) may partly reflect the purported loss of the qāḍī-ship in Balkh following the miḥna. However, this can only be a partial explanation given that qāḍīs in the eighth and ninth centuries accounted for 23 Page 11 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape per cent of FB’s shuyūkh, while the size of the reduction is about 40 per cent. Rather, perhaps it represents the ‘normalization’ of what had been an ‘inflated’ conquest-oriented religious establishment in the early centuries which would have needed a larger number of Companions of the Prophet to ensure that the correct Prophetic accounts were connected to the place. This ‘normalization’ process would go hand in glove with the increased professionalization of the ʿulamāʾ, as well as the restoration of Balkh’s qāḍī-ship in the eleventh century. It is from this time that the titles shaykh al-Islām and qāḍī al-quḍāt appear, and that they are the most common titles of Balkh’s shaykhs. Thus, it was no longer enough to be a qāḍī or a shaykh, but one had to rise to the highest post in these arenas to merit an entry into the FB. A number of Balkh’s shaykhs held both titles of shaykh al-Islām and qāḍī al-quḍāt, which points to the close relationship between the judicial and religious authority and administration in Balkh. Perhaps at this juncture, it is worth reflecting on which kinds of learned people do not receive a profile in FB’s third part. First, there is a list of people in the historical section of FB who are purported to be Balkh’s greatest men.77 Listed here but not profiled in the biographical part three of FB are the linguist and grammarian Saʿīd b. Masʿada al-Mujāshiʿī al-Akhfash (d. 215/830);78 dream interpreters Makhḍaʿ al- Muʿabbir, al-Haytham al-Muʿabbir and Zayd b. Nuʿaym al-Muʿabbir;79 and the physician Yūḥannā (p.131) b. Māsawayh.80 Political rulers in this list—the Barmakids as the best viziers from Balkh, and the Sāmānids (āl-i Sāmān) as its best princes—are not profiled in part three either.81 The list was clearly only intended for the ʿulamāʾ proper whose scholarship focused on religious piety and the law. What an eclectic history FB would have been had it told us of Balkh’s dream interpreters, medical practitioners and political geniuses. There are a number of well-known men from Balkh who are entirely absent from FB. These include famous poets, such as Daqīqī (d. ca. 370/980); Abū alMuʾayyad al-Balkhī, who wrote precursors to Firdawsī’s Shāhnāma; and the Ghaznawid court poets82 ʿUnṣurī (d. 431/1039–40?)83 and Anwarī (d. 585/1189 or 587/1191).84 Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn al-Balkhī al-Rūmī (d. 672/1273), whose father had been a preacher in Balkh until the family’s escape in 609/1212–13, is also not mentioned.85 Missing further is a mention of the astronomer from Balkh, Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī (d. 272/886);86 and the Muʿtazilī scholar Abū alQāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī (d. 319/931).87 These (p.132) omissions only underscore what we have noted before: that our author, despite purporting to write a city history, was only interested in the lives of the ʿulamāʾ who were considered ‘authoritative’ in his own tradition, i.e. that of his own direct teacher. It did not matter if some of the personalities in this tradition were far less known than other personalities of the city.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape Legal schools (madhhabs)

Now that we have understood the definition and categorization of the ʿulamāʾ in FB, what can we say of the corporate entities to which the ʿulamāʾ belonged? Such corporate entities could constitute a particular legal school (madhhab), family connections, wealth, gender and special connections to the city of Balkh. Bernd Radtke implies that FB had a strong sense of community and corporate identity on the grounds that it was ‘a work on the Ḥanafī madhhab of Balkh’.88 While the founder of the madhhab Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) and his disciples feature prominently in the scholarly discourse of a number of Balkh’s shaykhs there are problems with Radtke’s statement. First of all, the term madhhab hardly occurs in FB, which runs counter to what one would expect if the text were a work on a madhhab. In the sections before the biographies the Ḥanafī madhhab is mentioned briefly, and only a few times in the biographies.89 This raises two questions: did the Ḥanafī madhhab exist in the time of FB, and what exactly was meant by ‘madhhab’?90 There is a consensus amongst scholars that by the late ninth century the (p.133) basic components of madhhab existed.91 However, their corporate identities were less formal than we know them today. Radtke’s assertion does, however, raise a third question: what can we learn of the Ḥanafī madhhab through FB? In order to answer these questions we need to consider the development of the Ḥanafī madhhab in general and Balkh’s contributions to it, and secondly we need to look for clues in FB that could point to a scholarly lineage. An important source on the beginnings of the Ḥanafī madhhab continues to be Gustav Flügel’s ‘Die Classen der hanefitischen Rechtsgelehrten’ (1861).92 Flügel identified a hierarchy of major Ḥanafīs in the general ṭabaqāt literature that is not specific to any region or province. Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767), the founder, is naturally in the first ṭabaqa, as are his immediate disciples. There are different types of classification schemes, but in the first instance they were based on generations: each ṭabaqa represents a new generation of scholars working over a period of some decades.93 Of the mujtahids listed by Flügel ten are shaykhs in FB (although Flügel does not mention a direct link to Balkh). According to Flügel’s classification the ten shaykhs in question are spread across seven classes (ṭabaqāt) of Ḥanafīs: Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14) is the transcriber of Abū Ḥanīfa’s spoken opinions, and in the first class.94 (p.134) Khalaf b. Ayyūb (no. 21),95 Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym (no. 22)96 and Abū Sulaymān Mūsā b. Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī (no. 27)97 are in the second class. Muḥammad b. Salama (no. 39) is in the third class.98 Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 47) is in the fourth class.99

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaffār (no. 44) is in the fifth class.100 Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49) is in the sixth class.101 Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (no. 51)102 and Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsī (no. 59)103 are in the seventh class. Although the last biographical entry in FB is dated 584/1188–9, which coincides with Flügel’s tenth class, we do not find any shaykhs (p.135) of FB in Flügel’s listing after the seventh class.104 The reason for ending with the seventh is not clear, but at least ten of FB’s shaykhs were appropriated by later Ḥanafī ṭabaqāt sources, precisely those consulted by Flügel which were Ottoman—the Ottomans had embraced the Ḥanafī legal school—dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is noteworthy that FB does not identify any of them as mujtahid or muqallid while the later sources do. Wael Hallaq found that such concepts were only brought into the Islamic legal thinking after the classical period, which may explain why terms such as mujtahid or muqallid are not common in FB.105 Even if we look beyond FB, only ten of Balkh’s shaykhs are identified as Ḥanafī by the later sources. What of the remaining sixty shaykhs of Balkh? While Ḥabībī identified almost all of the sixty in Ḥanafī rijāl works, they are also listed in sources that are not usually associated with Ḥanafīs, like Ibn al-Jawzī’s Muntaẓam. There are numerous examples where a Ḥanafī identity cannot be confirmed. There is no need to go through each of FB’s shaykhs because such an analysis would not add further to the argument. In brief, to call FB a book on the Ḥanafī madhhab glosses over the development of madhhab in general. While FB does not speak much of madhhab, it does give us clues as to the existence of scholarly lineages which may have provided the precursors of what we call madhhab today. Eyyüp Said Kaya describes the workings of madhhab in the tenth century in a passage that is cited at length because of its pertinence: The axis of the concept of madhhab found in every affiliated jurist’s work is not a complement of legal norms, nor is it a group affiliation. It is a certain form of legal reasoning […] applied within a particular juristic legacy. […] The jurists who affiliated themselves with a madhhab built their juristic activities on that particular past. The past had a starting point: the opinions of the eponym [emphasis added].106 (p.136) Building on Kaya’s contention that madhhab bases itself on an eponym, Abū Ḥanīfa, the founder of the Ḥanafīs, is frequently mentioned as the first teacher of Balkh’s early shaykhs. While FB usually does not state specifically who was a student of whom, the text gives clues in the terms daryāftan, ṣuḥba and samāʿ (hearing ḥadīth recitations and readings by a master). All three terms are associated with a semi-formal teacher–student relationship.107 Teachers

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape identified as such are termed ustād.108 A somewhat weaker indicator is the expression az [fulānī] riwāya kardan, transmitting from [so and so]. When using such textual markers two lineages become apparent (see Appendix C for details). The first lineage consists of at least eight of Balkh’s shaykhs and covers a period of two centuries. Four of the shaykhs are particularly well known from later Sufi hagiographies. Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9, d. 161/777–8), who is no stranger to the Islamic scholar, is considered one of the earliest Sufis in the hagiographical literature.109 Next comes Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1) mentioned several times already.110 Then follows the ḥakīm Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19, d. 237/857–8), who interceded when the people complained about the injustices committed by the Ṭāhirids in Balkh. Al-Aṣamm is succeeded by Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5), known from later sources as a great Ḥanafī scholar.111 (p.137) A second lineage can be traced from the early ninth century onwards, beginning with Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī (no. 27, d. after 200/815–16), and extending over a period of two hundred years to the end of the tenth century. The lineage can be identified to a large extent via Flügel’s extractions from Ḥanafī ṭabaqāt works focusing on faqīhs. Khalīl al-Ṣaffār al-Balkhī (no. 44, d. 326/937–8), for example, is in Flügel’s fifth class, and Abū al-Layth alSamarqandī (no. 51, d. 376/987) in the seventh class. The faqīhs in this line distinguished themselves through their literary production of legal handbooks and studies of legal theory, and the traditions they collected provided the basis for the systematization of law according to their schools. While a proto-Ḥanafī collectivity is evident (Abū Ḥanīfa is the first teacher/ scholar in FB after all), FB does credit a number of Balkh’s shaykhs with having knowledge of ḥadīth attributed to legal thinkers from other schools. The shaykh Muḥammad b. Ābān (no. 32, d. 244/858–9), for example, memorized all ḥadīth transmitted by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), the founder of the Ḥanbalī school of fiqh.112 Some of FB’s scholars consulted the works of Shāfiʿī scholars. The Arabic author of FB, for example, cites the famous Shāfiʿī of the Juwaynī family, known as Imām al-Ḥaramayn (d. 478/1085–6). This scholar from Nishapur allegedly announced from the minbar that all people should visit the tomb of Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5); the latter is associated with the first proto-Ḥanafī scholary lineage outlined above.113 As this reconstruction of lineages in FB shows, it was important to its author to draw a direct teacher-student line to underscore the antiquity and authenticity of Balkh’s Islamic scholarship in his time. On the other hand, a number of shaykhs fall outside of any identifiable lineage. Some, we are told, had a large number of disciples (murīdān) and a consistent inner circle of people who are not identified by name. For example, Muḥammad b. Mālik b. Bakr b. Bakkār b. Qays b. al-Ḥūrab b. al-Ḥārith b. al-Hāshim al-ʿArabī al-Balkhī (no. 33, d. Page 15 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape 244/858), whose father studied directly under (p.138) Abū Ḥanīfa, had a following of 30,000 people.114 The shaykh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā b. Ibrāhīm, known as Muḥammad b. Farrūkh (no. 35, d. 275/888–9) who ‘some say was an ʿAlid (ʿalawī)’, had an inner circle of twenty people.115 Moreover, a number of FB’s shaykhs cannot be found in any student–teacher lineage but are still highly regarded by later shaykhs.116 Most notably, those absent from the lineages are the qāḍīs. Since the qāḍīs were appointed by the caliphal administration, and were ‘deployed’ to foreign cities, it seems plausible that they stood outside of the networks of the madhhabs. We might consider the qāḍīs the most formal and most institutionally-affiliated of the ʿulamāʾ,117 and yet FB’s author was not interested in the institutions to which they belonged. Perhaps the qāḍīs had no corporate identity as such, or were not seen as exclusively belonging to networks, like a madhhab. The author treats qāḍīs in the same way as he treats other shaykhs: as individuals and as scholars. They were not discredited for coming from outside of Balkh, as long as they represented the qualities that were required of a shaykh: to be upright, of the right religion, and just. If madhhab was not the sine qua non for FB’s shaykhs then might it have been social factors like wealth, gender, or family ties that elevated someone to special ʿālim status? The wealth of an ʿālim

(p.139) FB gives some detail on the wealth of some of FB’s shaykhs, while at the same time emphasizing their charity to the poor and their contributions as patrons of the religious sciences. The accounts of their wealth are rhetorical, and aimed at telling the readers about the authority of the religious leader as attained through the distribution of charity and stipends: a scholar could not hold on to his wealth, not only because that would have been considered materialistic and ungodly, but also because he was expected to act as a patron and distribute wealth to his clients and loyalists. The concept of generosity and bestowing ‘benefit’ upon others (Ar. niʿma) is discussed extensively by Roy Mottahedeh, and he identifies it as one of the two bases of loyalty. FB uses the term niʿma to describe the city’s good qualities in part two rather than in relation to the charity of the shaykhs. However, the same kind of reasoning may well have motivated the charity and generosity of the shaykhs (rather than having no ulterior motive at all).118 There are a number of accounts in FB that are intended to emphasize the large wealth enjoyed by Balkh’s ʿulamāʾ. The dispensation of money and gifts valued at certain amounts in dirham currency are purportedly high, but the author gives no idea of what a dirham actually buys at the time. Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (no. 2, d. 100/718–9, 105/723–4, or 106/724–5) had many slaves.119 Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5, d. 135/752–3) sent a gift valued at 60 or 70 dirhams to the caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–20).120 ʿAlī al-Fārisī (no. 48, d. 335/946–7) donated Page 16 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape 50,000 dīnārs and 50,000 bushels (qafīz) of grain each year, as well as his own garments ( jāma-yi khāṣṣ-i khwud) to support others in their pursuits of knowledge.121 ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (no. 6, d. 135/752–3) donated what we are meant to understand as a large sum of 1,000 dirhams and a cloak he had made to the Umayyad mawlā-poet Ziyād al-Aʿjam (d. ca. 100/718) for reciting an off-the-cuff panegyric verse in ʿAṭāʾ’s (p.140) honour.122 We also read of large amounts of voluntary charity (ṣadaqa) contributions made by shaykhs, such as Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf (no. 28, d. 239/853–4), the brother of ʿIṣām (no. 23, d. 215/830) who donated a total of 900,000 dirhams of ṣadaqa in his lifetime.123 A different sort of wealth is described in the life of the early shaykh Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1). He gave up his princely life of luxury, and became a travelling ascetic and scholar, and in this way enhanced his scholarly reputation.124 Not all of Balkh’s ʿulamāʾ grew up in prosperity or had glamorous lives; some in fact died poor. For example, FB seems to be intent on displaying the moderate means from which came Balkh’s very early teacher at the jāmiʿ mosque Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8, d. 158/774–5): his father had been a belt-maker (dawāldūz).125 We are also told that the miracle-experiencing shaykh Shihāb b. Maʿmar (no. 25, d. 216/831–2) died in prison on account of a debt default, which indicates that he was presumably in financial straits.126 Similarly, in an account of the much-lauded shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5), whose wives are equally impressive and will be discussed shortly, we also read that he was hounded in old age, and even on his deathbed, by money-collectors on account of a 700 (900?)-dīnār debt. He was ‘bailed out’ by an unknown benefactor who appeared at his doorstep.127 Clearly, the themes of poverty, asceticism, knowledge and charity were intimately connected through traditions like these. Yaacov Lev explains that in medieval Islamic society the distribution of charity was a tool for atonement and for communicating with God. Thus, for example, the distribution of charity following the death of a person symbolized the acceptance of the fate ordained by God. While rulers and commoners dispensed charities, members of the ʿulamāʾ feature prominently in the sources as philanthropists.128 It is a selfimage the (p.141) FB is keen to sustain during a time when an individual’s charity mattered. The source of an ʿālim’s wealth tends not to be given in FB. We can resort to analogy provided by Ḥayyim Cohen, who sifted through the biographies of 14,000 ʿulamāʾ in 19 biographical dictionaries which resulted in a sample of 4,200 people (30 per cent) whose professions were stated.129 With such a low reporting rate it is necessary to have a large sample size in order to attain statistically significant results. With only seventy biographies, FB clearly does not meet this criterion. However, I shall briefly consider the snippets of

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape information concerning the ʿulamāʾ’s sources of funding, from which tentative conclusions might be drawn. FB’s biography of the early zāhid Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9, d. 161/777–8) includes information about his father’s wealth—namely, that he owned a vast estate with a villa (sarāy) that held many apartments (khānahā-yi bisyār).130 This may indicate that Ibrāhīm came from a landowning family of Balkh, or if they were immigrants, had settled in the rural hinterland of the city.131 A few of the early ʿulamāʾ also worked as merchants. Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5, d. 135/752–3), for example, was in the textile trading business.132 In the time of Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (no. 2, d. 100/718–9, 105/723–4 or 106/724–5), says FB, the business of an ʿālim had to be combined (p.142) with trade (bāzargānī).133 Not all businesses were acceptable. The gains made from trade had to be ‘clean’, because impure gains (māl-i ḥarām) brought no blessings even if they were given to charity.134 Unfortunately, FB does not cite examples for this kind of ‘sinful trade’. Some other sources of income may be gathered from the occupational nicknames (nisbas): ‘al-Najjār’ for Balkh’s sixty-first shaykh, the Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās b. Abī al-ʿAbbās (d. 535/1140–1), and ‘al-Qalānisī’ for Balkh’s sixty-first shaykh, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī (d. 511/1117–8).135 The nisbas point to carpentry and cloth-making respectively. However, nisbas often stay with people long after their families stopped engaging in these activities, and the information is too sparse to permit unequivocal conclusions. So far we have discussed those ʿulamāʾ whose direct income stems from activities other than scholarship. In fact, the issue of receiving stipends or salaries for the official functions of a qāḍī or faqīh was a bone of contention amongst the ʿulamāʾ, and it appears throughout FB as a major theme.136 The early scholars in particular, such as Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym (no. 22),137 adamantly refused to accept payment for their services, with the explanation that they rendered them as selfless acts of service to God. Similarly, Saʿīd alMaqbarī (no. 3) is quoted as having said: ‘It is right to work for knowledge (ʿilm), but one’s knowledge should not bring any financial profit (sūd)’.138 The underlying message is that only scholars who did not retain their earnings and profits could be objective and uncorruptible. It is in these terms that FB rationalises the silk trading business of Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5).139 The rhetorical purpose of FB is to juxtapose the (p.143) compensation for the work of an ʿālim with that of payments and financial rewards given to political rulers, and the corruption associated with them. The discussion on the compensation debate is absent from the later biographies, perhaps indicating a shift towards increasing professionalization of the ʿulamāʾ and concomitant sal-aries or stipends for them. Joan Gilbert, who studied the ʿulamāʾ of medieval Damascus, Page 18 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape posited that the provision of salaries and stipends reduced the need for the ʿulamāʾ to work in trades.140 A similar development may have taken place in Balkh, but FB does not provide sufficient information to verify this. We can conclude in this section that wealth mattered only in so far as it was disposed of for charitable and educational purposes. Above all, it was renunciation that brought authority to an ʿālim: the attainment of wealth could only add to it when disbursed appropriately. Women scholars

It may appear obvious that the seventy biographies in FB are of men only. However, it is not unusual for biographical dictionaries to include women, whether as scholars, poets or members of other professions. The Egyptian ḥadīth scholar and prosopographer al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), for example, dedicated an entire volume of his biographical dictionary to women.141 FB does not dedicate a biography to a woman, but it does provide some detailed information on two female scholars. They are described at considerable length in the biography of their famous husband, the shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5). The elder wife is known by the kunya Umm ʿAlī and the epithet mahd-i ʿaliyya,142 or ‘the one of high standing’.143 Other sources tell us that (p.144) her given name was Fāṭima.144 Her mother, Muʾmina, was the daughter of a wālī of Khurāsān, a certain (Ḥasan b.) Ḥumrān (on the latter, see next section on ‘Family connections’) and was buried in the Ṭāq-i Muʾmina (in Balkh?).145 According to ‘the history books’, Umm ʿAlī eventually became a scholar herself. She studied a book of tafsīr under Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh (alTirmidhī?), and then sold her land for 79,000 dirhams with which she paid to go on the ḥajj. In Mecca she studied for seven years, where she attained mastery of all the sciences and recited ḥadīth extensively. She returned to Balkh, and was buried in a shrine near that of her husband (at the Naw Bahār Gate).146 Shaykh Aḥmad’s younger wife, Ḥakīma Zāhida, although a lesser scholar than Umm ʿAlī, is also a ḥadīth transmitter.147 FB expresses amazement at these wives, and concludes that if the wives of these pure ones were such, one must just think at what levels the great shuyūkh must have been (zanān-i īn pākān chunīn būda-and, tā mashāyikh-i aʿẓām bi chi ḥadd būda bāshand).148 The author views Umm ʿAlī as a true scholar, not because she was married to a famous male scholar, but because she had earned a scholarly reputation through studying, travelling, and dedicating time to attaining knowledge. Family connections

If neither madhhab, nor wealth or gender are the critical affiliations that define the ʿulamāʾ, might kinship patterns have mattered? In other words, were the ʿulamāʾ chosen because of their genealogical ties (p.145) to certain families? Page 19 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape The question is particularly pertinent in view of Richard Bulliet’s assessment that the ʿulamāʾ of Nishapur constituted a ‘patriciate’. With only seventy biographies FB does not provide the sample size necessary for the kind of quantitative study that enabled Bulliet to create his extensive genealogical charts.149 Nevertheless, one family tree does emerge through the crossreferencing of six disparate biographies in FB, covering a period of 150 years and six generations. The tree begins with a certain Ḥumrān who had three sons: one was the ʿAbbāsid governor (wālī) al-Ḥasan (r. 142/759–60–?),150 who was also the grandfather of the elder scholar-wife of the shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29, d. 240/854–5).151 Al-Ḥasan appointed his brother Mutawakkil (no. 7, d. 142/759–60) as qāḍī.152 A third brother called ʿAbd Allāh appears in the later biographies as an ancestor to the shaykh Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl (no. 36, d. 261/874–5),153 and to ʿĀtika, the wife of the qāḍī Abū Muṭīʿ (no. 14, d. 204/9819– 20).154 The latter’s son Muḥammad b. Abī Muṭīʿ (no. 31, d. 244/858–9) is also a shaykh of Balkh.155 One of Abū Muṭīʿ’s other children, an unnamed elder daughter, married the faqīh Qāsim (b.) Zurayq (no. 20, d. 201/820–1).156 A diagrammatic presentation of this genealogy is offered in Appendix D. (p.146) It becomes clear that our genealogical knowledge of what one might call ‘the house of Ḥumrān’ is confined largely to a single lineage of ʿAbd Allāh. In the case of the shaykh Abū Muṭīʿ, who married into ʿAbd Allāh’s family, we have a direct transmission of scholarship to his son and perhaps his son-in-law. The shaykh Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh married into the house through the line of alḤasan. We saw earlier that his elder wife, being of that line, was a scholar as well. The preponderance and importance of women in the tree point to bilateral kinship patterns; however, the data are too sparse to allow us to make any unequivocal conclusions. Another family connection emerges in the late stages of FB’s shaykhs involving two contemporaries of FB’s author. Their names are al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib al-Ḥusaynī (no. 64, d. 532/1137–8) and (Ṭāhir b.) Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn alḤusaynī (no. 67, d. 537/1142–3). Ḥabībī and Radtke did not identify them, but the two men are described in the biographical dictionaries of al-Marwazī alAzwarqānī (d. after 614/1217), and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209) as ʿAlids.157 Both ʿAlids stem from a Ḥusaynid branch descending from Jaʿfar b. ʿUbayd Allāh al-ʿAraj, whom al-Bukhārī (d. mid tenth century) in the Sirr al-silsila already called a Balkhī.158 According to FB, al-Ḥasan al-Ḥusaynī (no. 64, d. 532/1137–8) had a mosque named after his laqab, ‘Sharaf al-Dīn’, and he travelled throughout the eastern Iranian region and Iraq where he studied with important shaykhs.159 The other ʿAlid, Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī (no. 67, d. 537/1142–3), was the chief naqīb (naqīb al-nuqabāʾ) of Balkh (al-Marwazī also states he was a (p.147) naqīb) and a raʾīs of Khurāsān.160

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape With less than ten out of the seventy shaykhs exhibiting influential family ties, it does not seem that family connections influenced the selection of FB’s shaykhs either. Place of birth, residence, and death

Might the shaykhs have been selected because they were born in the locality of Balkh? This is difficult to answer, because birthplaces are frequently omitted from the accounts. This is typical for FB’s genre and time. We receive notices of the tribal affiliations but not the birthplaces of FB’s early shaykhs.161 The fact that FB cites the former rather than the latter probably reflects a source tradition at a time when tribe was important (a convention applied in al-Ṭabarī’s Tārīkh, for example). Al-Wāʿiẓ only tells us about six shaykhs who were born in Balkh (nos. 9, 43, 48) or who were Balkhīs, originally (al-aṣl), amounting to only 9 per cent of FB’s shaykhs. Other places where Balkh’s shaykhs were born include Samarqand (no. 51), Sīstān (no. 58), Sarakhs (no. 59) and Ṭāliqān (no. 60): all are towns in the adjacent Khurāsān, Sīstān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr regions. Place of birth was clearly not the main factor in the collective identity of FB’s ʿulamāʾ, and was not very important for its author. (p.148) In contrast to places of birth those of death (wafāt) and burial (khāk, qabr) are very important in FB, primarily due to our author’s interest in their shrines as topographical markers and pilgrimage sites. The places of burial were discussed in the previous chapter when we saw that only twenty-seven of FB’s shaykhs have definite information that locates their shrines in Balkh. The places of death still remain to be discussed. FB mentions the death places for only eighteen of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs (26 per cent). Out of these, seven (39 per cent) died in Balkh (nos. 17, 21, 48, 52, 59, 63, 70), with possibly an eighth person (no. 53). The other ten shaykhs (61 per cent) died in Syria, Kūlān (between Khuttalān and Wāshgird), Mecca, Nishapur, Wāshgird, Baghlān, Siyāhgird, Samarqand, and Bukhara (nos. 9, 12, 16, 18, 19, 30, 40, 41?, 43, 49). Despite the relative significance of their shrines, neither place of death nor location of burial can be regarded as the common defining feature of Balkh’s shaykhs. The fact that the ʿulamāʾ all lived in Balkh for at least some time, on the other hand, is the one affiliation that all of Balkh’s shaykhs have in common (besides the fact that they are all male, which is less surprising). FB differentiates between two relevant terms for ‘resident’, using ‘sākin’ and ‘muwaṭṭin’. Thus, for example, the shaykh al-Sarakhsī (no. 59, d. 481/1082–3) is said to have been ‘Sarakhsī al-aṣl, Bukhārī al-muwaṭṭin, and Balkhī al-dafn’, which means his family was originally from Sarakhs: he had a home in Bukhara, and he was buried in Balkh.162 The Shaykh al-Islām Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Naṣīrī/Nuṣayrī (no. 53) was a sākin of Balkh.163

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape All but one or two shaykhs spent a considerable amount of time in Balkh. Some moved there for professional reasons, such as the qāḍīs who were appointed and deployed by the central powers. Others came to Balkh to study with a famous master before continuing on their scholarly adventures to the next city and master. Another group was born and bred in Balkh; some of these never left the province, while others took to more distant lands. A word should be said on the (p.149) importance of travel for the ʿulamāʾ. At least one-third of FB’s shaykhs travelled in pursuit of knowledge and to conduct pilgrimages to important shrines. Some were deployed to other cities for their qāḍī work. Their destinations were Baṣra, Baghdad, Bisṭām, Bukhara, Isfījāb, Khwārazm, Merv, Mecca, Nakhshab (Nasaf/Kish), Nishapur, Rayy, Samarqand, Syria, Tirmidh, Wāshgird and India (bilād al-hind).164 While the early shaykhs had their eye on the faraway west, notably Baṣra and Kūfa, the later ones learned with and taught colleagues in the cities of their own region of Khurāsān and Mā waraʾ alnahr. In sum, it was neither birth nor death but physical presence in Balkh for a significant amount of time that defined FB’s ‘top seventy’ from a much larger list of learned men of Balkh. Educational excellence and pious practice emerged as the most salient criteria for a common identity, together with residence in Balkh. Other factors, such as madhhab can only be demonstrated for a subset of the shaykhs in two lineages going back to Abū Ḥanīfa, the eponymous founder of the Ḥanafī madhhab, and ending in the tenth century. The same can be said of factors like wealth and kinship. Thus, even the prosopographies of FB demonstrate the magnetic powers of place. It is the mere presence of such men in Balkh that renders the city holy: where they came from before or where they went afterwards is irrelevant. The fact that a significant number of them left their remains behind in Balkh in the form of their shrines only adds to the sanctity already acquired from them.

The Character of Sanctity In order to better understand the character of sanctity it is worth considering how it is portrayed in the biographies of Balkh’s seventy scholars. They are the embodiment of Balkh’s sanctity to the layperson. Thus, they must speak to the world of the layperson. And they do. The biographies in part three of FB are filled with stories in which the ʿulamāʾ are portrayed as the forces of good, against the evils of temporal power. The stories run along seven messages or (p. 150) themes: the delicate role of the ʿulamāʾ to maintain a precarious balance between politics and religion; the dangers of religious extremism; the role of the ʿulamāʾ as agents of unity and social integration; the actions of the ʿulamāʾ to check unjust rule and challenge political leaders; the need to provide support and advice to sultans and receive royal patronage; and the need to fight against attempts by political leaders to control the ʿulamāʾ. The ʿulamāʾ’s sanctity is

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape defined by their action as a bulwark for the defence of right religion, social order, law and justice within society. Balancing the requirement for justice with diplomacy

The common theme of the ʿālim mediating in a sensitive space between the oppressed and political opportunists comes to the fore with anecdotes in FB. They predicate that one should refrain from participating in divisive conflicts over the leadership of the community.165 For example, FB expresses dismay at the ʿAbbāsid revolution (132/749), and those who were connected with it. The disapproval does not stem from an ideological or political bias but from a conviction that revolution should be avoided per se. An ʿālim had to be quietist in order to maintain peace and balance in society. Thus, none of FB’s seven successors to the Companions of the Prophet (tābiʿūn) supported Abū Muslim, leader of the ʿAbbāsid revolutionary movement, and three actively resisted him.166 Similarly, Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (n.d.), the first qāḍī of Balkh and Chaghāniyān, resisted Abū Muslim’s khurūj (rebellion) from Umayyad rule.167 On the other hand, quietism may seem to fall down the priority list at times. The shaykh Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5, d. 135/752–3), who (p.151) had enjoyed the special favour of the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar (II) b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717– 20), found on his way to Rayy the fugitive Saʿīd b. Jubayr (d. 94 or 94/ 711 or 712) in hiding and delivered him to the Umayyad governor of Iraq, Khurāsān and Sīstān al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf (r. 78–95/697–714). Saʿīd had participated in Ibn alAshʿath’s revolt against al-Ḥajjāj in 81–2/700–1.168 Capturing an accused rebel and delivering him to the government to be executed does not fit the idea of ‘quietism’ very well but maintaining the status quo was the priority. The author of FB did not forgive the ʿAbbāsids for their revolutionary activities even after they took power in Baghdad. An anecdote about a certain ʿAbbāsid governor of Balkh known as ‘Khuzāʿī’ who removed two of three iron portals at the Naw Bahār Gate becomes emblematic of the corruption of rulers.169 To add insult to injury, the chief installed one portal at his personal villa (sarāy), and another he sent to the neighbouring town of Khulm.170 All this anti-ʿAbbāsid sentiment led Elton Daniel, referring inter alia to FB, to conclude that Balkh was a ‘bastion of the anti-ʿAbbāsid movement’.171 This generalization stretches the evidence somewhat. Balkh’s shaykhs were not categorically opposed to the ʿAbbāsids, but took a rather pragmatic and quietist approach. Balkh’s qāḍī of fifty-two years, Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (shaykh no. 7, d. 142/759–60), explains it in this way: ‘I served the Umayyads because they were the rulers. Now I serve the ʿAbbāsids because they are in charge’.172 The message is clear: the ʿulamāʾ were to serve the incumbents whoever they might be. FB’s shaykhs opposed the ʿAbbāsids (p.152) when they rebelled against the status quo, but when the ʿAbbāsids became victorious the Balkhīs supported them because now they were the status quo. A very similar attitude is attributed Page 23 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape to the creed described in the al-Sawād al-aʿẓam cited by Madelung, who states that ‘[…] it stressed the duty of the faithful to obey and support the ruler, be he just or oppressive, and to act in solidarity with the Muslim community’.173 The quietism of Balkh’s shaykhs perseveres even in the face of an infidel overlord. In 560/1165 Balkh fell victim to pillaging by the Qarakhitāy invaders from the Far East.174 How did the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh interact with these nomadic, non-Muslim rulers? Here FB remains true to the maxim set by Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān: avoid political partisanship. The teacher of the Arabic compiler and FB’s seventieth shaykh the Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad al-Balkhī (d. 584/1188– 89) ‘was close to kings and sultans even if they were idolaters (kāfir)’.175 It did not matter whether the rulers were Muslims or not, as long the ʿulamāʾ were treated with respect, and their authority remained unchallenged. When the Qarakhitāy rulers or their Qarakhānid vassals in Tirmidh summoned the Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad al-Balkhī (no. 70, d. 584/1188–9) together with the other authorities from Balkh—the imāms, sayyids (sādāt), amīrs, shaykhs, qāḍīs, and administrators (ahl-i dīwān)—our hero returned unharmed.176 In contrast, FB gives an unflattering account of someone who acted as an agent of the Qarakhānid vassals of the Qarakhitāy Gürkhān: a certain Sharaf al-Zamān and presumably a Muslim.177 We are told (p.153) that this Sharaf al-Zamān was installed by Naṣr Khān, a Qarakhānid prince of Kāsān in Ferghana who ruled over Balkh in 575/1179–80.178 The Sharaf al-Zamān arranged the dislocation of the third gate of Naw Bahār that year to Qunduz. The removal of Naw Bahār Gate is a metaphor with a particularly negative connotation amounting to disloyalty and lack of respect towards the city and its inhabitants. It is no wonder that the Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad al-Balkhī (no. 70, d. 584/1188–9) was on bad terms with the Sharaf al-Zamān.179 Encouraging middle-of-the-road Islam

A second theme is FB’s rejection of sectarianism. In one anecdote, a certain Mūsā b. ʿImrān was the governor (wālī) of Balkh and built a township (qarya) called ‘Ṭayyiba’. His ʿAlid extremism—he ordered the people to pronounce fifty times a day that ʿAlī (not Muḥammad) was the messenger of God—led the people to rise against him. This Mūsā died of a fever in 202/817–18.180 The period in which this incident allegedly took place coincides with a set of ghulāt movements and ʿAlid uprisings in the Ḥijāz and Iraq which al-Maʾmūn appeased by appointing as his successor ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 204/818).181 The latter is said to have been killed in Ṭūs, and considered by the ʿAlids as a martyr (hence, the modern toponym ‘Mashhad’). The site of the alleged tomb of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/660) was found in a qarya of Balkh called al-Khayr (meaning ‘good’), which is synonymous with ṭayyiba. FB makes no specific reference to the existence of the shrine to ʿAlī. The modern (p.154) city found in Afghanistan that grew around it is called ‘Mazār-i sharīf’, or the noble shrine. It is, however, Page 24 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape possible that the account of this Mūsā b. ʿImrān is a garbled reflection of the tradition related by FB’s contemporary from Granada Abū Ḥāmid al-Gharnaṭī (d. 565/1170) that the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law was buried at al-Khayr near Balkh.182 The important point that FB wants its readers to take home from these accounts is that the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh were not part of these ghulāt movements, exercising the anti-sectarianism that characterized the ḥadīth party from the end of the ninth century onwards. In this regard Patricia Crone states: ‘By the end of the ninth century practically all Muslims who were not outright Shīʿites or Khārijites seem to have accepted the new, broad genealogy of the ummaʾ’.183 It is perhaps not surprising then that the famous Balkhī of the Saljūq period, the traveller, poet and Ismāʿīlī philosopher Nāṣir Khusraw, is conspicuously absent from FB. Nāṣir Khusraw was from Qubādiyān on the right bank of the Oxus, and actively promoted Fāṭimid ideologies in Balkh in 443/1051. Nāṣir Khusraw faced obvious opposition from the ‘predominantly Sunnī milieu’ of Saljūq Balkh, and was forced to seek refuge in the valley of Yumgān in Badakhshān (where his shrine continues to be a pilgrimage site).184 And so FB remains silent on the Ismāʿīlī dāʿī. There is certain deliberateness in FB’s depiction of the ʿulamāʾ as members of a unified, middle-of-the-road group. It was rebellion of any kind that they deplored.185 Thus, it was possible to be an ʿAlid but not a sectarian. I think we can review Shariati’s thesis that the mention of a reputed ʿalawī (no. 35) indicates that ‘sectarian hostilities had rescinded in Balkh at the eve of the Mongol conquest’. Shariati assumed that ʿAlidism equated to sectarianism, i.e. Shīʿism, when we (p.155) know today that ʿAlids were during the time of FB above all a ‘blood aristocracy without peer’. The ʿulamāʾ were a special category in Islamic society whose individual members could belong to any other social category as well.186 Be that as it may, al-Wāʿiẓ would not have allowed them into the select group of seventy if the ʿAlids had espoused sectarian goals. Integrating into the umma

The third theme that one finds in FB is that of Balkh’s early integration into the Islamic community. It is in fact a common theme in Arabic ṭabaqāt literary works composed in the non-Arab lands. These were at pains to demonstrate their loyalty to the Islamic cause, and FB’s account of Balkh’s role in the early Muslim conquests clearly reflects that tradition.187 The accounts are extensive when it comes to the final conquest of Balkh under the General Qutayba b. Muslim (d. 96/714–15), who probably took over the command of the Umayyad garrison in 87/705–6. FB’s account refers to a period that began two years later when Qutayba’s garrison was stationed in the outlying town (qaṣaba) of Bulūriyān. His army built bridges over the moat, and captured the rebel prince Nīzak who converted to Islam. However, Nīzak apostatized, twice, before fleeing eastwards. Page 25 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape Eventually, Qutayba captured Nīzak, together with 6,000 of his followers and all his relatives, and had them brutally killed, thus securing Balkh’s conquest once and for all. FB cites unnamed ‘historians’ (ahl-i tārīkh) when giving the account of the early Muslim conquest of Balkh, relegating the resistance of Nīzak to an unfortunate disturbance. Al-Wāʿiẓ is not concerned with the factual details, but conveys an ideological message, which is one of early and profound integration into the Islamic community (umma). The account does show that the conquest and conversion had to be consolidated over a hundred-year period, but again, the emphasis is on the steadfastness of the Muslim ‘liberators’. The biographies in FB sustain this theme. Balkh’s successors to the Companions of the Prophet in this period were involved in (p.156) the Muslim conquest and early Muslim rule of Balkh, first under the armies of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (32–41/653–61) and then the Umayyads (41–132/661–750). The names of the two successors to the Companions of the Prophet, Muqātil b. Ḥayyān (no. 5, d. 135/752–3) and Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8, d. 158/774–5), may indicate that they came from the muqātila (plural for muqātil, or warrior) class. They both had connections to Baṣra in Iraq.188 Either way, the early ʿulamāʾ of Balkh served as a means of integrating the conquerors with native élites. Checking unjust temporal rulers

The role of the ʿulamāʾ as fearless buffers between the common person and abusive temporal rulers is played out in FB in numerous accounts. The theme runs throughout FB, citing traditions that reinforce it. The qāḍī Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān (no. 7, d. 142/759–60), described earlier as the quietist scholar, gave up his passivity when a ruler acted unjustly. In one instance, Mutawakkil could not bear the preposterous acts committed by one caliph and his amīr against the people, and lodged an official complaint. The judge was consequently imprisoned and beheaded at the orders of the wālī Abū Dāwūd in 142/759–60.189 Even in the early days the ʿulamāʾ at the garrison town of Barūqān challenged the political rulers. In one anecdote, al-Wāʿiẓ describes that the first tābiʿ of FB, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim (d. ca. 100/718–19; no. 2), responded coolly to the advances made by the commander (amīr) of Khurāsān, Yaḥya b. Salm (Salama?). The commander wanted to offer the religious scholar gifts from the people of Bukhara. Some well-meaning people suggested to him that Ḍaḥḥāk accept the offer, if only to distribute the assets to the poor, but the tābiʿ flatly rejected the commander’s offer, vowing never to engage in a friendship with an ‘oppressor’ (ẓālim).190 (p.157) In another anecdote the legal scholar and ascetic Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10, d. 163/779–80) was asked to mediate in complaints (shikāya) brought forward by a certain Abū Saʿīd Ṣaghānī against the Chaghāniyān tax collector Page 26 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (ʿāmil). This Abū Saʿīd was exacting improper taxes from the people of Chaghāniyān on the other side of the Oxus (presumably when it was administered by Balkh).191 Here again, it was up to the saintly religious scholar to challenge the corrupt public official. One of the worst offenders on the side of the temporal rulers was ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān who was deployed by the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809) to run the affairs of Khurāsān as ʿAbbāsid governor in 180/796.192 This amīr stands out in the sources (not just in FB) as the ‘classic example of tyrannical, corrupt, and incompetent administrators’.193 FB cites numerous incidents of ʿAlī’s treachery, which was not left unchallenged by Balkh’s saints. For example, a man falsely accused by ʿAlī of stealing his dog was saved by the ascetic Shaqīq al-Balkhī (no. 12, d. 174/790–1).194 ʿAlī also complained to Hārūn al-Rashīd about the illustrious scholars Ḥārith b. Sulaymān (no. 13, d. 199/814) and Salm b. Sālim (no. 16, d. 174/790–1), perhaps because of their refusal to cooperate with the unpopular leader. As a consequence of ʿAlī’s machinations the good Ḥārith was flogged in the jāmiʿ mosque and expelled to Ferghana, while Salm was charged with disregarding caliphal authority and ended up in a Baghdad prison for ten years.195 ʿAlī was also involved in an incident in which he tried to force Balkh’s notable qāḍī Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14, d. 204/819–20) to follow the order (mithāl) from Baghdad (i.e. the ʿAbbāsid court) to pronounce the (p.158) name of Yaḥyā (b. Khālid) alBarmakī (d. 190/805) during the Friday prayer. Naturally, the shaykh refused.196 The usual corruption and injustice endemic among the governors even extended to the caliphs. In one instance FB implicates the caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170– 93/786–809), who issued a diploma (tawqīʿ) claiming the arable land (ḍayʿāt) around the Naw Bahār Gate (istiḥqāq). The owner of the land sought the counsel of the qāḍī Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14, d. 204/819–20), whereupon the righteous judge drafted a letter to the caliph citing the ‘book of God (i.e. Qurʾān), the sunna and the Prophet’, and threatening to resign if the caliph went ahead with the expropriation. The caliph annulled the diploma, and Abū Muṭīʿ continued in his qāḍī post.197 Here again, FB paints the scholars as the voice of reason and saintly virtue in the battle against double-dealing rulers. This very baseness of temporal rulers made scholars resistant to accepting the qāḍī posts. In FB the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 196–218/812–33) features as the rebuffed appointer of qāḍīs. Taking a keen interest in the qāḍī candidatures during his eight-year caliphal residence in Merv, he appears to have made the lives of Balkh’s qāḍīs difficult. FB registers a string of scholars giving al-Maʾmūn the cold shoulder when asked to assume the scorned post of qāḍī after the death of Balkh’s qāḍī ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 18, d. 197/812– 13). He had been summoned to Merv and appointed as qāḍī shortly before his death. The caliph tried to replace him with the notable Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/ Page 27 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape Ḥukaym (no. 22, d. 214/829–30). He, however, resisted the appointment, but the governor ‘shut him up’ (khafa kard),198 and Shaddād eventually accepted the appointment, clearly under duress. Shaddād abandoned his qāḍī post only six months later, escaping to faraway Baghdad. The saga continued when (p.159) Shaddād’s successor Khalaf b. Ayyūb (no. 21, d. 205/820–1) also declined the offer to become the next qāḍī of Balkh, whereupon he was imprisoned. Khalaf was replaced by the shaykh Layth b. Musāwir (no. 26, d. 224/838–9 or 226/840– 1), who in turn resigned after receiving the letter by al-Maʾmūn announcing the miḥna.199 This, as we have seen, served the death blow to Balkh’s qāḍī-ship for the next two centuries. We need not take the account of resistance amongst the ʿulamāʾ to qāḍī-ship too literally, however. Withstanding qāḍī-ship was in fact a ubiquitous topos in the early Islamic period, as has been shown convincingly by Adam Mez. He found that, by providing a narrative of resistance, scholars could set themselves apart from temporal rulers whom they considered as the epitomes of corruption, greed and malice. Mez also found that the scholars’ need to prove their incorruptibility lessened with the growing professionalization of the ʿulamāʾ.200 In FB, too, the resistance topos disappears after the two-century break in Balkh’s qāḍī-ship: at this point Balkh’s ʿulamāʾ are presumably more professionalized and independent from political rule. But not all temporal rulers are abominable. FB is unequivocal in its preferences for certain rulers over others. Balkh was led by some political dynasties that were good, and others that were bad. The unjust rulers in FB were the Ṭāhirid (r. 205–59/821–73) and Ṣaffārid (r. 253–99/867–912) dynasts for having usurped the power in Balkh, and for being expedient and negligent.201 Balkh’s shaykhs reined them in, and defended the rights and dignity of the common people. The case of the Ṭāhirid Ṭalḥa’s billeting his troops in people’s homes in Balkh was discussed earlier. Balkh’s shaykhs ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf (no. 23, (p.160) d. 215/830) and Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19, d. 237/857–8) resolved the uncomfortable situation for the city residents, first by trying to mediate (which did not succeed) and then through prayer which led to Ṭalḥa’s awaited death.202 The Ṣaffārids get an even less complimentary account. Al-Wāʿiẓ likens them to the twenty-six bad rulers he had witnessed in his lifetime over forty years (570– 610/1174/5–1214), when Balkh was intermittently subjected to the rule of the Qarakhānids, Ghūrids and Khwārazmshāhs.203 The good rulers of Balkh were the Banījūrids and Sāmānids, perhaps because they stemmed from the Khurāsān and Mā warāʾ al-nahr region to which Balkh belonged. The Banījūrids began their rule out of Balkh (as the vassals of the Ṭāhirids) under ʿAbbās b. Hāshim in 219/834. ʿAbbās’ son and successor, Dāwūd (r. 233– 59/847–73) became preoccupied for the next twenty years with building the palace of ‘Naw-shād’ (‘New Joy’), during which time the governorship was Page 28 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape relegated to his wife (khātūn). FB gives a rare example of just, generous and dignified rule by the khātūn. She embarrassed the caliph who was exacting exorbitant amounts of land tax (kharāj) from the people of Balkh. The anecdote refers to the caliphal policy of farming out state revenues with local governors as tax-collectors to make up for the loss of provincial revenues and pay for their inflated bureaucracy: an exploitative practice the khātūn was clearly not willing to support.204 Through the caliphal tax collector (ʿāmil-i dār al-khilāfa), the khātūn at Balkh sent her personal garment studded with jewels and gold wefts as a gift. After the caliph rejected it and returned the gift to the khātūn, she used the precious garment to build a water channel and jāmiʿ mosque (after which parts of the garment were still left over).205 (p.161) Her husband Dāwūd is described in a positive light as well, despite his obsession with Naw-shād palace, perhaps because he continued to perform his ceremonial duties and remained in the public eye. For example, Dāwūd recited the prayer at the funeral of the shaykh Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf (d. 239/853–4; no. 28) and the shaykh Muḥammad al-ʿArabī (d. 244/858–9; no. 33). He also attended to the Friday Mosque by commissioning a portal for it in 245/859.206 That he was still enjoying the good graces of al-Wāʿiẓ can be gleaned from the fact that Dāwūd’s shrine is the only shrine not belonging to a religious scholar that alWāʿiẓ mentions to be a place of worship and pilgrimage.207 Regarding the Sāmānids, who had relieved Balkh of the Ṣaffārid yoke, FB singles them out as the greatest princely family from Balkh. It is somewhat surprising that FB barely mentions the Sāmānids; we read far more of the Ṣaffārids, which may be because the accounts in FB tend to moralise on the effects of bad rule.208 Perhaps FB does not say more about the Sāmānids because they were so good. By that same token, the Qarakhānids feature prominently in later accounts as exhibiting corrupt behaviour.209 Acting as advisors to sultans and recipients of royal patronage

The relation between the ʿulamāʾ and political rulers was not just one of competition. Occasionally the two met halfway. For example, an (p.162) ʿālim could provide advice to a sultan. It is in this role that we find the sultan Maḥmūd of Ghazna (d. 421/1030) mentioned in FB. He had recovered Khurāsān from the Qarakhānids in 398/1008. The Shaykh al-Islām Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Naṣīrī/Nuṣayrī (no. 53, d. 411/1020), who was the first in Balkh to hold the title (ism) of shaykh al-Islām, was asked to issue an opinion ( fatwā) on a matter brought to him by Sultan Maḥmūd’s servant. Providing advice would not extend to privileged treatment. When Sultan Maḥmūd’s servant tried to pressure the shaykh al-Islām into moving the sultan’s case file ‘from the bottom of the pile to the top’, the scholar refused. The sultan ordered his servant to expropriate all the scholar’s belongings, but when the servant could not find any ‘carpets, crockery or other items of value’ in the Page 29 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape modest scholar’s home, the servant had no choice but to await his master’s turn.210 Another form of acceptable interaction was patronage. Royal patronage of ʿulamāʾ’s works is mentioned only once, in the case of the shaykh Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Ṣāliḥ (no. 54, d. 413/1022–3) who dedicated one of his written works to Sultan Maḥmūd.211 Maybe al-Wāʿiẓ preferred not to emphasize this dynamic of the ʿulamāʾ–sultan relationship in which the ʿulamāʾ were effectively in a weaker position. By contrast, we have many accounts of the high honours that sultans and other political rulers bestowed upon the shaykhs at their funerals. For example, the Sāmānid governor Nūḥ b. Asad (d. 227/841–2) recited the dirge for Khalaf b. Ayyūb (no. 21, d. 205/820–1).212 The account indicates the high prestige accruing to the ʿulamāʾ in FB. The Saljūqs are also described as giving high honours to the deceased shaykhs. In 466/1073–4, Shahāb al-Dīn Tekish, the uncle of the Saljūq ‘sulṭān-i ʿajam’ Sanjar b. Malikshāh (r. 511–52/ 1118–57) and brother of the Sultan Malikshāh (d. 485/1092), was appointed as sultan of Balkh and Ṭukhāristān and installed himself in the area. (p.163) Tekish gave high honours to the shaykh and chief qāḍī (qāḍī al-quḍāt) al-Ḥasan al-Wakhshī (no. 56, d. 471/1078–9), and carried the shaykh’s coffin at his funeral procession up to the head of the grave.213 In these cases the Ghaznawid and Saljūq rulers served as examples of the required protocol of modesty and respect to be displayed by the secular ruler towards an ʿālim. Here we have yet another way by which distance and separation can be generated between the ʿulamāʾ and secular rulers. Resistance to institutionalization

By the eleventh century, Islamic scholarship in Balkh had become institutionalized. FB describes how the Chief Judge Khalīl b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl (no. 58, d. 481/1088–9) sent a letter to the Ghaznawid king (shāh-i Ghaznīn) asking for permission to build a madrasa (religious college) which became known as the ‘Khalīliyya Madrasa’.214 It is perhaps surprising that FB does not refer to the foundation of the Niẓāmiyya by the Saljūq vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092) in Balkh. This event, dated to the year 471/1078–9, is widely recorded in other histories. The scholar after whom the Niẓāmiyya was named, al-Ḥasan al-Wakhshī (no. 56, d. 471/1078–9), is even one of FB’s seventy shaykhs.215 The reason for the omission is perhaps that FB did not approve of the centralization of the ʿulamāʾ through a political leader. The stance would be reflected in themes discussed earlier emphasizing the requirement for an ʿālim to stand firm on his independence and incorruptibility vis-à-vis temporal power-holders. Ignoring the Niẓāmiyya may also indicate that FB was simply not interested enough in this

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape madrasa, which was Shāfiʿī after all (whereas FB may display more of a Ḥanafī influence). (p.164) Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), FB also does not mention the religious educational institutions that had made Bactra/Balkh famous in the fourth to seventh centuries, before the Muslim conquests. That there was a transmission of knowledge between the Buddhists and the Muslims after the Islamic conquest of Balkh that led to the development of Islamic educational institutions is possible, but the evidence for such a direct link is still lacking. We do know that Balkh became a major centre of madrasa learning, right up to the Shaybānid period. Some remains of the Madrasa of Subḥān Qulī Khān (r. 1092/1114/1681–1702) still stand in the old site of Balkh. In conclusion to this chapter, we have seen that what the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh had in common was that they were well-versed in the Islamic traditions and had resided in Balkh for a considerable period of time. Beside these rather obvious similarities, the community of Balkh’s pre-modern ʿulamāʾ was multifarious, with people coming from a variety of socio-economic and family backgrounds. Some were rich, others poor. Some were born locally, others had come from further afield, including places like Mecca, Isfahan and Bukhara. Some had stronger connections to the Ḥanafī madhhab than others, and some prided themselves in their genealogical link to the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661). Some had links to Islamic educational institutions, while others worked exclusively as lawyers, preachers and judges. A few intermarried, while others married outside the ʿulamāʾ community. Some were greater renouncers than others. And yet another set consisted of warriors of Islam, who were refashioned by the later hagiographical tradition as Sufis. Thus, while Bulliet was able to categorize rather neatly Nishapur’s pre-modern ʿulamāʾ by madhhab, and considered them to be part of a noble social stratum, or ‘patriciate’, the evidence from Balkh is that the ʿulamāʾ were far more socially diverse and individualistic. The character of the ʿulamāʾ’s sanctity was most pronounced in their role as protectors against the random vicissitudes of the political establishment of Balkh. What we find in FB represents a layered and complex set of dynamics in the relationship between ʿulamāʾ and political rule. An ʿālim was above all an Islamic figure, but he also played a socio-political role. This point needs to be emphasized, because too often the influence of the ʿulamāʾ—in pre-modern and modern society—is explained away in terms of ‘secular’-‘religious’ dualism, identity with a given school or sect, or perhaps based on an assumption of an élite status. However, these modern terms and (p.165) concepts do not correspond with the terms used in FB. The anecdotes presented in this chapter indicate that the ʿulamāʾ of Balkh were integrated within a narrative framework that brought them in close alignment with the city’s history and its landscape. Their biographies defined the history of the city, and provided a model for the ideal society—one in which the ʿulamāʾ preserved the good conscience of Balkhī Page 31 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape society. The political leaders were a necessary evil, and the people followed the path carved out by the ʿulamāʾ towards their salvation and that of the city. The fate of the people was inextricably linked to that of the ʿulamāʾ and the city. What emerges is foremost a symbiosis and set of bonds and commitments between the residents of Balkh and their sacred shrines. Notes:

(1) Stephen Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite. ʿUlamāʾ in society’, in Islamic History— A Framework for Inquiry (London: I.B.Tauris, 1991), 199. (2) ‘Ulamology’ is a vast field covering the sources (notably the biographical dictionary), corporate identity of madhhab, institutions, and to a lesser degree, the social role of the ʿulamāʾ. Some key sources that have served as inspiration and a basis for this chapter are: Hayyim J. Cohen, ‘The Economic Background and the Secular Occupations of Muslim Jurisprudents and Traditionists in the Classical Period of Islam (Until the Middle of the Eleventh Century)’, JESHO 13 (1970), 16–61; Joan Gilbert, ‘Institutionalization of Muslim Scholarship and Professionalization of the ʿulamāʾ in Medieval Damascus’, Studia Islamica 52 (1980), 105–34; George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981); and Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). More sources and modern scholars on the particular components of ‘ulamology’ will be mentioned in the relevant sections of this chapter. (3) Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 187. (4) Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 187–8. (5) Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 195. (6) Some recent studies focus on exactly this question. See, for example, Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Ḥanbalism: Piety into Power, Culture and Civilisation in the Middle East (London: Routledge, 2002); and by the same author, ‘From Scholarly Circles to Mass Movements: the Formation of Legal Communities in Islamic Societies’, The American Historical Review 108/4 (2003), 985–1008. Also significant in this regard is Bulliet’s Patricians of Nishapur mentioned earlier. (7) Henri Laoust, ‘Le Hanbalism sous le Califat de Bagdad, 241/855–-656/1258’, REI 27 (1959), 67–128. George Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqīl et la résurgence de l’Islam traditionaliste au xie siècle, Damascus, 1963. Makdisi’s students—Devin Stewart, Joseph Lowry, and Christopher Melchert—have contributed a lot on the history of the madhhab. See, for example, George Makdisi et al., Law and Education in Medieval Islam: Studies in Memory of Professor George Makdisi (Cambridge: E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust, 2004).

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (8) Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980); Makdisi, Rise of Colleges. (9) Heinz Halm, Die Ausbreitung der šāfiʿitischen Rechtsschule von den Anfängen bis zum 8./14. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden, 1974; all cited in Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 196–7. (10) Gustav Flügel, ‘Die Classen der hanefitischen Rechtsgelehrten’, in Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1861), 269–358. The manuscripts that I could identify from Flügel’s catalogue for the Austrian Imperial Library (Die arabischen, persischen und türkischen Handschriften der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hofbibliothek zu Wien, 2 vols, Vienna, S. Hirzel, 1865) are: Ibn al-Nadīm (d. ca. 385/995), Fihrist, entry no. 33, I, 47–8 [now published, also edited by Flügel]; Ṭāshköprüzāda, Nawādir al-akhbār fī manāqib al-akhyār (c. 938/1532), entry no. 1181, II, 347–8 [now published, Ḥabībī used the Hyderabad edition]; Ibn Quṭlūbughā (d. 879/1474), Tāj al-tarājim fī ṭabaqāt al-ḥanafiyya, entry no. 1174, II, 339–40 [first published by Flügel]. Flügel seems to have relied on Mirza Kazem Beg’s article [‘La marche et les progrès de la jurisprudence parmi les sectes orthodoxes musulmanes’, JA 15 (1850), 158–214] in which he drew on a personal copy of Ibn Kamālpāshā’s (d. 940/1534) Ṭabaqāt al-ḥanafiyya [now published]. (11) Mirza Kazem Beg, ‘La marche’, 158–214. He does not specify his sources, but FB could not have been one of them since it only entered the St Petersburg collection of Oriental manuscripts after he wrote. (12) Berndt Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien’, ZDMG 136 (1986). (13) Muḥammad Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh min al-ḥanafiyya wa-mā infaradū bihi min al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya (Baghdad: Wizārat al-Awqāf, 1978). (14) Wilferd Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa in Khurāsān and Transoxania and the Spread of Hanafism’, Der Islam 59 (1982), 32–9. (15) Eyyüp Said Kaya, ‘Continuity and Change in Islamic Law: the Concept of madhhab and the Dimensions of Legal Disagreement in Ḥanafī Scholarship of the Tenth Century’, in Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters, and Frank Vogel (eds), The Islamic School of Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 31–4. (16) Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 28–46. (17) Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 198.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (18) Ira Lapidus, ‘Muslim Cities and Islamic Societies’, in Ira Lapidus (ed.), Middle Eastern Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 47–79. (19) Humphreys, ‘A Cultural Elite’, 203–5. Jean-Claude Garcin, Un centre Musulman de la Haute-Egypte médiévale, Qūṣ (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1976). (20) While Kaya (‘Continuity and Change’, 27) found that ‘shaykh’ was a title given only to the mujtahids amongst the ʿulamāʾ, FB uses shaykh and ʿālim ubiquitously. (21) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 56: haftād nafar az ʿulamāʾ wa fuḍalāʾ wa mashāyikh wa kubarāʾ-i īn shahr. There is no consistency in the use of the terms fāḍil, shaykh and kabīr, and they are used interchangeably. (22) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 41. (23) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 41. On these tafsīr works, see FB, ed. AḤḤ, 312, 324. The date of Abū al-Layth’s death is variously given as between 373/983–4 and 393/1002– 3; FB gives 376/987–8, which is the date I shall apply. Abū al-Layth’s tafsīr was printed in Cairo in 1310/1892–3; and more recently as Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm ‘Baḥr al-ʿulūm’, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Aḥmad al-Zaqqa (Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat alIrshād, 1985). This was translated into Ottoman Turkish by Ibn ʿArabshāh (d. 854/1450–1) and Ibn ʿArabshāh’s work was expanded by Abū al-Faḍl Mūsā alIznīqī, a contemporary, under the title Anfas al-jawāhir. J. Schacht, ‘Abu ʾl-Layth al-Samark․andī’, EI2, I (1960), 137. (24) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 324. (25) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 363, 245. (26) Jürgen Paul, Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in Vormongolischer Zeit (Beirut [Stuttgart]: Franz Steiner, 1996), 23. (27) Paul, Herrscher, 244–5; Henry Amedroz, ‘The Office of Kadi in the Ahkam Sultaniyya of Mawardi’, JRAS (1910), 761–96; Heribert Horst, Die Staatsverwaltung der Grosselğuqen und Ḫōrazmšāhs (1038–1231). Eine Untersuchung nach Urkundenformularen der Zeit (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1964). Although once the caliph al-Maʾmūn appointed the qāḍī al-Aʿmash. The latter did not enjoy the respect of the local residents of Balkh. (28) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42, 354. Another group of qāḍīs identified as the ‘three qāḍīs’ (quḍāt thalātha) refers to these three qāḍīs in FB: Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 57), Khalīl b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl al-Sijzī (no. 58), and Shams al-Aʾimma Muḥammad b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī (no. 59). FB, ed. AḤḤ, 346. (29) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 209–10. Page 34 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (30) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 209–10. (31) Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, III, 1112 ff; The History of al-Ṭabarī, tr. Bosworth, 199 ff. See M. Hinds, ‘Miḥna’, EI2, VII (1993), 5 (which alleges Ḥanafī inspiration). On the maẓālim, see Henry Amedroz, ‘The mazalim Jurisdiction in the Ahkam Sultaniyya of Mawardi’, JRAS (1911), 635–74; and for a comparison on the rivalry between the qāḍī and maẓālim courts under the Mamlūks, see Jørgen Nielsen, Secular Justice in an Islamic State: Maẓālim under the Baḥrī Mamlūks, 662/1264–789/ 1387 (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1985). Also Mathieu Tillier, ‘Qāḍīs and the political use of the maẓālim jurisdiction under the ʿAbbāsids’, in Christian Lange and Ma. Isabel Fierro (eds), Public Violence in Islamic Societies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 42–66. (32) Adam Mez, The Renaissance of Islam (Patna: Jubilee Printing and Publishing House, 1937 [1922]), 232. Mez states: ‘Indeed an entire opposition to the juristic theory appeal lay to the maẓālim from the decision of the qāḍī; especially to the highest court, that of the sovereign’. Other possible institutions with which the qāḍīs may have collided or overlapped, like the shurṭa (policing) and bayt al-māl, are not specifically mentioned in FB. (33) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 210. The account does not correspond with what Halm found in Ibn Abī al-Wafāʾ’s Jawāhir with at least two qāḍīs at work in Balkh during the Sāmānid period (300–82/912–92). (34) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208–10. (35) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208–9, 85–9, 124–9, 146–54, 162–5, 185–95, 208–10, 323–35, 343–5. Halm, Ausbreitung, 74. Also Deborah Tor, ‘The Islamization of Central Asia in the Sāmānid Era and the Reshaping of the Muslim World’, BSOAS 72/2 (2009), 272–99. Halm only enumerated three qāḍīs, thus the list in Appendix B signifies a major extension to his list. While one of the qāḍīs in Halm’s list is profiled in FB, two others are missing (Abū al-Qāsim Makkī b. Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Bukhārī [d. 353/964] and Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bukhārī al-Kalābādhī [d. 369/979–80]). Their omission from FB may simply be a result of the careful selection of who to profile as one of Balkh’s seventy ʿulamāʾ: they just did not make the cut. (36) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208. (37) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 325–6. (38) Émile Tyan, ‘K․āḍī’, EI2, IV (1978), 373–4. (39) Ann Lambton, ‘The Internal Structure of the Saljūq Empire’, in CHI, V: 203– 82, esp. 269–71; citing Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092), Siyāsat-nāma, Traité de gouv-ernement, tr. Charles Schefer (Paris: Sinbad, 1893). See also newer Page 35 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape translation by Hubert Darke, The Book of Government, or, Rules for Kings: Siyāsatnāma or Siyar al-mulūk (London: Routledge and Paul, 1960). (40) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 177, 257, 259. (41) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 177, 258, 259, 273, 288, 291, and 311. The first shaykh to be called a faqīh in FB is Yaʿqūb al-Qārī (no. 10, d. 163/779–80), but he is more prominent as a mystic in the Sufi hagiographical tradition. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 118–24. (42) They were the ones to whom the people of Balkh turned for help when the [unjust] Ṭāhirid ruler Ṭalḥa b. Ṭāhir (r. 207–13/822–8) billeted his army in their quarters, forcing them to evacuate their own homes. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 38–9. Jürgen Paul also found that some ḥakīms had public roles, such as tax collection and water management. Paul, Herrscher, 91–2. (43) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 207. (44) Muntaẓam, entry no. 1253, XI, 58–9. Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/12001201) knew of Khalaf b. Ayyūb as ‘ḥakīm of Nishapur’. (45) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 180. (46) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 184. On Nūḥ b. Asad, see C. E. Bosworth, ‘Sāmānids’, EI2, VIII (1995), 1026. From Narshakhī we also know that Khalaf’s son Saʿīd became a qāḍī of Bukhara; Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1351/1972–3), 6; The History of Bukhara, tr. Richard Frye (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954), 5, n. 9. (47) Radtke’s contention that the ḥakīms emerge as ‘representatives of neoplatonic gnostic influenced mysticism’ in Balkh is not evident from the politicohistorical evidence in FB. Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 552. (48) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 354, 370. Two other shaykhs of FB are entitled imām and imām-i buzurg respectively: Ḥārith b. Sulaymān (no. 13, d. 199/814?) and the well-known muḥaddith Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl (b. Ṭalḥa) b. al-Azhar al-Balkhī (no. 42, d. 316/928–9). FB, ed. AḤḤ, 142, 279. It is not clear whether the title here denotes that they were actual preachers or whether ‘imām’ is an honorific title. See Imtiyaz Yusuf, ‘Imām’, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. (49) J. H. Kramers-[R. W. Bulliet], ‘Shaykh al-Islām’, EI2, IX (1997), 399–400. Also Richard C. Repp, ‘The Origins and Development of the Office of Shaikh al-Islâm in the Ottoman Empire’, unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford, 1966. (50) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 319. (51) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 27 (n. 8), 42. Ḥabībī, citing the Khulāṣa, identifies him as Abū Sahl Kathīr b. Ziyād al-Azdī al-ʿAtakī al-Baṣrī, a muḥaddith in Balkh. Schefer Page 36 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape [‘Fezhaili’, 81 (notes)] identifies him as a Companion of the Prophet who participated in the Battle of Qādisiyya. (52) Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), II, 13–62. See also, for example, Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. ca. 617/1221), tr. A. J. Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat AlAuliya’ (‘Memorial of the Saints’) (London: Arkana, 1990), 133–7, 150–2. (53) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 130. Terms used interchangeably though less frequently than ‘zāhid’ to denote ascetics (and possibly, ‘mystics’) are ‘wearer of blue garments’ (azraqpūsh), cloth-wearer (‘musbajī’) and devotee (ʿābid, lit. ‘servant [of God]’). FB, ed. AḤḤ, 130, 250, 252. (54) Much hagiographical material exists on Shaqīq al-Balkhī. See references in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 129, n. 2. (55) Ahmet Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994). (56) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 94. Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9, d. 161/777–8), who later became known as a famous mystic, is quoted as advocating silence (sukūt, khāmūshī) over speech (sukhan). If, the account continues, there is a risk of danger in speaking it is better to stay quiet. Or, if by saying nothing the result is positive, and saying something would only bring sadness, it is best to remain silent. Only if the immediate and future consequences of speaking are positive and beneficial should speech be employed. (57) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 93. Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8) is quoted as saying: ‘har-ki māh-i ramaḍān rā rawza dārad wa shash rūz-i dīgar az shawwāl bā ān ḍamm kunad, chunān bāshad ki gūyī hama-yi ayyām rā rawza dāshta ast’. (58) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 90–1. Muqātil b. Sulaymān (no. 8, d. 158/774–5) was in a caravan that needed to continue to travel by night to avoid roaming lions. He prayed all night long until morning time. One traveller commented to him: ‘Hama-yi rūz rāh raftī wa hama-yi shab namāz guzārdī wa nafs rā ranja dāshtī!’ ‘Sāʿatī bi-khusp, wa pahlū bar zamīn bi-nih, wa bi khwāb raw’. The pious man answered: ‘Hargiz ʿāqil rā dīdī ki bi waqt-i saḥar khwāb kunad?’ (59) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 84–5: ‘Dūstdāshta-tar bi ḥaḍrat-i risālat chahār kār ast. Du az ān bar nafs ast wa du az ān bar māl ast. Wa ammā ān daw ki bar nafs ast namāz wa rūza. Wa ān du ki bar māl ast: yakī jihād ast wa yakī ṣadaqa’. (60) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 78: ‘mushtī khurmā bi mustaḥaqī rasānī, wa lab-i nānī bi muḥtājī dihī’. (61) See previous examples in this chapter.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (62) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 127 on ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 11): ‘hīch kalama rā az mardumān pūshīda nadāsht, na az jihat-i raghbat-i khalq wa na az jihat-i rahbat-i sulṭān’. (63) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 168, citing ḥakīm Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19): ‘shahwat dar si chīz ast: dar kalām wa akl wa naẓar … wa chashm rā az nāshāyist nigāh dārī, wa bi ānchi nigāhkardanī ast az barā-yi ʿibrat nigāh kunī’. (64) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 95, describing the miracle workings of Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9, d. 161/777–8) over a mountain. (65) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 174. (66) Julian Baldick suggests the term ‘Sufi’ stems from the Greek sophos, or ‘wise’, and entered Arabic through the translations of Greek philosophical thought ( falsafa) in the eighth century. He suggests that the negative connotations came after the caliph al-Mutawakkil assumed power in 232/847, and ended the pro-Muʿtazilī policy of ʿAbbāsid government since al-Maʾmūn initiated the miḥna, and that this brought about ‘a dramatic fall in Greek philosophy’. Henceforth the term was seen as un-Islamic and Greek. Julian Baldick, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (London: I.B.Tauris, 1989), 30–2. (67) Narshakhī, Tārīkh-i Bukhārā; and tr. Frye. I thank Christopher Melchert for elucidating the role of Sufis in ninth-century Baghdad to me in an email exchange in 2009. (68) Jacqueline Chabbi, ‘Remarques sur le développement historique des mouvements ascétiques au Khurāsān’, Studia Islamica 46 (1977), 6–7, 9–16, 71. Institutionalized Sufism only grew from the thirteenth century onwards. On religious warfare, see Deborah Tor, Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ‘Ayyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World (Würzburg: Ergon in Kommission, 2007). (69) Chabbi, ‘Remarques’, 71. (70) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 215. On the link between the ribāṭ as a place for ghāzīs and a Sufi refuge after the tenth century, see Chabbi, ‘Remarques’, 35, n. 1. (71) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 32, 72. According to FB, ‘Bridges ʿAṭāʾ’ (‘Qanāṭir ʿAṭāʾ’) was born ‘in an Arab wādī’ and died in Balkh of the plague. He participated in the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 37/657 (where his hand was severed) while he also served the last Umayyad governor Naṣr b. Sayyār (d. 131/748). This would mean he lived up to about the age of 115. Perhaps the accounts on this ʿAṭāʾ (from the west) are confused with those of ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī (no. 6). It should be added that his connection to Balkh is not explicitly made in FB, nor is it attested with any certainty in the parallel sources consulted by Ḥabībī. See al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ alPage 38 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape buldān, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda al-Misriyya, 1956–7), 506; and The Origins of the Islamic State, tr. Francis Murgotten (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), 170. (72) Nīzak is a Turkic title, rather than a name; Ṭarkhān (sometimes spelled tarkhān) was the title of Turkish commanders which changed its connotation over time. Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Documents from Early Islamic Khurasan (London: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions, 2006), 17–19; P. B. Golden, ‘Ṭarkhān’, EI2, X (2000), 303. Also Emel Esin, ‘Tarkhan Nīzak or Tarkhan Tirek? An Enquiry Concerning the Prince of Bādhghīs Who in A.H. 91/ A.D. 709–10 Opposed the ʿOmayyad Conquest of Central Asia’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 97/3 (1977), 323–32. (73) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 41, 82–5. According to al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348), ʿAṭāʾ [b. ʿAbd Allāh] al-Khurāsānī [known as ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Muslim] was the son of Abū Ayyūb or Abū ʿUthmān and was either a Balkhī or Samarqandī; the soldier and later governor of Khurāsān, Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra (d. 82/702), took him to al-Shām. ʿAṭāʾ became a major muḥaddith and was buried in Jerusalem. Mīzān1, II, 198. (74) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 129. Also Jürgen Paul, ‘Islamizing Sufis in pre-Mongol Central Asia’, in Étienne de la Vaissière (ed.), Islamisation de l’Asie Centrale: processus locaux d’acculturation du VIIe au XIe siècle (Paris; Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 297– 318. (75) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 145–6. Both Ḥārith b. Sulaymān and his qāḍī friend from Tirmidh were on the run from the evil qāḍī al-Aʿmash who worked for the reviled ʿAbbāsid governor ʿĪsā b. Māhān (d. 195/811). The two scholars returned to Balkh as soon as the governor was disgraced and fled to Merv. (76) Chabbi, ‘Remarques’, 25; citing Louis Massignon and al-Ḥallāj al-Ḥusayn b. Manṣūr, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1922), 258. (77) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. Ṭabaqāt works were written for a variety of professions, among them linguists and grammarians. The list in FB is probably a residue from that tradition and the Shaykh al-Islām al-Wāʿiẓ seems to have chosen the greatest amongst these lists. Ibrahim Hafsi, ‘Recherches sur le genre ‘ṭabaqāt’ dans la littérature arabe’, Arabica, 23 (1976), 236. (78) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. Al-Mujāshiʿī originated from Balkh, resided in Baṣra, and was considered to be a Muʿtazilī by some and a Qadarī by others. GAS, IX, 68–9. (79) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. None of these three men is listed in Samʿānī’s entry on ‘Muʿabbir’ (no. 3850). See al-Samʿānī, Ansāb, XII: 335–8. Dreams feature in many of the biographies of FB’s shaykhs as the medium through which they obtain divine guidance and converse with God or their spiritual masters. On Page 39 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape dreams in Arabic historiography, see Toufic Fahd, La divination arabe (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 247–367, esp. 248–9, 266; and Abel Daïm, L’oniromancie arabe d’après Ibn Sīrīn (Damascus: Presses Universitaires, 1958). (80) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. A well-known physician at the court of Hārūn al-Rashīd in Baghdad was known by that name. He died in 247/861 and was a prolific writer of medical treatises. See GAS, III, 231–6. (81) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. (82) Gilbert Lazard, ‘Abū l-Muʾayyad Balxī’, in Yádnáme-ye Jan Rypka. Collections of Articles on Persian and Tajik Literature (Prague: Academia, 1967), 95–101; C. E. Bosworth, ‘Sistan and its local histories’, Ir Sts 33 (2000), 35. (83) ʿUnṣurī is believed to have been born in Balkh. See J. T. P. de Bruijn, ‘ʿUnṣurī’, EI2, X (2000), 869–70. (84) For a detailed anecdote on the trouble that befell Anwarī at Balkh, see LHP, II: 382. (85) The poet’s fame post-dates FB’s completion (in 610/1214), which explains his absence from FB, at least partially. The much later Maḥmūd b. Amīr Walī (c. 1045/1645), for example, includes the mawlānā in his historical account of Balkh. See BA, fol. 315b, line 5. (86) A possible bias against the discipline of astronomy could be ruled out if we consider that FB has no qualms about mentioning the mastery by the Shaykh alIslām Muḥammad b. Abī al-Qāsim b. Abī al-Qaṣīr (Naṣīr?) al-Balkhī (no. 62) of the discipline (ʿulūm-i nujūm). See J. M. Millás, ‘Abū Maʿshar Djaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Balkhī’, EI2, I (1950), 140. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 348. (87) Albert Nader, ‘Al- Balkhī, Abū ʾl-K․āsim (ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd)’, EI2, I (1960), 1003. (88) Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 550. The full citation is: ‘Fast alle genannten Persönlichkeiten gehören zudem dem hanafitischen madhhab an, andere madhāhib werden gar nicht zur Kenntnis genommen. Unsere Chronik ist daher eigentlich nicht als Stadtchronik, sondern als Chronik des hanafitischen madhhab in Balh˘ zu bezeichnen’. (89) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 44, 339; CPED, 432. Perhaps this is a veiled reference to the later murjiʾite definition of faith as excluding works or rituals; a creed that is described in the surviving Sawād al-aʿẓam of Isḥāq b. Muḥammad al-Ḥakīm alSamarqandī. Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa’, 39.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (90) By the same token we might qualify Madelung’s statement—based largely on FB—that after Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14, d. 204/819–20), the student of Abū Ḥanīfa, all of Balkh’s qāḍīs were ‘Ḥanafīs’. See Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa’, 37. (91) Christopher Melchert found that by the later ninth century, ‘all the pieces of the classical school were […] in place’ in his The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, Ninth-Tenth Centuries C.E (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 48. (92) Gustav Flügel, ‘Die Classen der hanefitischen Rechtsgelehrten’, in Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1861). (93) I hestitate to apply Mirza Kazem Beg’s classifications as reflecting a diminishing level of ijtihād, in view of Wael Hallaq’s finding that ijtihād is a later construction. Wael Hallaq, ‘Was the Gate of ijtihad Closed?’ IJMES 16 (1984), 3– 41. Mirza Kazem Beg and Flügel’s sources appear to date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when ijtihād was perhaps attributed to these classifications anachronistically. Mirza Kazem Beg, ‘La Marche’, 181–206; Flügel, Classen, 280– 1. (94) Flügel, Classen, 285; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 146–54, esp. 146, n. 4. Ḥabībī found Abū Muṭīʿ in Mīzān1 (I, 269) and Jawāhir1 (II, 265). Radtke (‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 541) identified him in TBg (VIII, 223–5) and Mīzān2 (no. 2181, I, 574). Muntaẓam also lists him (no. 1090, X, 77), as does Nawāzil 2. (95) Flügel, Classen, 290; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 178–85, esp. 178, n. 8. Ḥabībī found Khalaf b. Ayyūb in Jawāhir1 (I, 231), Khulāṣa (p. 89) and Mīzān1 (I, 311). Radtke (‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 542) identified him in Jawāhir2 (no. 562, II, 170). Muntaẓam lists him (no. 1253, XI, 58–9), Nawāzil1 (p. 62), as well as Nawāzil2. Mudarris provides other references on him, in Mashāyikh Balkh, I, 62, n. 184. (96) Flügel, Classen, 290; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 185–95, esp. 185, n. 7. Ḥabībī identified Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym in Jawāhir1 (I, 256) and Fawāʾid (p. 83). He is also profiled in Nawāzil1 (p. 63) and Nawāzil2. Mudarris provides a host of other references on him in Mashāyikh Balkh, I, 63, n. 186. (97) Flügel, Classen, 286; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 210–14, esp. 210–11, n. 10. Ḥabībī found Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī in Jawāhir1 (II, 560) and Kashf al-ẓunūn (p. 1581). Muntaẓam profiles him as a follower of the madhhab of ahl al-sunna (no. 1193, X, 246), as well as Nawāzil2. (98) Flügel, Classen, 292; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 259–61. Ḥabībī found Muḥammad b. Salama in Jawāhir1 (II, 56) and Fawāʾid (p. 168). He is also in Nawāzil1 (p. 53) and Nawāzil2.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (99) Flügel, Classen, 294; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 296, n. 1. Ḥabībī found Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī in Jawāhir1 (II, 239), Fawāʾid (p. 160) and Mazārāt (fol. 76). There are dozens of references to him in Nawāzil2. (100) Flügel, Classen, 298; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 288–91, esp. 288, n. 9. Ḥabībī found Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaffār in Jawāhir1 (II, 263), Fawāʾid (p. 26) and Mazārāt (fol. 74). Radtke also found him in Jawāhir2 (no. 141, I, 200). There are dozens of references to him in Nawāzil2. FB quotes him as describing his ijtihād in relation to Abū Ḥanīfa: man dar hazār masʾala Abū Ḥanīfa rā ikhlāf karda-am, wa bar ikhtiyār wa ijtihād-i khwud fatwā dāda-am. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 291. (101) Flügel, Classen, 299; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 299–310, esp. 299, n. 3. Ḥabībī found Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī in Jawāhir1 (II, 68) and Fawāʾid (p. 179). He is listed in Nawāzil1. Nawāzil2 has many references to him as well. See also Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh, I, 62, n. 229. (102) Flügel, Classen, 302; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 311–16. (103) Flügel, Classen, 301; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 335–43, esp. 336, n. 1. Shams al-Aʾimma al-Sarakhsī is referenced by Ḥabībī in Jawāhir1 (II, 28), Fawāʾid (p. 158), Kashf al-ẓunūn (p. 1580) and Miftāḥ (II, 55). Al-Sarakhsī’s works survive and are listed in GAL, I, 373. See Radtke, ‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 549. However, we do not find him in Muntaẓam, Nawāzil1 or Nawāzil2. (104) Flügel, Classen, 308–14; FB, ed. AḤḤ, 370. (105) Wael Hallaq has revised the contention that has dominated the scholarship at least since Schacht’s analysis of the ‘closing of the door of ijtihād’ in the ninth century. According to Hallaq, the term did not even appear before the eleventh century and ijtihād was not closed in theory or practice. Hallaq, ‘Gate of ijtihad’, 3–41; in reference to Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 70–1. (106) Kaya, ‘Continuity and change’, 39. (107) Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, 114, 140–1. The ‘ṣuḥba’ stage usually followed four years of study during which the student is apprenticed as muʿīd or repetitor of his master or as someone who made himself useful to younger students (mufīd). After this learning period the student could obtain a licence to teach law and to issue legal opinions (ijāzat al-tadrīs wa-l-fatwā). See J. Pedersen-[G. Makdisi], ‘Madrasa – 1. The Institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish Lands’, EI2, V (1986), 1123–4. The term daryāftan is a Persian translation of the Arabic ‘idrāk’, meaning comprehension (CPED, 517). (108) E.g. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 292–3. A scholar did not necessarily study under one teacher. The chief qāḍī (qādī al-quḍāt) Abū ʿAlī al-Wakhshī (no. 56), for example,

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape studied according to FB under eighty teachers coming from different legal schools. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 220. (109) Richard Gramlich concludes from his analysis of the surviving accounts on Ibrāhīm that it is doubtful this shaykh considered himself a Sufi, or that he was even a Balkhī. The latter tradition he attributes to a Khurāsānī source bias, and challenges it with the frequency of reliable traditions pointing to a descent from the western Arab lands. Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), I, 135–282. (110) Gramlich, Alter Vorbilder, II, 13–62. (111) Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder, II, 63–93 (on Ḥātim al-Aṣamm), and 95–112 (on Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh). (112) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 245. (113) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 222. On Imām al-Ḥaramayn, see C. Brockelman-[L. Gardet], ‘Djuwaynī, Abu ʾl-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik’, EI2, II (1965), 605–6. (114) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 246–7. FB cites the prominent traditionist and representative of early Islamic law Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778) for the account regarding the father of Muḥammad b. Mālik (no. 33). (115) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 251: ‘bar muwāfaqat-i ū bīst kas-i hamrāh gīlīm pūshīdandī’. (116) Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf (no. 28, d. 239/853–4), for example, who was lauded by the famous Nishapur mystic Aḥmad b. Ḥarb (d. 234/848–9), as well as Balkh’s fortieth shaykh Abū Bakr al-Warrāq al-Tirmidhī (d. 294/906–7), is not mentioned as having taught or learned from anyone. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 216, 218. This may of course also only reflect an absence of information. (117) One anecdote on ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 18) indicates that the qāḍīs had dress codes. After being summoned to the caliph alMaʾmūn’s court (dargāh) in Merv together with the shaykh Khalaf b. Ayyūb (d. 205/820–1), ʿAbd Allāh was pressured to accept the qāḍī post, and the caliph’s chamberlain (ḥājib) brought the reluctant qāḍī a black turban and black cloak (ʿimāma-yi siyāh wa ṭīlsān-i siyāh). [FB, ed. AḤḤ, 162–4.] The colour black is also associated in early medieval Arabic historiography with the ʿAbbāsids and with orthodoxy (versus white which is associated with opposition). The term al-taswīd (‘making someone wear black’) becomes a term associated with supporting the ʿAbbāsid cause. Émile Tyan, Institutions du droit public musulman (Paris: Siney, 1954), I, 501–12. (118) The concept is taken from a letter written by the caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 295– 320/908–32) in response to a rebellion staged by his troops in 317/929. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership, 40, 72–8. Page 43 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (119) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 64. (120) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 77. (121) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 297 and 347. (122) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 73, n. 3. The poem is given in Arabic only. On the poet, see Lidia Bettini, ‘Ziyād al-Aʿdjam’, EI2, XI (2002), 522–3. (123) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 215. (124) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 130–1. (125) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 91. (126) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 206. (127) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 220–1. (128) Yaacov Lev, Charity, Endowments, and Charitable Institutions in Medieval Islam (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005), 21–52. Lev also provides an interesting discussion of the use of charity for political ends. He notes that the ʿulamāʾ also feature as patrons of institutions endowed by waqf. The absence of a discussion of waqf in FB underscores our earlier point that the authors of FB are less interested in institutions. One of the few times the term waqf appears in FB is in relation to the Umayyad governor (wālī) Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī (d. 120/738). He allegedly endowed the newly built canal of Balkh with fifty sheepskin sacks (mashk) [of water?]. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 37; Lev, Charity, Endowments, 85–112. (129) Hayyim J. Cohen, ‘The Economic Background and the Secular Occupations of Muslim Jurisprudents and Traditionists in the Classical Period of Islam (Until the Middle of the Eleventh Century)’, JESHO 13 (1970), 16–61. (130) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 118. (131) On the distribution of the rural population in this time, see Ann Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia: A Study of Land Tenure and Land Revenue Administration, London and New York, 1953. It is noteworthy that the term ‘dihqān’ never appears in FB. Lambton indicates that by the eleventh century the word appears sometimes as a technical term to denote a landowner class and sometimes refers to a peasant owner. See Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 3–4, n. 3. (132) Cohen found that textile traders constituted the single-largest group amongst his large cohort of ʿulamāʾ (22 per cent). The textile section is also the largest one in the bazaar. Cohen, ‘Economic Background’, 26–7.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (133) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 67. (134) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 128 attributes to ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 11): ‘harki rā māl-i ḥarām bi dast āyad, wa way ān rā az barā-yi khwud nigāh dārad, dar ān hīch barakatī nabāshad. Wa agar ṣadaqa dahad maqbūl nabāshad …’ (135) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 346, 353. (136) Adam Mez contends that ‘the question whether a qāḍī should accept salary was keenly debated’ during this period. Mez, Renaissance of Islam, 211. (137) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 191. (138) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 71. (139) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 77: ‘Chunān manqūl ast ki Muqātil bā wujūd-i zuhd wa taqwā bayyāʿī-yi dībā wa ḥarīr kardī, wa az ānjā mā yaḥtāj khwud kifāyat kardī’. (140) Joan Gilbert, ‘Institutionalization of Muslim Scholarship and Professionalization of the ʿulamāʾ in Medieval Damascus’, Studia Islamica 52 (1980), 118. (141) The biographical dictionary is called al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ fī aʿyān al-qarn al-tāsiʿ and has been published in 12 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1353–5/1934–6). (142) Mahd as in ‘level’, ‘position’, also ‘cradle’ and ʿaliyya as in ‘high’. CPED, 1353, 865. Mahdī (‘future prophet’) is given incorrectly (instead of mahd) by Gramlich in Alte Vorbilder, II, 99. (143) See my more extensive discussion on this female mystic of Balkh in ‘Female Mystics in Medieval Islam: The Quiet Legacy’, JESHO 56/1 (2013), 53–88. (144) ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābadī (Tehran: Surūsh, 1383/2004–5), 183–4; The Kashf al-maḥjúb: the Oldest Persian Treatise on Ṣúfiism, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden: Brill, 1911), 120; Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, The Tadhkiratu ʿl-Awliya (‘Memoirs of the Saints’), ed. Reynold A. Nicholson (London: Luzac, 1905), 288–9. (145) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 226. Ḥabībī read ‘Banj’ here not ‘Ba[l]kh’, and suggested it was a place near Samarqand that is mentioned by Yāqūt in the Kitab Buldān (Beirut, 1955), I, 498. A ‘ṭāq-i Muʾmina’ is not mentioned in the Qandiyya. Qandiyyah on the Tombs of Samarqand, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Ṭāhūrī, 1955). (146) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 226. (147) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 227.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (148) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 227. (149) Bulliet, Patricians: ix–xx, 89 ff. (150) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 124–5. His name is also attested in fals coins. Florian Schwarz, Sylloge Numorum Arabicorum in Tübingen (SNAT), gen. ed. Lutz Ilisch, vol. XIVc, 68–9 (plates), nos. 475–-6, dated 142/759–-60, ‘al-Ḥasan b. Ḥumrān’, obverse margin legend has mint and date legend, reverse marginal legend: amara bihi al-amīr al-Ḥasan b. Ḥumrān ʿabd iẓhāra daʿwa amīr almuʾminīn akramahu allāh; and no. 477, Balkh, dated 145/762–3, al-Ḥasan b. Ḥumrānand Yazīd b. Ḥum(rān)?, reverse marginal legend reads: mimmā amara bihi al-amīr al-Ḥasan b. Ḥumrān ʿāmil al-amīr Muḥammad b. amīr al-muʾminīn ʿalā yaday Yazīd Ḥum(rān). Also V. N. Nastich, ‘Novye dannye o mednoῐ monetnoῐ chekanke v Sredneῐ Azii VIII-nachala IX v.’, Arkheologiia, numizmatika i epigrafika srednevekovoῐ Sredneῐ Azii (Materialy nauchnoῐ konferentsii, posviashchennoῐ 60-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia doktora istoricheskikh nauk Borisa Dmitrievicha Kochneva), ed. T. Shirinov (Samarqand, 2000), 104–10. (151) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 226. (152) Al-Ḥasan also appointed his brother’s successor the qāḍī ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 11, d. 171/787–9). FB, ed. AḤḤ, 124–5. (153) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 255. (154) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 255. (155) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 240. (156) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 177. (157) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 351, n. 3; 356, n. 2. Al-Marwazī al-Azwarqānī, al-Fakhrī fī ansāb al-ṭālibiyyīn, ed. Mahdī al-Rajāʾī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā alMarʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1409/1988–9), 62, 64; al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), alShajara al-mubāraka fī ansāb al-ṭālibiyya, ed. Maḥmūd al-Marʿashī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1410/1989–90), 166. (158) Abū Naṣr al-Bukhārī (d. mid tenth century), Sirr al-silsila, ed. Muḥammad Ṣādiq (Najaf: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Ḥaydariyya wa-Maktabatuhā, 1962), 72. Also Ibn Funduq (d. 565/1169), Lubāb al-ansāb, ed. Mahdī al-Rajāʾī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1410/1989–90), 568; and ʿAlī b. alḤasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī al-Ṭayyib al-Bākharzī, Dumyat al-qaṣr wa-ʿuṣrat ahl al-ʿaṣr, ed. Muḥammad Altūnjī (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1414/1993), 714. (159) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 351–3.

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (160) AḤḤ’s transcription of az ruʾasāʾ-i nuqabāʾ-i Balkh būda ast is in need of correction (AḤḤ did note the lack of legibility of these words in C453-3), which would mean that he was the head (raʾīs) of the naqībs only. The Lahore manuscript (PAK, fol. 123b, last line) clearly states az ruʾasāʾ wa nuqabāʾ-i Balkh būda ast, i.e. that he held the position of both naqīb and raʾīs. The naqīb presided over an office (niqāba), and his duties, according to al-Māwardī and Abū Yaʿlā b. al-Farrāʾ (eleventh century) were genealogical, material and moral. The naqīb had to keep a register of nobility, to enter births and deaths in it and to exclude false claimants from intrusion into the corps of the ashrāf (lit. ‘the noble’), that is the offspring of the Prophet Muḥammad’s family. He had also to prevent the women of noble blood from marrying men not their equals in nobility. See J. Burton-Page, ‘Nak․īb’, EI2, VII (1993), 926. Also Teresa Bernheimer, ‘A Social History of the ʿAlid Family from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century’, unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford University, Wolfson College, 2006: 96–133. (161) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 62, 69–70, 72, 82, 85. One came from the ʿĀmir of Yemen, another came from an Arab Bedouin family, and two were clients (mawlā) of the Arab tribes of Jandaʿ(?) and Muhallab (b. Abī Ṣufra?) from the Azdī tribe. (162) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 336. (163) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 319. The difference between sākin and muwaṭṭin would be that the muwaṭṭin took up permanent residence, while the sākin resided temporarily in a place. See discussion on waṭan, in Zayde Antrim, Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 16–29. (164) Examples in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 77, 79, 144, 158, 161,166, 211–12, 215, 220, 280, 347, 376. (165) On quietism and consensus (ijmāʿ) amongst the ʿulamāʾ, see Patricia Crone, God’s Rule, Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 135–41. (166) Other sources tell us that in 130/747–8, Abū Muslim sent his trusted lieutenant, Abū Dāwūd Khālid b. Ibrāhīm, to Balkh to dislodge Ziyād b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qushayrī. He was the prefect appointed by Naṣr b. Sayyār (d. 131/748), the last Umayyad governor of Khurāsān, and had received the support of people in Balkh, Tirmidh and some villages in Ṭukhāristān. See Elton Daniel, The Political and Social History of Khurasan under Abbasid Rule, 747–820 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979), 86; C. E. Bosworth, ‘Naṣr b. Sayyār alLaythī al-Kinānī’, EI2, VII (1993), 1015–16. (167) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 86: ‘wa chun Abū Muslim khurūj kard … ’. The excerpt seems to refer to the covert period of proselytizing and subversion known as the daʿwa that preceded the revolution. Page 47 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (168) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 72–3, 77. Saʿīd b. Jubayr was a well-known early Kūfan scholar, a mawlā and secretary for two of Kūfa’s qāḍīs. After the revolt had failed Saʿīd fled to Isfahan and then to Mecca. More than a decade after the revolt Saʿid was arrested and sent to al-Ḥajjāj in Wāsiṭ who had him beheaded. H. Motzki, ‘Saʿīd b. Djubayr b. Ḥishām’, EI2, XII S (2004), 697–8. (169) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 36. Upon the proclamation of al-Saffāḥ (r. 132–6/749–50) as the first ʿAbbāsid caliph, Abū Muslim (d. 136/753–4) made Ziyād b. Ṣāliḥ alKhuzāʿī governor of Bukhara and Sogdia. See C. E. Bosworth, ‘Ziyād b. Ṣāliḥ alKhuzāʿī’, EI2, XI (2002), 522. (170) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 36. (171) Daniel, Political and Social History, 138–9. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, of accounts from other sources that Balkh was the city from which alḤārith b. Surayj (d. 128/746) staged his anti-Umayyad rebellion in 116/734–5; only two years before the new governor Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī recaptured Balkh and made it his capital of Khurāsān. Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa’, 33–4. (172) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 82. (173) See Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa’, 39. (174) FB does not mention the new Ghūrid power that followed the Qarakhānids/ Qarakhitāy under Bahāʾ al-Dīn Sām b. Muḥammad in 594/1198, or the Khwārazmshāhs who replaced them until the Mongols arrived in 618/1221. (175) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 371–2. (176) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 372. The kāfirs did not dare touch him: hīch-kas bi dāman-i ū dast dirāz nakard. (177) The Gürkhān ruled over Mā warāʾ al-nahr like a protectorate. He retained the administrative order set up by the Qarakhānids, using the Qarakhānid princes as puppets. The real power in Bukhara still seemed to lie with the Sunnī religious leaders or ṣudūr of the Burhān family. The protagonist of this story is the ṣadr-i imām-i Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad al-Balkhī (no. 70), and the same may have been the case in Balkh. See Omeljan Pritsak, ‘Āl-i Burhān’, Der Islam 30 (1952), 81–96; Bosworth, ‘Ilek-khāns’. (178) This ‘Naṣr Khān’ seems to be the ‘Naṣr’ identified by Pritsak as the Qarakhānid who took power in 575/1173. Fedorov found that ‘Naṣr’ refers to the honorific title ‘Naṣr al-Dunyā wa-l-Dīn’ of Sanjar b. Ḥasan, who reigned in Balkh from 575/1179–80 to 583/1187–8 after a reshuffle of appanages in the western Qarakhānid khāqānate around 574/1178–9, and is attested in coins from Balkh and Tirmidh. See Omeljan Pritsak, ‘Die Karachaniden’, Der Islam 31 (1953–4), 26–7; Michael Fedorov, ‘Qarakhanid coins of Tirmidh and Balkh as a historical Page 48 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape source. New numismatic data on the history of the Qarakhanid dominions of Tirmidh and Balkh’, Numismatic Chronicle 163 (2003), 274–6, 284. (179) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 377. (180) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 38. (181) On the ghulāt movements in Khurāsān, see Gholam Hossein Sadighi, Les mouvements religieux iraniens au IIe et au IIIe siècle de l’hégire (Paris: Les Presses Modernes, 1938); and Daniel, Political and Social History, 125–56. (182) Al-Gharnāṭī, Tuḥfat al-albāb (or al-aḥbāb) wa-nukhbat al-aʿjāb, in Gabriel Ferrand, ‘Le Tuḥfat al-albāb’, JA 207 (1925), 1–148, 195–304. (183) Crone, God’s Rule, 125–35. The consensus between the main groups stems from the acceptance of the four-caliph thesis, thus accepting that Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī were the four ‘Rightly-Guided Caliphs’ (rashīdūn). (184) LHP, II: 200, citing Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 718/1318), Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, British Museum manuscript, Add 7,628, fols. 286a and 290a. See also E. Levi-Provençal, ‘Nāṣir-i Khusraw’, EI2, VII (1993), 1006–8. (185) Ali Mazinani-Shariati, ‘Faḍâïl-i Balkh—“Les Mérites de Balkh”—Notes, correction, et traduction abrégée’. Thèse de doctorat d’université, Paris, Institut d’études iraniénnes library at the Université de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), 1963, 5. (186) Bulliet, Patricians of Nishapur, 234. Also Bernheimer, ‘Social History’, 1–4. (187) On the Sunnī political thought with regards to the umma, see Crone, God’s Rule, 232–7. (188) On the muqātila and their common interests with the local aristocracies in Khurāsān and Transoxania, see Daniel, Political and Social History, 20, 86. (189) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 82–9. The preposterous acts included the declaration by the caliph of immunity for his staff, removing them from the legal jurisdiction of the qāḍī. It is not specified to which caliph or amīr FB is referring. Mutawakkil served as qāḍī ca. 92–142/710–759–60. (190) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 64. (191) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 120. Ṣaghānī is a variant nisba for people from Chaghānīyān. (192) D. Sourdel, ‘Ibn Māhān, ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān’, EI 2, III (1971), 859. His name is also found on coins. See SNAT, nos. 519–23, dated 190/805–6.

Page 49 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (193) He had built for himself a pleasure palace in Balkh that stood as ‘a flagrant symbol of his abuses’. See Daniel, Political and Social History, 170–1. (194) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 131. (195) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 145–6, 156–7. Forced exile to Ferghana was also the punishment of the friend of the wronged Ḥārith called ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Khālid (n.d.) who was the qāḍī of Tirmidh on the north bank of the Oxus (in modern-day Uzbekistan). Madelung found him in Jawāhir1, I, 318. See Madelung, ‘The Early Murjiʾa’, 38, n. 27. (196) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 149–50. Abū Muṭīʿ’s despondency is stated in his rebuttal that the only ‘Yaḥyā’ in the Qurʾān was Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyā (John the Baptist of the New Testament). To evoke any other would amount to idolatry: ‘har-ki gūyad ki juz az Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyā … az īn āyat kasī dīgar murād ast ān kas kāfir ast’. See also A. Rippin, ‘Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ’, EI2, XI (2002), 249. The Barmakids were unpopular during this time with Balkh’s ʿulamāʾ for having supported the ʿAbbāsid revolution. On Khālid b. Barmak’s involvement in the ʿAbbāsid revolution, see Daniel, Political and Social History, 40. For a recent, comprehensive study of the Barmakids, see van Bladel, ‘Bactrian Background’, 43–88. (197) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 150. (198) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 188. (199) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 210. The theme of resistance to qāḍī-ship is distinctive of the early ʿAbbāsid period. After the long absence of qāḍīs the post of qāḍī became desirable. Amedroz observed a similar shift among the Ṭulūnids in Egypt (r. 254/868 to 292/905): there was more than one qāḍī in a given place, perhaps dividing up the work by legal subject. One qāḍī may have handled matters of family law, while another handled the waqfs. The post of chief qāḍī, qāḍī alquḍāt, was also instituted. See Amedroz, ‘The Office of Kadi’, 775–6. Also Muḥammad b. Hindūshāh Nakhjawānī (fl. mid-fourteenth century), Dastūr alkātib, ed. A. A. Ali-zade (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), II, 177–202. (200) Even the chief of the Ḥanafī school, al-Rāzī (d. 370/980), refused the office of chief qāḍī twice. Mez, Renaissance of Islam, 218–20. (201) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 38–9, 52–3. (202) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 38–9, 200 (repeat). (203) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 40–1, 52–3. (204) By this time, the caliphal court had moved to Samarra, some 60 miles north of Baghdad, which remained the caliphal residence until 279/892. Page 50 of 52

Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape (205) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 20–1, 39–40 (repeat). Ḥabībī was not able to trace this story in any other source. We can actually find it in a slightly modified format recounted to the traveller Ibn Baṭṭūṭa by a local Sufi guide in Balkh two centuries later (d. 770/1368–9 or 779/1377). See Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, 1325–1354, tr. H. A. R. Gibb and C. F. Beckingham (Cambridge: The Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1958–2000), III, 572–3. (206) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 39, 214, 246. (207) Dāwūd’s shrine was built in the ʿAbd al-Aʿlā quarter of Balkh, and many people visited it seeking answers to their prayers. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 39. Not mentioned in FB is that the Banījūrid prince was driven out of Balkh and had to seek refuge in the Sāmānid territory of Samarqand when the Ṣaffārid Yaʿqūb b. Layth al-Sijzī and his army overran Balkh in 256/870. The man from Sīstān destroyed Naw-shād, which deeply saddened Dāwūd who returned to Balkh shortly afterwards only to die there in 259/873. See V. V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, tr. Vladimir Minorsky (London: Luzac, 1968 [1928]), 77–8. (208) Only one Sāmānid is mentioned by name, and that is Nūḥ b. Asad b. Sāmānkhudā (d. 227/841–-2). From other sources we know that Nūḥ was given the governorship of Samarqand by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn as a reward for his support to the ʿAbbāsids during the rebellion in Transoxania of Rāfiʿ b. al-Layth b. Sayyār (Nūḥ’s brothers were also rewarded for their support with governorships over other places). C. E. Bosworth, ‘Sāmānids, 1. History, Literary Life and Economic Activity’, EI2, VIII (1995), 1026. (209) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 42. (210) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 320–2. (211) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 320, 324. (212) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 184. The historicity of the account may be questionable: As far as we know Nūḥ b. Asad was the governor of Samarqand at this time. Moreover, in the year of Khalaf’s death, Khurāsān fell to Ṭāhirid rule, and was no longer in the Sāmānid domain. The ruler was Ṭāhir b. al-Ḥusayn who died that same year. Bosworth, ‘Sāmānids’, 1026; and C. E. Bosworth, ‘Ṭāhirids – 1. A line of governors for the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in Khurāsān’, EI2, X (2000), 104. (213) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 327. This Sultan Tekish is not to be confused with the Shāh Tekish of the Khwārazmshāhs who ruled a century later (567–96/1172–1200) under the vassalage of the Qarakhitāy Gürkhans. (214) The Khalīliyya madrasa still existed under this name in al-Wāʿiẓ’s time. Incidentally, the dates cannot be correct, as the Ghaznawids were defeated by

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Scholars, the Spirits of Sacred Landscape the Saljūqs in 430/1040, leaving at least a fifty-one-year gap to the year that Chief Judge Khalīl died in 481/1088–9. FB, ed. AḤḤ, 333. (215) We know this from Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370), al-Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad alḤulw (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1964–76), IV: 313 (no. 383); and Lisān, II, 241 (no. 1013).

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Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward Arezou Azad

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords The conclusion highlights three important aspects in the study of the history of places, of which sacred landscapes form a part: the question of textual transmissions and genres that affect the accuracy of the historical evidence on places; the sources’ construction of places as sacred landscapes; and the continuity of sacredness of a given place over time, irrespective of conversions to new religions. Keywords:   Historiography, sacred landscape, religious conversions, syncretism

The story of Balkh’s medieval sacred landscape has been told. It is a story that sets the cornerstone for Balkh’s reputation as a place of historical origin and of enduring spirituality. This study has brought out three important aspects of the history of places, of which sacred landscapes form a part: the question of textual transmissions and genres that affect the accuracy of the historical evidence on places; the sources’ construction of places as sacred landscapes; and the continuity of sacredness of a given place over time, irrespective of conversions to new religions. Chapter 1 has shown the challenges faced by a historian when studying medieval texts that construct the imagined landscape of place. For one, the manuscripts are often incomplete (and hence undated) and corrupted by the hands of later scribes. These ‘corruptions’ are not necessarily malicious or even politically motivated. They may just represent the scribes’ ideas (or those of their patrons), at a time when a new copy was being produced, about how to ‘improve’ upon an old text. The fact that much of the original meaning might be lost in the process Page 1 of 4

Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward was not of importance at the time; it only really matters to historians. Moreover, city histories of this period from Iran and Central Asia are often only mediated though Persian translations of Arabic originals which in themselves are either missing or have complicated manuscript genealogies. We have also seen that the changes to medieval manuscripts may also arise from simple human error, leading to haplographies and other textual inconsistencies. We are in the times when ‘books’ could not be mass-produced through computers and machines, but had to be painstakingly put together by scribes, word for word, line by line. This left much room for error, even for the most skilled of scribes who (p.167) had to work under difficult conditions: weak candle lighting at night, a poorly maintained, and hence illegible, base manuscript, a limited stock of paper or ink, and suchlike. In addition, we are dealing with a translation movement, and things do get lost in translation either because the translator does not master the original language well enough, or because translation principles were freer, tending more towards adaption or paraphrase rather than literal rendering. While nowadays we insist on direct translations in scholarship, the Balkhī scholar of the twelfh century believed he had a creative licence to embellish or ‘clarify’ his base text. Moreover, local histories like the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, which provides the basis for this book, stem from genres of writing in which the boundaries between fact and fiction are not always clearly drawn. Beyond the problems of textual transmissions are the issues with the contents of city histories. Modern scholars complain that the biographical material embedded in the city histories is hagiographical intended only to sanctify the ʿulamāʾ, and devoid of critique and balance. Looking ahead, what are the implications for studying such texts as historical sources? The fact remains that the modern scholar does not have a vast corpus of historical sources from which to choose when trying to understand preMongol Iranian or Central Asian history. Rather than rejecting a source like FB altogether as a concoction of myth, topoi and tropes, it is incumbent upon the scholar to analyse mythical and topical content without necessarily taking at face value specific data stemming from faḍāʾil sources, which by definition speak of an ideal state within an Islamic narrative. The readers of such texts can rather try to gauge the mood and read the general socio-political or socio-economic messages that may be embedded within the prescriptive adab elements of the texts. Questions that can be asked include why this author depicts the social actors or events in this way. What is he trying to convey, and for whom? Jürgen Paul advised us of this kind of non-literal reading, and it remains true for FB and texts like it from other Central Asian cities. Much more can be done along these lines for the other city histories of this region. We have also seen that the biographies of ʿulamāʾ—even if perhaps not the most riveting kind of historical literature—can serve as sources for histories of place. Modern scholars can bring in more biographies in their studies of the histories Page 2 of 4

Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward of place. The excessive focus on biog-raphies as sources for theology and religious history needs to be (p.168) counterbalanced with an appreciation of their use as evidence for social history, even if the primary subjects are religious figures. In Chapter 2 I have tried to demonstrate the ‘appropriation’ of pre-Islamic sacred spaces in Balkh by Muslim narrators. The spaces in which pre-Islamic saints lay were ‘Islamized’ once the spirits of Balkh’s dead scholars began to occupy them through their shrines. The memory of the pre-Islamic history of Balkh was not obliterated; in fact, it added to Balkh’s sanctity. How does this add up, when Balkh had an idolatrous past in which ‘the devil’ was worshipped? The technique was simple: to acknowledge that it had existed, then appropriate it, and then tame it. The story would be kept alive and used to Balkh’s advantage: to emphasize its antiquity and hence its authenticity, but also to argue, based on the example of conversion, that the people of Balkh could pacify the most evil of spirits—which undoubtedly the ‘devil’ of the Naw Bahār was. The message was clear: Balkhīs could face any enemy with a raised head. Should they be crushed, they would rise up again, as they had done so many times before. The result is a canvas of sacred landscape that bears brushstrokes of a pre-Islamic past— mainly Buddhist, but such details did not matter—combined with those of Islam. All that has changed are the cultural and linguistic codings attached to Balkh’s landscape through the Muslim narratives. Chapter 3 then explains how these sites became further consolidated within Islam by making them the places where the most noble and learned of Balkh’s Muslims were buried. What emerges from FB is that the relationship between the ʿulamāʾ and the political rulers of pre-modern Balkh was not defined in terms of ‘secular’-‘religious’ dualism, identity with a given school or sect, or even class. The relationship may be better characterized by what Roy Mottahedeh called ‘a moral community’ expressing itself within an Islamic narrative, which coexisted with political leaders, and sometimes performing the functions of public service. The members of this moral community sometimes fancied themselves as exemplary ideal types for people to respect and emulate.1 The veneration and pilgrimage of the shrines of these exemplary men further consolidated their timeless appeal. And even if today we cannot find many of these shrines in Balkh, it is later shrines that have been built on top of theirs, forming yet another (p.169) layer on this city’s ancient sacred landscape. The shape is the same; it is just the colouring that is different. What emerges from this discussion of sacred landscape is that its main sites— the mounds and gates of Balkh—became iconic of the place, which in turn gave people living in it (and even those visiting it) a sense of ‘home’ or ‘belonging’. They were ancient, pre-Islamic structures that had been retained and reused for Islamic purposes—as mosques or shrines to the very ʿulamāʾ who defined Balkh. Thus, their shrines became the sacred spaces of Balkh that offered protection to Page 3 of 4

Conclusion: Looking Back, Moving Forward the city’s inhabitants against Balkh’s enemies: unjust rulers and natural disasters. With their locations on pre-Islamic mounds, along gates standing at the cardinal points of the compass, and by the massive stūpa of the Naw Bahār, the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh may have adopted the landscape that had existed before Islam: a mandala-shaped landscape according to which Buddhist temples and cities were built. This imagined landscape had lost its Buddhist meaning by now, but it had retained its iconic power of the city’s sacredness and goodness. Balkh has always been a place where the good men went to die. It would be fascinating to learn what current folklore tells us of these imagined and sacred landscapes. An appreciation of how Afghans understand their own history is not only interesting for historians, but also of paramount importance to those working for a better future of Afghanistan in a political and security climate in which a major international security presence is radically diminishing. Notes:

(1) Roy Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980).

Page 4 of 4

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.170) Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

Page 1 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

1

Rūmān al-Balkhī

Safīna

n/d

ṣaḥābī

2

D.aḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim

Abū al-Qāsim

100/718–9, 105/723–4, 106/724–5

tābiʿ

3

Saʿīd al-Maqburī

Abū ʿIbād

123/740–1

tābiʿ

4

ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Sāʾib

Abū Marra

136/753–4

tābiʿ

5

Muqātil b. Ḥayyān

Abū Bisṭām

135/752–3

tābiʿ

6

ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī

ʿAtāʾ b. Maysara Abū Muslim

135/752–3

tābiʿ

7

Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān al- Abū ʿAbd al-Jabbār Qāḍī

142/759–60

tābiʿ, qāḍī

8

Muqātil b. Sulaymān

Abū al-Ḥasan

158/774–5

tābiʿ

9

Ibrāhīm b. Adham b.

Abū Isḥāq

161/777–8

zāhid

Manṣūr 10

Yaʿqūb al-Qārī

Abū Bakr

163/779–80

shaykh

11

ʿUmar b. Maymūn alRammāḥ

(Not stated)

171/787–8

qāḍī

12

Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm alZāhid al-Balkhī

(Not stated)

194/809–10

zāhid

13

Abū Muʿādh

Ḥārith b. Sulaymān

199/814?

imām

14

Ḥakam b. ʿAbd Allāh

Abū Muṭīʿ

204/819–20

qāḍī

Page 2 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

15

Wusaym b. Jamīl alThaqafī

Abū Muḥammad

182/798

ʿābid

16

Salm b. Sālim

(Not stated)

174/790–1

shaykh

17

ʿUmar b. Hārūn al-Balkhī

Abū Ḥafṣ

196/811–2

shaykh

18

ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ

Muḥammad al-Qāḍī

197/812–3*

qāḍī

19

Ḥātim al-Aṣamm

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān

237/857–8

ḥakīm

20

Qāsim (b.) Zurayq

Abū Muḥammad al-Faqīh

205/820–1

faqīh

21

Khalaf b. Ayyūb

Abū Saʿīd

205/820–1

(qāḍī-designate)

22

Shaddād b. Ḥakīm/ Ḥukaym

Abū ʿUthmān

214/829

qāḍī

23

ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf

(Not stated)

215/830

ḥakīm

24

Makkī b. Ibrāhīm

Abū Sakan al-Ṣudūq

215/830

shaykh

25

Shihāb b. Maʿmar

(Not stated)

216/831–2

shaykh

26

Layth b. Musāwir

Abū Yaḥyā

244/838–4 or 226/840–1

walī al-quḍāt

27

Mūsā b. Sulaymān alJūzjānī

Abū Sulaymān

after 200/815–6

shaykh

28

Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf

Abū Isḥāq

239/853–4

shaykh al-mashāyikh

29

Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh/ Khiḍrūya

Abū Ḥāmid

240/854–5

shaykh

Page 3 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

30

Qutayba b. Saʿīd alBaghlānī

Abū Rajāʾ al-Thaqafī

240/854–5

shaykh

31

Muḥammad b. al-Qāḍī Abī Abū Jaʿfar Muṭīʿ

244/858–9

shaykh

32

Muḥammad b. Abān alBalkhī

244/858–9

shaykh

33

Muḥammad b. Mālik b. (Not stated) Bakr b. Bakkār b. Qays b. al-Ḥūrab b. al-Ḥārith b. al-Hāshim al-ʿArabī alBalkhī

244/858–9

shaykh

34

Aḥmad b. Yaʿqūb b. Marwān b. al-Qaʿqāʿ b. Riyāḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh b.

247/861–2

shaykh

Abū Bakr

Abū Ṣāliḥ

Aḥmad b. al-Aswad alQārī 35

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh Abū Jaʿfar al-Musbajī b. ʿĪsā b. Ibrāhīm, known as Muḥammad b. Farrūkh

275/888–9

shaykh

36

Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl al-ʿĀbid

261/874–5

ʿābid

Page 4 of 9

Abū Sulaymān

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

37

Death year*

Main title

Naṣīr/Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā (b. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Shujāʿ) alBalkhī

268/881

faqīh, zāhid

38

Abū Bakr b. Shādhān

(Not stated)

267/880

faqīh

39

Muḥammad b. Salama

Abū ʿAbd Allāh

279/892–3

shaykh

40

Muḥammad b. ʿUmar alWarrāq al-Tirmidhī

Abū Bakr

294/906–7

shaykh

41

Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Salām alFaqīh al-Balkhī

Abū Naṣr

305/917–8

faqīh

42

Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl (also b. Ṭalḥa) b. al-Azhar alBalkhī

Abū ʿAbd Allāh

316/928–9

imām-i buzurg

43

Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl b. al-Balkhī

Abū ʿAbd Allāh

319/931

shaykh

44

Khalīl al-Ṣaffār al-Balkhī

Abū al-Qāsim

326/937–8

faqīh

45

Saʿīd al-ʿĀlim al-Faqīh alBalkhī

Abū Bakr

328/939–40

faqīh

46

ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Tarkhān

Abū Bakr

333/944–5

shaykh

47

Muḥammad b. Aḥmad alIskāfī

Abū Bakr

333/944–5

shaykh

Page 5 of 9

Nickname (kunya)

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

48

ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Mūsā b. Marwān Pārsī/al-Fārisī

Abū al-Ḥasan

335/946–7

shaykh

49

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Balkhī

Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī

362/972–3

shaykh

50

ʿUbayd Allāh b. Abī Bakr b. Abī Saʿīd

Abū al-Qāsim

370/980–1

shaykh

51

Naṣr b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Khaṭṭāb alSamarqandī

Abū al-Layth

376/987

faqīh, zāhid

52

(Muḥammad b.) Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad (b. Ibrāhīm b. Aḥmad b. Dāwūd) alMustamlī

Abū Isḥāq

376/986–7

shaykh

53

Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Naṣīrī/ Nuṣayrī

Abū al-Qāsim

411/1020

Shaykh al-Islām

54

Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Ṣāliḥ

Abū Bakr b. Amīrak b. alRawwās al-Balkhī

413/1022–3

qāḍī

55

ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ṣayrafī

Abū al-Fatḥ al-Balkhī

454/1062

qāḍī al-quḍāt, Shaykh alIslām

Page 6 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

56

al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Jaʿfar al-Wakhshī

Abū ʿAlī

471/1078–9

qāḍī al-quḍāt, al-ʿālim, alzāhid

57

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd alMalik b. Muḥammad b. ʿAmr

Abu Bakr al-Iskāfī

475/1082–3

qāḍī al-quḍāt, shaykh almashāyikh, khaṭīb

58

Khalīl b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl Abū Saʿīd al-Sijzī

481/1088–9

qāḍī al-quḍāt

59

Shams al-Aʾimma Muḥammad b. Abī Sahl al-Sarakhsī

Abū Bakr

481/1082–3

shaykh

60

al-Ḥusayn al-Maḥmūdī

(Not stated)

506/1112–3

qāḍī al-quḍāt, ḥakīm

61

Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī al-Najjār al-D.arīr alBalkhī

(Not stated)

511/1117–8

shaykh al-mashāyikh

62

Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad [b.] Abī alQāsim b. Abī al-Qaṣīr alBalkhī

(Not stated)

511/1117–8

qāḍī al-quḍāt, Shaykh alIslām

63

Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Zhālī

Abū Jaʿfar

517/1123

Shaykh al-Islām

Page 7 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

No.

Name

Nickname (kunya)

Death year*

Main title

64

al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib al-Ḥusaynī

Sharaf al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad

532/1137–8

az baqiyyat-i salaf

65

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās b. Abī al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī alAshburghānī

(Not stated)

535/1140–1

Shaykh al-Islām

66

ʿUthmān b. ʿUmar b. Abī Bakr al-Ghaznawī alShilgharī al-Maqrī

Abū Bakr ʿUmar

536/1141–2

shaykh

67

(Ṭāhir b.) Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī

Abū al-Ḥasan

537/1142–3

raʿīs, naqīb

68

Muḥammad b. alMuʿtaṣim b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. (Muḥammad) al-

Abū Bakr

572 /1176–7

shaykh

(Not stated)

562/1166–7

shaykh al-imām

584/1188–9

shaykh al-Islām

Marjānī 69

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Naṣr al-Bisṭāmī

70

Muḥammad b. Aḥmad (b.) Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī

(*) Death years are as given in FB in the first instance, or if not available in FB, then per other sources. Where diff erent death years are possible, the most likely one is suggested.

Page 8 of 9

Appendix A List of Balkh’s seventy shaykhs

Page 9 of 9

Appendix B The qāḍīs of Balkh up to the twelfth century AD

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.171) (p.172) (p.173) (p.174) Appendix B The qāḍīs of Balkh up to the twelfth century AD i

n/d

Ḥārith b. Sur_ʿ.t1

ii

n/d

Hilāl b. Ḥassān2

iii

n/d

Sulaymān, father of Muqātil3

iv

n/d

Naṣr b. al-Mushāris4

v

d. 142/759–60

Mutawakkil [b. Ḥumrān] (no. 7)5

vi

d. 171/787–9

ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 11)6

vii

d. 197/812–3

ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (no. 18)7

viii

n/d

Abū Muḥammad [al-Aʿmash?]8

ix

d. 204/819–20

Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī (no. 14)9

x

d. 214/829

Shaddād b. Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym (no. 22)10

xi

d. 224/838–39 or Layth [b. Musāwir] (no. 26)11 226/840–41

(xii) d. 353/964

Abū al-Qāsim Makkī b. Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Bukhārī12

(xiii) d. 369/979–80

Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bukhārī al-Kalābādhī13

xiv

d. 413/1022–3

Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Ṣāliḥ, Abū Bakr b. Amīrak b. al-Rawwās alBalkhī (no. 54)14

Page 1 of 4

Appendix B The qāḍīs of Balkh up to the twelfth century AD

xv

d. 454/1062

Shaykh al-Islām ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Ṣayrafī (no. 55)15

xvi

d. 471/1078–9

Al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Jaʿfar alWakhshī (no. 56)16

xvii

d. 475/1082–3

Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. ʿAmr, Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 57)17

xviii d. 481/1088–9

Al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl al-Sijzī (no. 58)18

xix

d. 506/1112–3

Al-Ḥusayn al-Maḥmūdī (no. 60)19

xx

d. 511/1117–8

Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad (b.?) Abī al-Qāsim b. Abī al-Qaṣīr al-Balkhī (no. 62)20

(xxi) d. 544/1149–50

Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Khulmī21

Notes:

(1) Persan-115, fol. 127a, line 1. Variations in PAK, fol. 74b, line 2 (‘Ḥārith b. Shawbūb, known as Shawbarb’); FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208, n. 12, citing C–453–3 (‘Ḥārith b. Shawb, known as Saw._r.n’). (2) Persan-115, fol. 127a, line 2; PAK, fol. 74b, line 3 (Hilāl b. Ḥissān). (3) Persan-115, fol. 127a, line 2; PAK, fol. 74b, line 3. He is probably the father of Balkh’s eighth shaykh, Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 158/774–5). See FB, ed. AḤḤ, 89–93; and M. Plessner-[A. Rippin], ‘Muḳātil b. Sulaymān b. Bashīr al-Azdī alKhurāsānī al-Balkhī,’ EI2, VII (1993), 508–9. (4) Not in list of Persan-115. Listed in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208 [taken from C–453–3?] and PAK, fol. 74b, line 3. (5) Not in list of Persan-115 or in PAK, fol. 74b. Listed in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208 [taken from C–453–3?]. Profiled as FB’s seventh shaykh, Mutawakkil was a successor to a Companion of the Prophet and qāḍī of Balkh and Chaghāniyān. He was beheaded by the wālī Abū Dāwūd. For more details, see below. (6) Not in list of Persan-115. He is listed in PAK, fol. 74, lines 4–5. Profiled as FB’s eleventh shaykh, ʿUmar met Abū Ḥanīfa. He served as Balkh’s qāḍī in the time of the governor ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlwān (n/d). He had to go into hiding from Abū Muslim. On him we also have accounts in Khulāṣa1 (p. 243; cited in FB, ed. AḤḤ, 124), Jawāhir3 (no. 1077, II: 676–8), and Muntaẓam (no. 926, VIII, 339). (7) Listed after Abū Muṭīʿ and Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym in Persan-115, fol 127a, lines 3–4 and PAK, fol. 74b, lines 5–6. Profiled as FB’s eighteenth shaykh, he was appointed by prince al-Maʾmūn in Merv (i.e. before his reign as caliph in Page 2 of 4

Appendix B The qāḍīs of Balkh up to the twelfth century AD 198–218/813–33). Al-Ḥakīm al-Nīshāpūrī profiled ʿAbd Allāh as qāḍī of Nishapur where indeed he died. See Jawāhir3, no. 715, III, 319–20; Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 256 (no. 6 in Bulliet’s listing). (8) He was apparently added to the list by C–453–3. See FB, ed. AḤḤ, 208. He is not included in Persan-115 or PAK. Radtke suggests this is Abū Muḥammad alAʿmash, who features in FB as the villain-qāḍī of the governor ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān. Radtke (‘Theologen und Mystiker’, 540–1) identified a qāḍī by that name who died in 148/765, while ʿAlī became governor in 180/796. (9) Persan-115, fol. 127a, lines 2–3, and PAK, fol. 74b, line 5. Profiled as FB’s fourteenth shaykh. See details on him below. (10) Persan-115, fol. 127a, line 3, and PAK, fol. 74b, line 5. Madelung suggests the rendering of his father’s name as Ḥukaym instead of Ḥakīm. See Madelung, ‘The early Murjiʾa’, 37, n. 22. Profiled as FB’s first shaykh. (11) Persan-115, fol. 127a, line 4 (‘Layth Ḥāwa’?) and line 5 (‘Layth’), and PAK, fol. 74b, line 6 (‘Layth b. Musāwir’). (12) Not in FB. Called a ‘Ḥanafī’. See Halm, Ausbreitung, 74, citing Jawāhir3 (no. 1689, III, 500). (13) Not in FB. Called a ‘Ḥanafī’. See Halm, Ausbreitung, 74, citing Jawāhir3 (no. 902, II, 501–2). (14) This is the first qāḍī according to FB after the long break caused by the miḥna. FB, ed. A ḤḤ, 323–5. (15) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 325–6. (16) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 326–30. For more details see Ansāb, XIII, 291–2. (17) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 330–2. (18) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 332–5. (19) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 394–405. (20) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 348–9. According to FB, Nāṣir al-Dīn Shahīd al-Samarqandī’s listing in his Taʾrīkh Balkh of Balkh’s qāḍīs ends with this qāḍī. See FB, ed. AḤḤ, 209. (21) Not in FB. Halm calls him a ‘Ḥanafī’. He was born in 475/1082 in Balkh and buried in Balkh, was the head (walī) of qāḍīs of Balkh, and was known as the ‘dihqān of Khulm’. The correct reading should be ‘al-Khulmī,’ not ‘al-Khilamī’ as Halm suggests: Khulm was a town in Balkh province. See Halm, Ausbreitung, 74, Page 3 of 4

Appendix B The qāḍīs of Balkh up to the twelfth century AD and Jawāhir3, no. 1531, III, 359. Samʿānī lists him, but does not mention he is a qāḍī. See Ansāb, V, 180–1.

Page 4 of 4

Appendix CTwo scholarly lineages of Balkh

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Appendix C (p.175) (p.176) (p.177) Two scholarly lineages of Balkh Lineage 1: [Abū Ḥanīfa —] Ibrāhīm b. Adham (no. 9)1 Abū Muʿādh (no. 13)2 Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī (no. 12)3 Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. al-Najjār al-D.arīr (no. 61)4 Ḥātim al-Aṣamm (no. 19)5 Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh (no. 29)6 Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Warrāq al-Tirmidhī (no. 40)7 Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl al-Balkhī (no. 43)8 Lineage 2: [Abū Ḥanīfa —Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805) 9] Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī (no. 27)10 Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaffār (no. 44)11 Abū Bakr b. Saʿīd al-ʿĀlim al-Faqīh al-Balkhī (no. 45)12 Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 47)13 Page 1 of 3

Appendix CTwo scholarly lineages of Balkh Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī (no. 49)14 Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (no. 51)15 Notes:

(1) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 135: [Shaqīq al-Balkhī says:] wa khidmat-i Ibrāhīm [b.] Adham daryāftam. (2) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 144: Shaqīq mīgūyad ki ‘majālisa-yi Aʾimma-yi Shāmāt wa ʿIrāqayn daryāftam; hīch majlis-ī az majlis-i Abū Muʿādh muhīb-tar nabūd’. (3) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 131: Shaqīq mīgūyad ki ʿbā Abū Yūsuf bi khidmat-i Abū Ḥanīfa raftam wa muddatī mīyān-i mā mufāraqat uftād … Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798) is a direct disciple of Abū Ḥanīfa in jurisprudence. (4) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 347: wa ū rā farzandān-i Shaqīq ast. The term ‘farzand’ surely means descendant here. (5) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 169: Ḥātim…az tilmīdh-i Shaqīq wa ustād-i Aḥmad [b.] Khiḍrawayh ast. (6) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 169, 219: Ḥātim [al-] Aṣamm rā daryāfta ast wa ṣuḥbat dāsht wa az Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 239/853–4) tafsīr samāʿ kard. (7) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 264: bā Shaykh Khiḍrawayh ṣuḥbat dāsht. (8) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 281: az yārān wa aqribāʾ wa ʿuẓamāʾ-i shaykh Aḥmad [b.]Khiḍrawayh ast. (9) Al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805) is a direct disciple of Abū Ḥanīfa in jurisprudence. (10) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 211: [Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr says that] he and al-Jūzjānī went together to receive from Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan [al-Shaybānī] the ‘ijāzat’ and alJūzjānī received it. (11) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 214: Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṣaffār is quoted as saying: ‘Awwal kas-ī ki ʿilm-i fiqh rā biyār ast Abū Ḥanīfa, rahimahu Allāh, būd; wa ākhar Abū Sulaymān Jūzjānī, raḥmat Allāh’. (12) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 293–4: Abū al-Qāsim al–Ṣaffār is identified as Abū Bakr b. Saʿīd’s (no. 45) ‘ustād’. (13) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 293: [Ḥasan b. Abī al-Ṭayyib said to shaykh Abū Bakr b. Saʿīd, no. 45]: farāmūsh karda (-ī) ki bi ustād-i tū, Abū al-Qāsim Ṣaffār … [chi rasīda ast]? (14) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 292: wa ū [Abū Bakr b. Saʿīd] ustād-i faqīh Khalīl Abū Jaʿfar alHindūwānī ast. Page 2 of 3

Appendix CTwo scholarly lineages of Balkh (15) FB, ed. AḤḤ, 313: The account is that when Abū [al-] Layth left the ‘baladayi ṭayyiba’ of Samarqand, the Prophet spoke to him in a dream and said: ‘Bi ṭalab bi nazdīk-i Abū Jaʿfar [al-] Hindūwānī bi Balkh raw!’ When Abū [al-] Layth woke up he was overjoyed, and headed for the dome of Islam, Balkh.

Page 3 of 3

Appendix D‘The House of Ḥumrān’

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Appendix D (p.178) (p.179) ‘The House of Ḥumrān’

Page 1 of 2

Appendix D‘The House of Ḥumrān’

Page 2 of 2

References

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.180) References Primary sources

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References ——. Futūḥ al-buldān, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahda alMisriyya, 1956–7). ——. The Origins of the Islamic State: Being a Translation from the Arabic, Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitâb Futûh Al-Buldân of Al-Imâm Abū-l ʿAbbâs Aḥmad Ibn-Jâbir Al-Balâdhuri, tr. Francis C. Murgotten, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924). al-Bukhārī, Abū Naṣr, Sirr al-silsila al-ʿalawiyya, ed. Muḥammad Ṣādiq (Najaf: alMaṭbaʿa al-Ḥaydariyya wa-Maktabatuhā, 1962). Badakhshī—see Wirūsajī Badakhshī. Balkhī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn, Maqāmāt-i Ḥamīdī, ed. Riḍā Anzābī Nizhād (Tehran: Markaz-i Nashr-i Dānishgāhī, 1365/1986). Balkhī, Muḥammad Muʾmin, Jarīda-yi Balkh (Kabul: Ministry of Information and Culture, 1978). (p.181) Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Abûʾl-Faraj 1225–1286, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus, being the First Part of his Political History of the World. Translated from the Syriac […], ed. and tr. Ernest A. Wallis Budge, 2 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1932). Bayhaqī, Abū al-Faḍl, Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī, ed. Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn Bayhaqī Dabīr and ʿAlī Akbar Fayyād. (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Millī-yi Īrān, 1383 H.Sh./2004–5). ——. [same work], tr. C. E. Bosworth (Boston, MA: Ilex Foundation; Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies; Cambridge, MA; London: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011). Ctesias of Cnidus, ‘Persica’, in Photius Bibliothèque (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959–91). al-Dhahabī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, ed. Muḥammad Badr al-Dīn al-Naʿsānī, 2 vols (Cairo: Muḥammad Amīn al-Khānjī, 1325/1907). ——. Mīzān al-iʿtidāl fī naqd al-rijāl, ed. Muḥammad al-Bijāwī, 4 vols (Cairo, 1382/1963). Gardīzī, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. al-D.aḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd, Zayn al-akhbār, ed. ʿAbd al–Ḥayy Ḥabībī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Īrān, 1347/1968).

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References ——. The Ornament of Histories: a History of the Eastern Islamic lands AD 650– 1041: The Original Text of Abû Saʿîd ʿAbd al–Ḥayy Gardīzī, tr. C. E. Bosworth, I. B. Tauris and BIPS Persian Studies Series (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011). al-Gharnāṭī, Abū Ḥāmid, Tuḥfat al-albāb (or al-aḥbāb) wa-nukhbat al-aʿjāb, in Gabriel Ferrand, ‘Le Tuḥfat al-albāb’, JA 207 (1925): 1–148, 195–304. Ḥājjī Khalīfa Kātib Celebī, Kashf al-ẓunūn, 2 vols (Istanbul: Maarif Matbaasi, 1941). al-Ḥākim al-Nīshāpūrī b. al-Bayyiʿ, Tārīkh Nīshāpūr, in Richard N. Frye, The Histories of Nishapur (London: Mouton, 1965). al-Harawī al-Mawṣilī, ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr, Guide des lieux de pèlerinage, tr. Janine Sourdel-Thomine (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1952–7). Hsiuen Tsang, Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, ed. and tr. Samuel Beal, 2 vols (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, 1906). Ḥudūd al-ʿālam = ‘The Regions of the World’; a Persian Geography, 372 A.H.–982 A.D, tr. Vladimir Minorsky, ed. C. E. Bosworth, 2nd ed. (London: Luzac, 1970 [1937]). ——. [same work], rev. ed. Maryam Mīr-Aḥmadī and Ghulām-Riḍā Warharām (Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi Dānishgāh-i al-Zahrāʾ, 1383 H.Sh./2004–5). (p.182) Hujwīrī, ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Maḥmūd Duʿābadī (Tehran: Surūsh, 1383/2004–5). Hujwīrī, ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān, The Kashf al-maḥjúb: the Oldest Persian Treatise on Ṣúfiism, tr. Reynold A. Nicholson (Leiden: Brill, 1911). Hye Ch’o, Huei-ch’aos Pilgerreise durch Nordwest-Indien und Zentral-Asien um 726, ed. Walter Fuchs, in Sitzunsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse 22 (1938), 426–69. ——. The Hye Ch’o Diary: Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Regions of India, ed. Yang, Han-sung et al. (Berkeley, CN: Asian Humanities Press; Seoul: Po Chin Chai, 1984). Ibn Abī al-Wafāʾ ʿAbd al-Qādir b. Muḥammad al-Qurashī, al-Jawāhir al-muḍiyya fī ṭabaqāt al-ḥanafiyya, 2 vols (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif alʿUthmāniyya, 1332/1913). ——. [same work], 2 vols (Cairo, 1967). ——. [same work], 3 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿĪsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1978).

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References Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī, Abū Muḥammad Aḥmad, Kitāb al-Futūḥ, 8 vols (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1974). Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf al-Lawātī al- Ṭanjī, The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, 1325–1354, tr. H. A. R. Gibb and C. F. Beckingham, 5 vols (Cambridge and London: The Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1958– 2000). Ibn al-Faqīh, Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1967). ——. Collections of Geographical Works by Ibn al-Faqīh, Ibn Faḍlān, Abū Dulaf alKhazrajī, ed. Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt am Main: Institute for the History of ArabicIslamic Science, 1987). Ibn Funduq al-Bayhaqī, Lubāb al-ansāb, ed. Mahdī al-Rajāʾī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1410/1989–90). ——. Tārīkh-i Bayhaq, ed. Aḥmad Bahmanyār ([Tehran]: Kitābfurūshī-yi Furūghī, n.d. [1317H.Sh./1938]). Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Kitāb Lisān al-mīzān, 6 vols (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-Niẓāmiyya, 1329–31/1912–13). Ibn Ḥawqal, Abū al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī al-Naṣībī, S.ūrat al-arḍ, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1873). ——. tr. J. H. Kramers and Gaston Wiet, Configuration de la Terre (Beirut: Commission Internationale pour la Traduction des Chefs-d’œuvre, 1964). Ibn al-ʿImād, ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. Aḥmad, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab, 8 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1350–1/1931–2). Ibn al-Jawzī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Abū al-Farash, al-Muntaẓam fī tārīkh al-umūm wa-l-mulūk, ed. ʿAṭāʾ Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir and ʿAṭā Muṣtafā ʿAbd al-Qādir, 18 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1413/1992). (p.183) Ibn al-Nadīm, Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad b. Abī Yaʿqūb Isḥāq al-Warrāq al-Baghdādī, Fihrist, tr. Bayard Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). Ibn Quṭlūbughā, Tāj al-tarājim fī ṭabaqāt al-ḥanafiyya (Baghdad: Maktabat alMathannā, 1962). Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad, Majmūʿ fatāwā Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad b. Taymiyya (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1991).

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References Iskandar Beg Munshī, Tārīkh-i ʿālamārā-yi ʿabbāsī, ed. Īraj Afshār, 2 vols ([Isfahan]: Muʾassasa-yi maṭbūʿāt-i ʿālī-yi Amīr Kabīr, 1334–5/1956–7). al-Iṣṭakhrī, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad Abū Isḥāq al-Fārisī, Kitāb Masālik al-mamālik, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1927). Junayd Shīrāzī, Shadd al-izār fī ḥaṭṭ al-awzār ʿan zawwār al-mazār, ed. Muḥammad Qazwīnī and ʿAbbās Iqbāl (Tehran: [n.p.], 1328/1948–9). ——. Tadhkira-yi Hazār mazār: Tarjuma-yi Shadd al-izār (Mazārāt Shīrāz), ed. Nūrānī Wiṣāl (Shiraz: Kitābkhāna-yi Aḥmadī, 1364/1985–6). al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh Baghdād, ed. Aḥmad b. al-Ṣiddīq, 14 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1349/1931). al-Khazrajī al-Anṣārī, Khulāṣat Tadhhīb Tahdhīb al-kKamāl fī asmāʾ al-rijāl (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Khayriyya, 1322/1904). Khwāndamīr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i ḥabīb al-siyar fī akhbār-i afrād-i bashar (Tehran: Kitābkhāna-yi Khayyām, 1333 H.Sh./1954). al-Kisāʾī, Vita prophetarum (Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ), ed. Isaac Eisenberg, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1922–3). Laknawī al-Hindī, Kitāb al-Fawāʾid al-bahiyya fī tarājim al-ḥanafiyya, ed. Muḥammad Badr al-Dīn al-Naʿsānī Ḥalabī (Cairo, 1324/1906). al-Maqdisī, Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr alBannāʾ al-Shāmī, Kitāb Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-ʿaqālīm, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1906). ——. The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions, tr. Basil Collins and Muhammad Hamid al-Tai (Doha, Qatar and Reading: Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, and Garnet, 1994). al-Marwazī al-Azwarqānī, Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥusayn, al-Fakhrī fī ansāb al- ṭālibiyyīn, ed. Mahdī al-Rajāʾī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī alʿĀmma, 1409/1988–9). al-Masʿūdī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin aljawhar, ed. Charles Pellat, 7 vols (Beirut: Manshūrāt al-Jāmiʿa al-Lubnāniyya, 1966–7). ——. Les prairies d’or. Masʿūdī; traduction française de Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille; revue et corrigée par Charles Pellat, ed. Charles Pellat (Paris: Société asiatique, 1962–97).

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References ——. Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism – al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fi ʿilm altasawwuf, tr. Alexander Knysh (Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007). Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh b. ʿImād al-Dawla, Abū al-Khayr, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, ed. Muḥammad Rawshan and Muṣṭafā Mūsawī, 4 vols (Tehran: Nashr-i Alburz, 1373 H.Sh./1994). al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn, al-Shajara al-mubāraka fī ansāb al-ṭālibiyya, ed. Maḥmūd al-Marʿashī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-Marʿashī al-Najafī al-ʿĀmma, 1410/1989–90). al-Ṣafadī, Khalīl b. Aybak, al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, 30 vols (Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1931[2007]). (p.185) al-Sakhāwī, Shams al-Dīn Abū al-Khayr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shāfiʿī, al-D.awʾ al-lāmiʿ fī aʿyān al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 12 vols (Cairo: Maktabat alQudsī, 1353–5/1934–6). ——. al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-tawārīkh, in Franz Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1968). al-Samʿānī, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad b. Manṣūr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Jabbār, alAnsāb, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yaḥyā Muʿallimī, 13 vols (Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1962). Sanāʾī, Majdūd b. Ādam al-Ghaznawī, Dīwān (Tehran: Shirkat-i Ṭabʿ-i Kitāb, 1320/1941). ——. Ḥadīqa al-ḥaqīqa, ed. Mudarris Raḍawī (Tehran: Chāpkhāna-yi shirkat-i Ṭabʿa-yi Kitāb, 1951). ——. The First Book of the Ḥadīqatu ʾl-Ḥaqīqat or the Enclosed Garden of the Truth, tr. J. Stephenson (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1972). Sarakhsī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Kitāb al-Mabsūṭ, ed. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ḥasan Muḥammad Ḥasan Ismāʿīl al-Shāfiʿī, 30 vols (Beirut: Dār alKutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2001). ——. Kitāb al-Mabsūṭ, 30 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Saʿāda, 1906–13). al-Ṣarīfīnī, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, al-Muntakhab min kitāb al-Siyāq li-tārīkh Naysābūr, ed. Khālid Ḥaydar (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1993). Subkī, Tāj al-Dīn, al-Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad alṬanāḥī and ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥulw, 5 vols (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat ʿĪsā alBābī al-Ḥalabī, 1964–76).

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Index

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

(p.203) Index Bold numbers denote reference to plate illustrations. Abbād b. Kathīr al-Ramlī al-Filasṭīnī 55 ʿAbbād b. Kathīr al-Thaqafī al-Baṣrī 55 ʿAbbasids 6, 107, 159 n. 199 ʿAbbāsid Revolution, 138 n. 117, 150–2, 158 n. 196 al-Hārūn al-Rashīd, caliph 45, 84 al-Maʾmūn, caliph 86 n. 66, 138 n. 117, 159, 161 n. 208 al-Muʿtasim, caliph 88 n. 77 al-Mutawakkil, caliph 126, n. 66 see also Barmakids; al-Ḥasan b. Ḥumrān; ʿĪsā b. Māhān; Khuzāʿī; miḥna ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Tarkhān, Abū Bakr 42, 172 ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Jūybārī al-Warrāq 41 ʿAbd Allāh [b. Muḥammad] b. al-Qāsim al-Ḥusaynī 26–7 ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ 118, 170, 174 piety 126 n. 62 judgeship 120, 138 n. 117, 158 Amīr ʿAbd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ 59 ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Ṣayrafī al-Balkhī 43, 172, 175 judgeship 119, 120 Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 35 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Qaṣṣār 59 ʿAbd al-Razzāq 73 Abraham, see biblical traditions Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Mustaghfirī 50 Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamadānī 26 Abū Bakr [ʿAbd Allāh] b. Abī [al-Farīd] al-Balkhī 27 Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh al-Wāʿiẓ al-Balkhī, the man 25–6 Abū Bakr al-Fārisī 48 Abū Bakr (Ḥubaysh?) 73 Abū Bakr b. Shādhān 121, 171 Page 1 of 19

Index Abū Ḥanīfa 42 disciples of 48, 73 n. 17, 122, 129, 134 n. 100, 137–8, 149, 177, 178 founder of madhhab 132, 133, 136 meeting with 174 n. 6 see also madhhab; Ḥanafism Abū Hārūn al-Kātib 58 Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī Yūsuf al-Ṣūfī 53 Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī 146–7, 173; see also ʿAlids Abū Isḥāq al-Mustamlī 172 shrine 72, 108 works by 42 Abū Jaʿfar al-Hindūwānī 172 scholarly lineage 178 shrine, 49, 72 n. 14, 104, 108 ṭabaqāt classification 134 Abū Khalaf Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Khalaf al-Ṭabarī 53 Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī 39, 172 as faqīh 121 scholarly lineage 43, 178 scholarly works 48, 49, 50, 116–17 ṭabaqāt classification 134, 137 Abū Maʿshar al-Balkhī 131 Abū al-Muʾayyad al-Balkhī 60, 131 Abū Muṭīʿ al-Balkhī 86, 170, 174 n. 7 Ḥanafism 132 n. 90 judgeship and scholarship 118, 122, 157–8, 175 marriage and family 145–6, 179 sources on 47, 50, 54 ṭabaqāt classification 133 Abū Naʿāma Baṣrī 73 Abū Nuʿaym al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Iṣfahānī 52 Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī 52–3, 184 Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī al-Balkhī 44, 131 Abū al-Qāsim Makkī b. Isḥ  āq b. Ibrāhīm al-Bukhārī 120 n. 35, 175 (p.204) Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Bukhārī al-Kalābādhī 120 n. 35, 175 Abū Rajāʾ al-Thaqafī 89 n. 85, 171 Abū Saʿīd -Ṣaghānī 157 Abū Sulaymān Mūsā b. Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī 171 scholarly lineage 137, 178 sources 50 ṭabaqāt classification 134 Abū Yūsuf al-Qāḍī 42, 48, 177 n. 3 Abū Zayd Aḥmad b. Sahl al-Balkhī 46–7, 92 adab 41, 47, 61, 65, 67, 167 readers of 64, 67 works by 47–8 Adam, the first man, see biblical traditions Afghanistan, early modern to present 3, 8, 16, 169 ahl al-kitāb 109 Page 2 of 19

Index ahl-i tārīkh/tawārīkh 60, 155 Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh, Abū Ḥāmid, 171 debts 140 gate and tomb 75, 98, 108, 137 meetings with 55 scholarly lineage 136, 177 sources on 42, 52, 53, 54, 58 wives and other relatives 140, 143–7, 179 Aḥmad b. Sayyār al-Marwazī 62 Aḥmad b. Yaʿqūb al-Qārī 171 Ahwaz, bazaar 103, n. 126 ʿajam 78–9, 162 Ajina Tepa, Tajikistan 80 n. 47 akhbār 42, 51, 61 Alborz Mountains, Afghanistan 92 ʿAlids 75, 110, 138, 146, 153–5 naqīb 146–7, 173 see also Ḥusaynids ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Mūsā b. Marwān Pārsī/al-Fārisī 139, 172 ʿAlī b. al-Faḍl b. al-Ṭāhir al-Balkhī 42 ʿAlī b. [al-] Ḥasan [al-] Mustamlī 58–9 ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān, governor 129 n. 75, 157, 175 ʿAlī al-Riḍā, see ʿAlids ʿālim, see ʿulamāʾ aloes-wood 102 amālī 51–2 Amū Daryā, see Oxus Anas b. Mālik 76 Anatolia 11 Andalusia 46, 110 n. 149 angels 73, 76 Gabriel 69 -Ṣalṣāʾīl/-Ṣarṣarmāʾīl 70 Anwarī, Awḥad al-Dīn, poet 56, 131 Arabic 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 57, 82 Persian translations of 65, 166 translations from Pahlavi 59–60 see also local histories aromatic roots 102 Asiatic Museum (St Petersburg) 34–5 asceticism, see piety asp-rīs, see maydān Āsyā-yi Qunak, site 90–1 n. 91 ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Sāʾib 41, 127, 170 ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī 170 charity and piety 139–40 as fighter-saint 128 as Qurʾān reader 116 Avesta 5 n. 8, 8, 60, 70 Bābā Ḥātim, shrine 10, 81; see also shrine Bactra, Bactria 4–5, 19; see also Balkh; Barmakids; Naw Bahār Page 3 of 19

Index Bactrian documents and language 15 n. 33 Badakhshān 8, 15 n. 34 Bādhghīs, Afghanistan 128 n. 72 Baghlān district, Afghanistan 89 n. 85, 148 Bahāʾ al-Dīn Walad al-Balkhī 7 Bakhtī, or Yaḥyā, Gate, see Balkh Bakhtiyārīs 12, 62 n. 169 balada 16, 71 n. 13, 178 n. 15 Bālā Ḥiṣār, citadel, see Balkh Balkh, 2, 6, 7, 12, 92 ancient indigenous religions 15–16 archaeology and walls 3, 3–4, 10, 94–5 Bakhtī, or Yaḥyā, Gate 72, 77, 103, 104 n. 127 Bālā Ḥiṣār, citadel 94, 103 n. 126 congregational (jāmiʿ) mosque 4, 76 Hindūwān Gate 49, 72, 77, 102, 103 n. 126, 104 n. 127, 108 Islamic conquests and pre-Mongol history 5–7, 8–9 sources 8–12, 38–40, 44 (p.205) villages and rural periphery 66, 73, 86, 89, 96 n. 108, 150 see also alBarūqān; Faḍāʾil-i Balkh; Islamic geography; Naw Bahār; Nuh Gunbad; water Bamiyan 15 n. 33 Banījūrids 6, 28, 90, 160–1; see also Naw-shād; Nuh Gunbad Barabudur, temple 105 n. 133 Barmakids 6, 83–4, 90, 131 as Buddhists 78 conversion to Islam 84 al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā, ʿAbbāsid governor 78, 88, 99 Yaḥyā b. Khālid b. Barmak, ʿAbbāsid vizier 45, 78, 158 al-Barūqān 156 Bāt, see Balkh, villages Bayān al-Ḥaqq al-Nayshābūrī 51 Bayhaq 22, 24, 62–4, 67 bayna al-tallayn 72 bayt al-maqdis, see Jerusalem belt-making 140 biblical tradition; see also angels; shrines Abraham 70 Adam 69 n. 4 Cain and Abel (Hābīl wa Qābīl) 69 Job (Ayyūb) 72–4, 88 n. 78 Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) 4, 5, 31–3 biographies 23, 28–9 biographical dictionaries 41–6 Bon, Tibetan religion 105 botkhāna 125; see also Buddhism; Buddhist art and architecture Buddha, the 15 n. 34, 82–3, 125; see also Buddhism; Bamiyan Buddhism 4, 15, 125, 128 schools, sects 80 see also jāhiliyya; kufr; mughān

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Index Buddhist art and architecture, 82–3; see also Ajina Tepe; Bamiyan; Gandhara; al-hind; Naw Bahār Bukhara 8, 11, 22, 25 Bukhara Emirate 39 Buttamān, Mountains 25 camphor 102 caravans, caravanserais 102–3, 125 n. 58 cardinal points, compass 98–9, 104, 169 carpentry 142 Chaghāniyān: judgeship 93 n. 100, 150, 174 n. 5 tax collection 157 channels, see water charity, see piety chār-sū, street model 104 Charkh-i Falak, site 90 n. 91, 91 Chihil-dukhtarān, site 90–1 n. 91 China 7–9, 79, 80 n. 47, 105 n. 132 Chinggis Khan 7, 26, 31 n. 32 chīn wa mā-chīn, see China Christianity 15 Mongols and 31 Nestorians 9 sacred sites, conversions 14, 74, 85–6, 109 circumambulation 108 city quarter, district, see kūy chora, see sacred space cloth and textiles 125 n. 53, 141–2 cock pheasant 29 coins: inscribed names of rulers 145 n. 150, 153 n. 178, 157 n. 192 recent archaeological finds in Balkh 96 Tamghājī silver coins 103 Constantinople 32, 85 corruption, political 143, 151, 158–9 Ḍaḥḥāk b. Muzāḥim 44, 170 Damascus 143 Daqīqī, Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad (b. Muḥammad) b. Aḥmad 131 Dashtak, Afghanistan 87, 89 Dāwūd b. ʿAbbās 90, 161; see also Banījūrids; women Daylamistān 12, 62 deserts 84, 96 n. 108, 98 dome, ‘Dome of Islam’ (city epithet) 6, 81, 104, 178; see also Naw Bahār dream interpreters 130–1 Egypt 16, 115, 159 n. 199 Faḍāʾil-i Balkh: audience and authorship 25, 30 manuscripts, copies, editions 4, 6, 7, 31–8 sources 40–61 Page 5 of 19

Index text 7, 11, 20, 22–4, 38–9, 167–8 title and alternative titles 38 (p.206) faḍīla, genre 46–7 Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār 54, 124 n. 52 Fārs, Iran 9, 11 n. 27, 32 n. 34, 62 n. 169, 63 fārsī, pārsī, see Persian Faryāb 25, 71, 107 fasting, see piety fatwā 49, 121, 134 n. 100, 136 n. 107, 162 Ferghana 8, 12 n. 27, 62 n. 169, 129, 153, 157 Fāṭimids, Fāṭimid ideologies 120, 154 fighter-saint, see ghāzī financial debt 140 fiqh: expert in, faqīh 50, 53, 59, 70, 75, 108, 117–18, 121–2, 137, 142, 145, 171–2, 178 texts 48, 137 see also ijtihād Foucher, Alfred 3, 80 n. 47, 99, 100, 103 fragrances 102 French Imperial Library 32 frontier 25, 107, 127–8 fruit 30, 70 funeral 122, 161–3 Gandhara 99 Gardīz, Afghanistan 71 garments 125, 139 gaz, unit of measure 78 Ghazna, ghaznīn 54–5, 71 Ghaznawids 6, 63, 81 n. 51, 119, 131, 163 coins 96 n. 109 Sultan Maḥmūd of Ghazna 60, 162 Sultan Masʿūd III 55 ghazw, ghāzī 127–9 ghulāt 153–4 Ghūrids and Oghuz-Ghūrids 6, 160 Gīlān 12 n. 27, 62 n. 169 gift-giving 77, 139, 156, 160 grammarians 130 graves 30, 49, 70–1, 81, 86, 88, 108, 110, 163 cemeteries 73, 89 family lots 75 see also shrines; sar-i tall; funeral gunbad, see dome; Nuh Gunbad(ān) Gurgān 62 Gushtāsp (var. Vishtāspa), king 9, 70, 86, 93, 97 tall-i Gusthāsp 72–5, 96–7 see also Tepe Zargarān ḥadīth: as a source on cities 67, 69 n. 5, 109 collection and transmission of, 52, 65 n. 185, 116–17 memorization and study of, 23 method of recording (isnād), 64 Page 6 of 19

Index prophetic ḥadīth on Balkh 70, 72, 74, 76, 178 n. 15 teaching of 51, 73 n. 21 traditionist (muḥaddith), 41 n. 70, 42, 45, 50, 62, 63, 73 n. 19, 74, 87 n. 71 Ḥadīth Party 154 al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf 151 Ḥājjī Piyāda site 11, 88; see also Nuh Gunbad(ān) ḥakīm 30, 121–3 al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī 53 Ḥamīd al-Dīn Balkhī 56 Ḥammād 73 Ḥanafism 48, 49, 50, 113–15, 129, 137, 138, 163–4 Ḥanbalism 107, 113, 126, 137 haplography 30, 166 Ḥārith b. Sulaymān Abū Muʿādh 123 n. 48, 129, 157, 170, 177 Harthama 59 Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Wakhshī, Abū ʿAlī 172 funeral 163 judgeship 119, 136 n. 108, 175 Niẓāmiyya namesake 163 sources 43 teachers 52, 136 n. 108 Ḥasan al-Baṣrī 74 Ḥasan b. Ḥumrān 144–6, 179 Ḥātim al-Aṣamm 170 as ḥakīm 122, 159–60 piety 124, 126 scholarly lineage 136, 177 sources 52, 54, 59 de la Haye-Ventelet, Denis and Jean 32 al-Haytham al-Muʿabbir 130 Hephthalites 5 n. 11, 6 n. 12 Herat, Afghanistan: city structure 98 n. 112 local histories of 11 n. 27, 24, 62 (p.207) Ḥijāz 16, 61 n. 168, 153 al-hind, hindūstān, India: ancient maps 105 n. 132 contact with Bactria/Balkh 8, 5 n. 10, 19, 79, 102, 103 n. 126 in Islamic geography 69 n. 4 as pilgrimage destination 149 sacred sites 14, 69 see also Buddhist art and architecture Hindūwān Gate, see Balkh House of Ḥumrān 145–6, 179 Hsiuen Tsang 9, 15 n. 34, 80, 91 Ḥumrān 179 al-Ḥusayn al-Maḥmūdī 173 judgeship 119, 175 sources 43, 57 Ḥusaynids 51, 146 Page 7 of 19

Index Al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī, Sharaf al-Dīn 75, 89, 146, 173 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī 27, 146, 173 Hye Ch’o 9, 15 n. 34 Ibn Funduq 63–4 Ibn Isfandiyār 63 Ibn Shawdhab 79 Ibn Taymiyya 107 n. 137 Ibrāhīm b. Adham b. Manṣūr 11, 170 miracles 126 n. 64 piety 124, 125 n. 56 scholarly lineage 136, 177 sources 53, 54, 55 wealth 141 Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf 138 n. 116, 140, 161, 171 idolatry, see kufr ijāza 43, 136 n. 107, 178 n. 10 ijtihād 99 n. 116, 114, 113 n. 93, 134 n. 100, 135 n. 105 ʿilm 116, 126, 142, 178 n. 11; see also scholars imam, title 117, 122–3, 129, 152, 170, 172–3 Imām al-Ḥaramayn (ʿAbd al-Malik Juwaynī) 137 Imām -Ṣāḥib 81 n. 51in Imperial Public Library, St Petersburg 35 India, see al-hind Indus, River 4 n. 69 ink 32–3, 167 Iraq: ʿAlid uprisings 153 Khurāsānī scholars’ contact 55, 128, 146, 156, 177 n. 2 Ḥanafīs 113, 114 Islamization 16 pilgrims to Naw Bahār 79 Samarra – Nuh Gunbad stucco comparision 88 Iranian ancient traditions 69–70; see also Gushtāsp ʿIṣām b. Yūsuf 75, 86, 122, 127, 159, 171 Isfahan: bazaar 103 n. 126 escape of Saʿīd b. Jubayr 151 n. 168 local histories of 62, 67 scholars in Balkh from 164 ṭabaqāt 45 Isfījāb 17, 127, 149 Iskandar Tūra, see Ku(h)n Iskanderkul 35 Islamic geography 47, 62 n. 172, 92, 105 on Balkh 71, 82, 85, 88, 92, 95, 102–3 Islamic law and justice: courts and the qāḍī 117–21 maẓālim 118–19 qāḍī appointments 45 Page 8 of 19

Index qāḍī al-quḍāt 43, 136 n. 108, 120–1 reference texts and handbooks 47–55 see also fiqh; ḥadīth; madhhab; ʿulamāʾ Islamization and conversion 16–18, 31, 84, 92, 109, 114, 155, 166–9 Ismāʿīlīs 154 Isrāʾīliyyāt, see biblical traditions Istanbul, see Constantinople Jaʿfar al-Ashʿath 88 n. 78 jāhiliyya 78, 85 jahl 126 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī, mawlānā 7, 11 Jaxartes (Sir Daryā), River 103 n. 123 Jayḥūn, River, see Oxus Jerusalem: connection and comparison with Balkh 69, 70–1, 128 n. 73 Haram al-Sharīf 83 Hellenistic mosaic depiction 105 n. 132 as sacred centre 14 (p.208) jewels 103, 160 Jews 9, 109 jibākhān 78 Jūzjān (-ān) 25, 71, 107, 128 Kabul 2, 37 n. 54 Kailash, Mount 104 Karakum Desert 96 n. 108 Kāshān 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Kathīr b. Ziyād 87, 124 kātib 51, 58 Kazakhstan 8, 17 Khalaf b. Ayyūb 171 funeral with Sāmānid honours 162 judgeship offer to 159 as ḥakīm 122 summons by caliph al-Maʾmūn 138 n. 117 ṭabaqāt classification 134 Khalīl b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl al-Sijzī 163, 173 and the Ghaznawids 163 judgeship 118 n. 28, 119, 175 Khalīl Allāh al-Wirūsajī al-Badakhshī 38–9 Khalīl al-Raḥmān Dawoodi 33 Khalīl al-Ṣaffār al-Balkhī 172 as faqīh 121 shrine 72 ṭabaqāt classification 137 Khārijites 154 khaṭīb, see preaching khātūn, see women al-Khayr 110 n. 149, 153–4 Khiva 12 n. 27, 35, 62 n. 169 Khojand 51 Page 9 of 19

Index Khulm 77, 151, 176 Khurāsān 6 n. 12, 7, 60, 63, 73, 76, 79, 114, 147, 153, 160 amir (commander) 156 raʾīs 147 sources on, 11 n. 27, 22, 44–5, 47, 62 n. 169 ʿulamāʾ and literati 53, 56–7, 123–4, 126–9, 149 wālī (governor) 103, 144, 150 n. 166, 151, 157, 78 n. 37, 84, 85 n. 62, 162 khuṭba, see preaching Khuttal(ān) 71 n. 13, 128, 148 al-Khuzāʿī, see Ziyād b. -Ṣāliḥ al-Khuzāʿī Khūzistān 12 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Khwādaynāmag 59 Khwārazm 35, 96, 149; see also Khiva Khwārazmshāhs 7, 94, 152 n. 174, 160, 163 n. 213 Kirmān 11 n. 27, 89, 93 n. 100, 62 n. 169 Kītāb 35 Kokand 35 Kūfa 45, 149, 151 n. 168 kufr 118, 158 n. 196 Kuhistan 8 Kūlān 128, 148 Ku(h)n, Aleksandr Ludvigovich 35 Kushans, see Balkh, ancient kūy 99 labour 86 land issues and revenues: arable lands of Balkh 93, 96 n. 108, 158 Buddhist monastic estates 83 donation of 88 n. 78 ownership and wealth 139, 141, 144 value of land used as grave sites 110 landscape, concept 13; see also sacred space Layth b. Musāwir 171 judgeship 118–19, 159, 175 scholarly lineage 178 legal schools, see madhhab library, kitāb-khāna 26, 40 linguistics 130 n. 77 local histories 24 Iranian and Central Asian 11, 18, 22–4, 37–8 Persian adaptations 18, 23 loyalty and disloyalty 139, 153, 155 madhhab 132–43; see also fiqh; Ḥanafī; Ḥanbalī; Shāfiʿī madrasa, 163–4; see also Nizamiyya; ʿulamāʾ Maḥmūd b. Amīr Wālī 39 Makhḍaʿ al- Muʿabbir 130 Makkī b. Ibrāhīm 171 Mamluks 17, 106, 115, 119 n. 31 Manichaeans 9 Page 10 of 19

Index manuscripts, see Faḍāʾil-i Balkh markets, see trade marriage patterns 115, 144–7 mashāyikh, see shaykh mashhad 81–2 Mashhad, city 153 (p.209) masjid, see mosques mā warāʾ al-nahr, see Transoxania maydān 70, 72–4 maẓālim, see Islamic law and justice Māzandarān 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Mazarin, Jules, cardinal 32 Mazār-i Sharīf 8, 17, 40, 90 n. 91, 92 n. 94, 92 n. 95 museum 98 n. 114 see also Khayr; Ṭayyiba Mehru, Mount 104 Melzl, Edmund 82 Merv: ʿAbbāsid period 129 n. 75, 138 n. 117, 158, 174 n. 7 city shape 98 n. 112 contacts with Balkh 8, 149 local histories 12 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Umayyad period 5 miḥna 118, 130, 159 military, troops 6 n. 12, 35, 63, 129, 139, 159 minaret 86–8, 109 minbar 137 miracle, karāma, see piety money, currency 103 n. 124, 124, 139–40, 144; see also coins Mongols 26, 31, 152 n. 174 monks, monasticism 15 n. 34, 79, 80, 91, 125 mosques of Balkh 88–9, 123, 169 ʿAbd al-Azīz Maqbarī Mosque 86 Arrowmakers’ Mosque 89 Dūst Karābīsī Mosque 87, 89 Ḥarb Mosque 89 Jāmiʿ (Congregational) Mosque 4, 73 n. 21, 87, 123, 140, 157, 160–1 Maqbarī Mosque 88 (p.210) Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl’s Mosque 89 Mosque of the Tomb 74, 86 Muqannaʿ’s Mosque 89 Sharaf al-Dīn Mosque 89, 146 Shihāb b. Maʿmar Mosque 89 see also Ḥājjī Piyāda site mosques, other 62 n. 171, 85, 87 n. 75, 89, 95 mud brick, khisht 88, 90, 91 n. 91, 93, 99 mughān 78–9, 84 muḥaddith, see ḥadīth Muḥammad, the Prophet; see ʿAlids; ṣaḥāba; tābiʿūn Muḥammad b. Abān al-Balkhī 72, 171 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Naṣr al-Bisṭāmī 75, 173 Page 11 of 19

Index Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik, Abū Bakr al-Iskāfī (no. 57) 173 judgeship 175, 118 n. 28, 119 shrine 75 works by 51 Muḥammad b. Abī Muḥammad [b.] Abī al-Qāsim b. Abī al-Qaṣīr al-Balkhī 123, 131 n. 86, 173, 176 Muḥammad b. Abī Saḥl al-Sarakhsī, Abū Bakr 48, 148, 173 judgeship 118 n. 28 shrine 75 sources on 43 ṭabaqāt classification of 134 works 50 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad (b.) Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Balkhī 29, 51, 173 scholarship 123 shrine 72 Muḥammad b. ʿAḥmad al-Iskāfī, Abū Bakr (no. 47) 172 scholarly lineage 134, 178 shrine 75 works by 51 Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl (b. -Ṭalḥa) al-Azhar al-Balkhī 44, 123 n. 48, 172 Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl al-Balkhī 50, 53, 172, 177 Muḥammad b. Farrūkh (Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĪsā b. Ibrāhīm) 138, 171 Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl 75, 89, 171, 179 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Qalānisī al-Ashmaʿwarī 72 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī 42, 48, 122, 178 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Qalānisī al-Ashburghānī 123, 173 Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī 51 Muḥammad b. Mālik al-ʿArabī al-Balkhī 137, 171 Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Zhālī, Abū Jaʿfar 43, 72, 173 Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Khulmī 176 Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Salām al-Faqīh al-Balkhī 59, 108, 121, 172 Muḥammad b. al-Muʿtaṣim al-Marjānī 173 Muḥammad b. al-Qāḍī Abī Muṭīʿ 171, 145, 179 Muḥammad -Ṣalāḥ Siyāhgirdī Balkhī 38 Muḥammad b. Salama 134, 171 Muḥammad Sharīf b. Mullāh Ḥasan Khwāja al-Bukhārī 34 Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Warrāq al-Tirmidhī, Abū Bakr 172 scholarly lineage and studies 138 n. 116, 177 shrine 108 works by 26, 55 Muhammad b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī al-Najjār al-Ḍarīr al-Balkhī 75, 142, 173, 177 muʿīd 51 mujtahid, see ijtihād Muqannaʿ, see mosques muqātila 156 Muqātil b. Ḥayyān 116, 139, 141–2, 150, 156, 170 Muqātil b. Ḥumrān 88 n. 78 Muqātil b. Sulaymān 156, 170, 174 on fasting, rawza 125 n. 57 Page 12 of 19

Index namesake of Balkh street/district 99 Qurʾān scholarship 116 transmitter of ḥadīth on Balkh 73–4 teacher of Balkh’s jāmiʿ mosque 140 murjiʾa 114, 132 Mūsā b. Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī, Abū Sulaymān 50, 134, 137, 171, 178 mustamlī 51 Mutawakkil b. Ḥumrān 170 attributions to 73, 86, 93 family 145–6, 179 judgeship 88 n. 78, 118, 157–62, 174 muʿtazilism 44 mysticism, mystics 4, 11, 16 influences 123 n. 47 scholars, examples 28, 93 n. 98, 124, 127, 129 sources 41 n. 70, 52–5 terms 125 n. 53 Nāʿīn 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Nasaf (Nakhshab) 62, 149 Sayyid(-zāda) Imām Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Samarqandī 43, 176 n. 20 Nāṣir Khusraw 154 Naṣīr/Nuṣayr b. Yaḥyā (b. Muḥammad b. Shujāʿ) al-Balkhī 75, 121, 171 naskh, script 34 Naṣr b. Sayyār 87 n. 75, 128 n. 71, 150 n. 166 nastaʿlīq script 32–4 Naw Bahār Gate and Gateways 25, 72, 75, 98 ʿAbbāsid period 86, 158 ḥadīth on its sacredness 76–7 shrines located at 75, 91, 108, 144 ʿUmayyad period 77, 151, 153 Naw Bahār monastery and temple 77–8, 104, 105 administration and estates 6 buildings and site 13, 14, 99–102 estates 83 pre-Islamic, Buddhist religious site 78–83, 168 sacredness and conversion to Islam 83–4, 86, 169 ʿUmayyad period 84–5 see also Barmakids Naw-shād 90, 160–1; see also Banījūrids; Dāwūd b. al-ʿAbbās nazīla, genre 48–9 Nestorians, see Christianity; China nirvana 83 Nishapur: the city 95 n. 105, local histories 11, 12 n. 27, 18, 20, 22–3, 62, 67 ʿulamāʾ 115, 122 n. 44, 126–7, 137, 138 n. 116, 145, 148–9, 164, 174 n. 7 Nīzak -Ṭarkhān 6 n.12, 15 n. 33, 85 n. 62, 109, 128, 155 Niẓāmiyya, see madrasa nomadic peoples 5, 152 Nuh Gunbad(ān) 11, 88–90 Page 13 of 19

Index Old Testament, see biblical traditions Oxus, River 7–8, 71, 80 n. 47, 92, 96 n. 108, 154, 157 Pahlavi language 59, 60 palaces 81 n. 50, 85 n. 62, 87 n. 75, 90, 124, 157 n. 193, 160–1 Pakistan 19, 31 Pamir Mountains 7–8 Pandzikent 38 Panj r.sh 72, 88, 90–1 (p.211) patronage 150, 161–2 Persian (fārsī, pārsī): adaptations from Arabic 11, 18, 22–31, 166 historiography 17–18, 45–6, 59–69 speakers 16, 30–1, 86 Persianate 7, 19, 62, 118 piety, self-restraint, zuhd 52, 53, 54–5, 59, 86, 116, 124–7, 131, 140–1 pilgrimage 14, 105 guides 60–1, 68, 76, 79, 83 to Mecca ḥajj 102 see also shrines place studies 3 poetry and verse 30 n. 27, 41, 55–7, 126, 139–40 Posrednik, bookseller 35 n. 51 preaching, prayer 54, 65, 123–4 prisons 89, 122, 140, 156–7, 159 prophets; see biblical tradition; Iranian ancient traditions; Muḥammad prosopography, see biographies punya, merit 83 qāḍī (al-quḍāt), see Islamic law and justice Qarakhānids 6, 25 Qarakhitāy 6, 25 Qāsim (b.) Zurayq 47, 121, 145, 171, 179 queen, see women; Banījūrid quietism 150–2, 156 Qubādiyān 154 qubba, see dome Qum 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Qurʾān, Qurʾānic sciences 116–17 commentary tafsīr 49, 73 n. 21, 116–17, 144 phrases 73, 76–7 see also miḥna Qutayba b. Muslim, general 6, 15 n. 33, 85 n. 62, 93 n. 100, 109, 128, 155 Qutayba b. Saʿīd al-Baghlānī 87 n. 73, 89 n. 85, 171 rabaḍ 94, 95 n. 105, 95 n. 107, 98, 102 al-Rabīʿ b. Ziyād al-Ḥārithī 85 n. 62 rakʿa 70 rashīdūn, rightly-guided caliphs 154 n. 183 Rayy 103 n. 126, 149, 151 religious conversion, see Buddhism; Islamization; sacred space residence 75, 147–9 Resurrection (Day of) 69, 76, 93, 94 ribāṭ 127 Page 14 of 19

Index rijāl, see biographical dictionaries Rōb Khān 15 n. 33 rūm 9 Rūmān al-Balkhī 41, 44, 170 rural economy, see land issues Russian Academy of the Sciences (St Petersburg branch) 6, 7, 34–6 Russian Turkestan 35 Rūyān 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 sacred space and landscape 12–15 conversions and pacification 14, 16–18, 21, 92, 104–5, 109, 168 see also Balkh; shrines -Ṣaffārids 6–7, 161 n. 208 sage, see hakīm ṣaḥāba, Companions of the Prophet 130 of Balkh 87, 124 n. 51, 170 classification 41 n. 70, 45 of Gurgān 62 n. 171 of Samarqand 106 Saʿīd al-ʿĀlim al-Faqīh al-Balkhī 121, 172, 178 Saʿīd b. Jubayr 151 Saʿīd b. Khalaf b. Ayyūb 122 n. 46 Saʿīd al-Maqburī 43–4, 142, 170 Saʿīd b. Masʿada al-Mujāshiʿī al-Akhfash 130 Sālār Khalīl, see Baba Ḥātim Saljūqs 6 buildings 89, 106 n. 135, historiography 63 judges in Balkh 120–1, 163 Niẓām al-Mulk 26 n. 15, 121, 163 Shahāb al-Dīn Tekish, sultan of Balkh and -Ṭukhāristān 162–3 Sunnism 154 Salm b. Sālim 157, 170 samāʿ, teachings 43, 136, 177 n. 6 Samangān 15 n. 33 Sāmānids 6, 79, 119 n. 33, 120 n. 35, 131, 160–2 Abū ʿAlī Balʿamī, vizier 59, 63 Nūḥ b. Asad, governor 122, 161 n. 208, 162 Ismāʿīl I 90, 106 Samarqand: Bukhara Emirate 35 n. 47 city 87, 99, 144 n. 145 (p.212) contact with Balkh 8 local histories 11–12, 22, 50, 62, 67 Qarakhānid 103 Sāmānid 90 n. 89, 161 n. 207, 161 n. 208, 162 n. 212 scholars and shrines 59, 106, 147, 148, 149, 178 n. 15 Varakhsha palace 85 n. 62 Sanāʾī (Majdūd b. Ādam al-Ghaznawī) 55–7, 126 Sarakhs 56 n. 139, 147–8 Page 15 of 19

Index Sarandīb, Ceylon 69 sar-i tall, see Balkh; sacred space Sasanians 5, 8, 59 Saturday ritual 108 Sayrām, see Isfījāb seven, and its multiples (numeric power) 29, 76, 79, 108, 111, 144 Shabānkāra 11 n. 27, 62 n. 169 Shaddād al-Ḥakīm/Ḥukaym 171 judgeship 50, 59, 142, 158–9, 175 n. 7, 175 shrine 108 sources 43 ṭabaqāt classification 134 Shāfiʿī 53 Shāhnāma, Firdawsī’s Book of Kings 9, 60, 131 Shahr-i Sabz 35 Shahristān 94, 96, 102 Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm al-Balkhī 170 Buddhist contacts 125 as ghāzī, fighter-saint 128 as mystic, zāhid and Sufi 11, 124, 129, 157 scholarly lineage 129, 136, 177 sources 53, 54 wealth 125, 140 Shariati, Ali 36–7 Shaybānids 38, 164 shaykh, title 20–1, 116 shaykh al-Islām, title 123–4 Shihāb b. Maʿmar 89, 122, 140, 171 Shīʿite 42, 110, 154 shrine: architecture and decoration 11, 14, 14, 15 & 17, 80–1 as metaphor 43, 69, 71 as sacred space 2, 17–18, 20–1, 60, 68, 70–88, 92, 95, 99, 102, 104, 165, 168–9 terms to denote 81 visitation 14, 17 n. 37, 25, 55, 106–10, 137, 148–9, 153–4, 161 see also pilgrimage; sacred space; stupa silk road 102 Silla, Korea 15 Sīstān 69 n. 3, 98 n. 112, 151 scholars 147 sources 12 n. 27, 60–3 Sīyāhgird 148 slaves 56 n. 141, 83, 103, 139 stucco decoration 81, 88, 90 stūpa 80, 82–3, 90–1, 99, 102, 169; see also Naw Bahār Sufism, see mysticism 4, 9 sugar(-candy) 99 n. 116, 102 Sultan Muḥammad b. Darwīsh Muḥammad al-Muftī al-Balkhī 38, 78 n. 36 sunna, see ḥadīth Page 16 of 19

Index Sunnī 110, 152 n. 117, 154–5 syncretism 15 ṭabaqāt see biographical dictionaries -Ṭabaristān 11 n. 27, 62–3 tābiʿūn (successors to Companions of the Prophet): of Balkh 44, 87 n. 71, 150, 155–6, 170, 174 n. 5 of Gurgān 62 n. 171 ḥadīth authorities 74 of Hamadān 45–6 ṭabaqāt classification 41 tafsīr, see Qurʾān -Ṭāhirids 6, 122 n. 42, 136, 159–60, 162 n. 212 Tāj al-Dīn, son of Muḥammad al-Zāhid al-Balkhī 26 Tajikistan 8, 25, 129 Takht-i Rustam, see Naw Bahār -Ṭāliqān 179 tārīkh genre 43 -Ṭayyiba 153 taxes 122 n. 42, 157 kharāj (land tax) 160 tāzī, see Arabic Tepe Rustam, see Naw Bahār Tepe Zargarān 95–7, 104; see also Gushtāsp thuluth script 32 Tibet 13–14, 80 n. 46, 104–5, Pl. 16 Tīmūrids 1, 6, 31, 38, 95 n. 106, 99, 110 n. 149, Pl. 15 (p.213) Tirmidh 8, 71, 81 n. 51, 108, 129, 149–50, 152–3, 157 trade and mercantilism 4, 102–3, 129, 141–2 traditionist, see ḥadīth translation, see Arabic; Persian Transoxania, mā warāʿ al-nahr 24–5 -Ṭukhāristān 15, 71 n. 13, 77, 79, 83 n. 58, 150 n. 166, 162 Turkestan Governorate-General 35 Turkistān 8, 79, 102–3, 125 Turkey 14, 108; see also Anatolia Turkmenistan 5, 8 ʿUbayd Allāh b. Abī Bakr b. Abī Saʿīd 172 ʿulamāʾ, religious scholars 18–21 affiliations with madhhab 132–8 relations with political rulers 150–63 relationship with place 147–9 socio-economic background 139–147 scholarly characteristics 129–32 see also Islamic law and justice; preaching; ḥadīth; hakīm; madrasa; zuhd ʿUmar b. Hārūn al-Balkhī 170 ʿUmar Khayyām 56, 126 ʿUmar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ 170 judgeship 118, 145 n. 152, 174 piety 126 n. 62, 142 n. 134 Page 17 of 19

Index Umayyads (in Balkh) 20, 25, 77, 84, 87, 98, 127, 139, 150, 155–6 Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qasrī, governor 141 n. 128 Al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf, governor 151 Al-Ḥārith b. Surayj 151 n. 171 Qutayba, general 15 n. 33, 93 n. 100, 109 Naṣr b. Sayyār, governor 87 n. 75, 128 n. 71, 150 n. 166 ʿUmar (II) b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, caliph 151 Umm ʿAlī (Fāṭima) al-Balkhī 143–4, 179; see also Aḥmad b. Khiḍrawayh umma 154–5 ʿUthmān al-Ghaznawī al-Shilgharī al-Maqrī 75, 173 Uzbekistan 8–9, 76, 129 Vishtāspa, see Gushtāsp wāʿiẓ, see preaching waqf 103, 141 n. 128, 159 n. 199 al-Wāqidī, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar 44–5, 58 n. 154 Wāshgird 25, 71, 107, 127, 128, 148, 149 water, water systems 5, 13, 38, 93, 141 n. 128 channels and canals of Balkh 70, 76, 78, 84, 99, 160 management 122, n. 42 watermelons 73 women: rulers 160–1 scholars, 143–4 Wusaym/Wasīm b. Jamīl al-Thaqafī 75, 108, 124, 170 Wutai, Mount 105 n. 132 Yaḥyā Gate, see Balkh Yaḥyā b. Khālid al-Barmakī, see Barmakids Yaḥyā b. Muʿādh al-Rāzī 54, 57 Yaḥya b. Salm (or Salama) 156 Yaʿqūb al-Layth, see -Ṣaffārids Yaʿqūb al-Qārī 42, 170 as Balkh’s faqīh 121 n. 41 shrine 75 sources 54 as zāhid 124, 157 Yazd 11 n. 27 Yūḥannā b. Māsawayh, physician 130–1 Yumgān, Badakhshān 154 Yūnus b. Ṭāhir al-Nuṣayrī al-Balkhī 148, 172 advisor to Ghaznawid sultan 162 as shaykh al-Islām 123 shrine 87, 88 n. 77 works 42 Zayd b. Nuʿaym al-Muʿabbir 130 Ziyād b. -Ṣāliḥ al-Khuzāʿī 77, 151 ziyāra, see pilgrimage Zoroastrians, Zoroastrianism 4, 16 Bundahishn 60 see also Avesta; mughān zuhd, zāhid see mysticism; piety (p.214) Page 18 of 19

Index

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Plates

Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh Arezou Azad

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199687053 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687053.001.0001

Plates

Plate 1. The image depicts Tīmūr (Tamerlane) receiving envoys during his 771/1370 attack on Balkh. Depicted in a manuscript dated 1008/1599 of Mīrkhwānd’s (d. 903/1498) Rawḍat alṣafāʾ (‘Garden of Purity’). I thank Dr Page 1 of 13

Plates Muhammad Isa Waley of the British Library for providing me with the information on this miniature. (British Library Board, Or. 5736, 37b)

Plate 2. The mountainous terrain around Balkh. (Azad, 2009).

Plate 3. The ancient walls of Balkh. (Azad, 2009).

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Plates

Plate 4. Facsimile of Persan‐115 (Paris), fol. 1a, fifteenth century AD.(Bibliothèque nationale de France).

Plate 5. Persan‐115, fol. 1a, and explanatory note by eighteenth-century French librarian Armain. The spillage on both the manuscript and the note Page 3 of 13

Plates indicates that the damage probably happened in France. (Bibliothèque nationale de France).

Plate 6. Facsimile of C453‐3 (St Petersburg), fol. 211b, nineteenth century AD. Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia.

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Plates

Plate 7. Fascimile of C453‐1 (St Petersburg), fol. 3a, nineteenth century AD. Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia.

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Plates

Plate 8. (a) Modern display of Balkh’s saints in Mazār-i Sharīf, the capital of Balkh Province, (b) the prominent place of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh on this plaque indicates its continued relevance as a historical source. (Azad, 2009).

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Plates

Plate 9. The author of the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh credits the Iranian mythical King Gushtāsp for having built Balkh and claims he was buried on Balkh’s Tall-i Gushtāsp (today’s Tepe Zargarān?). (King Gushtāsp on His Th rone [309v], from Shāhnāma [The Book of Kings] by Abū ‘l Qāṣim Firdawsī [d. 1020]; Calligrapher: Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ibrāhīm, Mughal period, 1602 AD [text], 19th century paintings, ink, opaque, watercolour, silver and gold on paper, 13 3/4 × 8 1/4 in [34.9 × 21 cm]).

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Plates

Plate 10. The Shrine of Bābā Ḥātim: A prototype for FB’s Shrines? (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan).

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Plates

Plate 11. (a) The ‘Nuh Gunbad’ (Ḥajjī Piyāda) of Balkh, (b) with detail. (Azad, 2009).

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Plate 12. Medieval Balkh City archaeological excavations and features. (Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project, University of Oxford, 2013).

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Plates

Plate 13. Tepe Rustam or the ancient Naw Bahār Temple of Balkh. (Azad, 2009).

Plate 14. (a) Exterior of one of several post-Tīmūrid shrines around the Naw Bahār, (b) interior. (Azad, 2009).

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Plates

Plate 15. Tīmūrid shrine of Abū Naṣr Pārsā (d. 864 or 865/1459–60 or 61). (Azad, 2009).

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Plates

Plate 16. Tibetan mandala suggested to depict a place in northern Afghanistan. (Homeland of Tonpa Shenrab, Olmo Lungring, Tibet, nineteenth century. Pigments on cloth, 47 1/2 × 36 1/4 in. [120.7 × 92.1 cm], Rubin Museum of Art, C2006.66.617 [HAR 200040]).

Plate 17. The Shrine of ʿAlī at Mazār-i Sharīf. (Shahrooz Badkoubei, 2009).

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