Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

International Society of Iranian Studies

Review
Author(s): Devin J. Stewart
Review by: Devin J. Stewart
Source: Iranian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 271-275
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society of Iranian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311818
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Reviews271

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

Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire, Rula

Jurdi Abisaab, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004, ISBN 1-86064-970-X,xii + 219 pp.,
bibliography, index.
This is the first monograph in a European language to treat the influx of religious
scholars from the traditionally Shiite region Jabal 'Amil-now
in southern
Lebanon to the officially Shiite Safavid Empire (1501-1722) and their influence
on Iranian intellectual and political history. It is a very ambitious work, attempting to weave the data concerning this particular topic into a general political and
intellectual history of Safavid Iran, something quite difficult to accomplish given
the state of the field. It follows a rough chronological arrangement that is not
transparent from the chapter titles, with one exception. After a short introduction
(pp. 1-6), chapter one, "Sufi Regalia and Legal Banners: The Safavids and the
Emigre Arab Jurists" (pp. 7-30), treats the reign of Shah Isma'il I (1501-24).
Chapter two, "The Mujtahids Navigate the Sovereign's World" (pp. 31-52),
treats the reigns of Shah Tahmasb (1524-76), Isma'il 11 (1576-78), and Muhammad Khudabandah (1 578-87). Chapter three, "Shah 'Abbas and Imperial Reign as
Clerical Discipline, 1587-1629 (pp. 53-86), focuses on the reign of Shah Abbas I
(1587-1629). Chapter four, "Safavid Mistrust, Popular Protest and the Rationalists' Retreat" (pp. 89-120), treats the reigns of Shah Safi (1629-42) and Shah
Abbas 11 (1642-66). Chapter five, "The Rediscovery of Traditions and the Shifting Normative" (pp. 121-138), treating the reigns of Sulayman (1666-94) and
Sultan-Husayn (1694-1722). Conclusions (pp. 139-46). In addition, the work
includes maps of Safavid Iran (p. xi) and Jabal Amil (p. xii) and three useful
appendices that give an overview of the relevant scholars, their activities and

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272 Reviews

writings: Appendix I, "The'Amili Ulama of Safavid Iran, 1501-1736 C.E.

(pp. 147-52, arranged chronologically), Appendix II: Posts and Activities of
the Emigre Amili Ulama (pp. 153-55), Appendix III. The Intellectual Production
of the Emigre Amili Ulama (pp. 156-73, arranged by topic).
This work draws on, revises, and extends the work of a number of other monographs written on the topic over the last two decades, including most notably the
works of Muruwwah and Muhajir. The main results do not differ much overall,
but greater detail and nuance has been brought to the topic. Abisaab's examination of the sources reveals 158 Amili scholars who were first, second, or third
generation emigrants (p. 9 and Appendix I). The' Amili immigrants filled particular niches in the Safavid system, particularly serving in posts as officials in the
judiciary, teachers/professors in Arabic and the religious sciences, prayerleaders, and so on. They worked to become integrated into the social order in
which they lived, forging alliances with Persian notables and the Safavid military
elite. They were particularly useful to the Shah's government because of their
ability to counter Ottoman and Uzbek propaganda and bolster the legitimacy
of the Safavid state in religious terms, notably through the justification of the
land-tax, holding Friday prayer, and war against Christian territories as well as
neighboring Sunni powers. Their translation and abridgment of major Shiite
texts and their dissemination of Shiite religious heritage in general exercised a
profound effect on the intellectual history of Iran.
The study emphasizes the lives and careers of nine jurists:'Ali b.-Abd aliAli alKaraki (d. 940/1533), Husayn b. Abd al-Samad alkAmili (d. 984/1576), Husayn
al-Mujtahid (d. 1001/1592), Baha' al-Din allAmili (d. 1030/1621), Mir Damad
(d. 1041/1631-32) [can set exactly], Ahmad b. Zayn al Abidin (d. 1054/1644),
Lutf Allah al-Maysi (d. 1032/1622-23),'Ali b. Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Zayn
and Muhammad al-Hurr
al-Din albAmili "al-Shahidi" (d. 1103-4/1691),
alkAmili (d. 1099/1688). The main contributions of the work are the following.
First it makes available a chronological list of the scholars involved in the
Amili migration together with an accounting of the positions they held and the
main works they wrote, invaluable for an assessment of their overall impact on
the political, religious, and intellectual history of the period. Second, it provides
a narrative of this movement that ties it in with political and social historical
developments of the empire, providing more nuance and greater detail than
has been available in a European language to date. Third, it presents new analyses
of several important works, many unpublished, by the nine scholars mentioned
above, including polemical treatises against Sufism by' Ali al-Karaki and Ali alShahidi (al-Matdin al-mujrimiyyafi al-radd ala al-Sufiyya, p. 24 and al-Siham almariqabmin aghrada1-.anadiqah,p. 110), 'Ali al-Karaki's treatise on the cursing
the Companions of the Prophet (Nafahat al-labutfldn al-jibt wa'l-taghut,p. 27),
Husayn al-Karaki's treatises on the death of Umar b. al-Khattab (pp. 46-47),
Baha' al-Din alkAmili's treatise on the illegality of eating meat slaughtered by
Jews and Christians (Tabrim dhaba'ihahl al-kitab, pp. 64-67), and Lutf Allah alMaysi's treatise on the practice of pious retreat (a/-Itikafiyya,pp. 83- 85).

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Reviews273

Appendix III, on intellectual production, lists works by Amili immigrant scholars, grouped together by topics (156). While this provides a general sense of the
kinds of works these authors produced, it is unfortunately not as helpful as a
guide to future avenues of research as might have been the case, for it does not
give information on which of these works is actually extant or published and
does not cite the sources that mention these works. Furthermore, the titles are
not translated, so that it is often difficult to discern their significance. The title
al-Fara'id al-Nusayriyya is listed as one of the legal works of al-Muhaqqiq alHilli (d. 676/1277) (p. 156). Mira Damad's work Ta'wil al-muqtdat... (p. 167)
should be al-muqattdat,the "mysterious letters with which twenty-nine surahs
of the Qur'an begin. This should be al-Fara'id al-nasiriyya,a work by Nasir alDin al-Tusi on inheritance law. There are a number of typographical and tansliteration errors, particularly with geminated consonants. "Peculiar sciences"
('ulum ghariba) (p. 173) should be "Occult sciences."
The text suggest that al-Majlisi's major encyclopedia of Shiite lore, Bihar alanwar "Seas of Light," is written in Persian: "The Persian form of the traditions
and their storytelling element gave Seas of Light distinct popularity. ... The
spread of this devotional literature was also achieved through Persianization.
Mailisi questioned the hegemonic role of Arabic as the language of creed, jurisprudence and law" (p. 129).... "Eschatological images and visual representations
of heaven and hell in Muhammad Baqir Majlisi's Seas of Light, delivered in Persian
rather than Arabic, gained the favor of an undiscriminating readership" (p. 137).
Biharal-anwarcontains occasional texts in Persian, but is written almost entirely in
Arabic; it must have been confused here with another work.
The independent, officially Shiite Qutbshah kingdom centered in Hyderabad
in the Deccan is conflated with that of the Mughals. Speaking of Husayn
b. Abd al-Samad al-'Amili,

she comments,

"...

Husayn expressed a widespread

view that the wealtheir Mughal court offered greater material rewards for
scholars than the Safavid one" (p. 41). Husayn likely had the Qutbshah
kingdom in mind as a possible destination rather than the Mughals, particularly
given that his son-in-law Muhammad b. -Ali b. Khatun became an prominent
scholar and official there. Abisaab notes that the amicable relations between
the Safavid Empire and the Mughal Empire benefited Ibn Khatun's career,
when it was actually the Shiite ideology of the Qutbshahs. Of this scholar
Abisaab writes, "Muhammad b. Khwatun made his way to the Mughal vizierate
and wrested the functions of court secretary (munshi'al-mulk) of the principality
of Golkonda in the Deccan (1020-1083/1626-1672CE)"
(p. 61). She adds that
he led "a delegation to the Shah expressing Mughal vows of friendship and
gifts" (p. 61). Ibn Khatun was a prominent figure under Qutb-Shahs Muhammad
b. Muhammad-Quli (1020-35/1612-26)
and Abd Allah (1035-83/1626-72),
and being appointed
serving as ambassador to the Safavids in 1027-29/1618-20
grand vizier in 1038/1628. Golconda was not a Mughal principality, but the
capital of the Qutbshahi kingdom. The date for the beginning of Qutbshahi
rule given here is also wrong; it should be (15??-1083/1672). Abisaab gives

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274 Reviews

the death date of Ibn Khatun as ca. 1111/1699 (p. 61), which is much too late; it
presumably occurred in the mid-seventeenth century. At one point, Abisaab
gives examples of Amili sons of the clerical aristocracy who assumed political
and administrative posts in both the provinces and the capital city. This is a
valid point and indicates, as she rightly points out, a degree of integration into
the Iranian elite that the prominent figures of earlier generations did not
enjoy. However, she cites two examples that have to do with the Qutbshahi
dynasty and not the Safavids at all: Muhammad b. Ali b. Khatun, mentioned
above, became vizier in Hyderabad and Jamal al-Din b. Nur al-Din' Ali al'Amili al-Jubai (d. 1098/1686) became a sadr, also in Hyderabad. (p. 96). At
another point, she notes that Nur al-Din' Ali dedicated his work Al-Shavabid
al-Makiyya [> Makkiyya] to the sultan "Qutbshah" (p. 106). The name of the
ruler in question is not Qutbshah, but'Abd Allah.
The work contains some minor errors and infelicities. It is stated that the Portuguese commander Albuquerque recaptured Hormuz in 921/1515 and concluded a treaty with Shah Ismail II (p. 79), when this must be Ismail I. The
verb "overlook" is used regularly when "oversee" is intended: "The Portuguese
owned and overlooked the islands for 80 years" (p. 80). The terms theology and
theologians are used when jurists and Islamic law would be more appropriate:
"theologians" (pp. 16, 21, 139); "professors of theology" (p. 9); "theological questions ;" "lectureship post in theology" (p. 81); theological college (p. 83). The
madrasab,a college of Islamic law, is called simply "school" (pp. 83, 84, 87).
What was apparently owlad in original Persian texts is translated "children"
when the meaning is clearly "sons" exclusively, as in references to one of the
sons of the shaykhal-islam being appointed to a post, or an official's sons being
blinded or executed (p. 97, 101, 105). The title of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi's
(d. 1036/1626-27) major work, the Akhbari manefsto al-Fawa'id al-madaniyyah,is
inadvertently referred to as Safinat al-Najat (pp. 106, 144), the title of a later
Akhbari work by Muhsin Fayd al-Kashani (p. 27). The practice of public
cursing of the Prophet's Companions is referred to as tabarraiyan (p. 27), when
that term refers to the professional cursers; the practice itself is tabarraor
tabarri. It is stated that "Al-Hurr was the first to compile the Prophetic traditions
(ahadithqudsiyya)in his work Al-Jawahir al-Saniyya"(p.131). A Hadith qudsi is not
a prophetic hadith, but a hadith which purports to convey divine speech. Al-Hurr
was not the first in Islamic history to write such a work, but the first in the
Twelver tradition. Abisaab reports that between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, the main center of Twelver learning shifted from Hilla, to Karbala, to
Najaf, to Mosul, to Jabal Amil (p. 11), but it is unclear why Mosul belongs in
this list. In some cases, two distinct scholars have been confused. Abisaab
reports that one of al-Karaki's sons, named Taj al-Din' Abd alkAli, acquired the
title Mir Sayyid Ali (pp. 55, 192 n. 21). This does not make sense, because alKaraki was not a sayyid, and his son could not aquire the title without faking
his genealogy. The scholar whom Abisaab intended, Mir Seyyed Ali al-Khatib
al-Astarabadi, a leading proponent against Shah Ismail II's "Sunni" reforms,

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Reviews 275

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

Devin J. Stewart
Emory University

Gottfried Herrmann, Wiesbaden:

Persisebe
Urkunden der Mongolenzeit,
Harrassowitz Verlag (Documenta Iranica et Islamica, Band 2), 2004, ISBN 3-44704901-4, 205 pp. (text) + 199 pp. (b&w photos), bibliography, indices (nominal,
geographical, technical).
Rapacity, indifference, and capriciousness are attitudes most commonly associated with the Mongol Ilkhans and their successor dynastic brethren (Jalayarids,
Chubanids) during the 13th and 14th centuries. There is little contesting that
the medieval Persian-speaking world faced startling depopulation, iron-fisted
taxation, and agricultural ruination as the Mongols consolidated their rule after
Hulegu's invasions in the 1250's. Less-discussed perhaps is their sponsorship of
and propinquity to popular Sufi tariqabs and how such organizations provided
an invaluable intermediary function between the ecumenical Mongols and their
predominantly Muslim subject population. Court-hermitage (dargah-khanqah)
relationships grew in number and intensity during this period, and the Mongol
decision to establish successive imperial capitals in northwest Iran Maragha,
Tabriz and Sultaniyya-so as to better access the ideal steppe conditions of
Azarbaijan brought them into close proximity with a seedling, yet influential,
group of mystics based in the town of Ardabil: the Safavids. It is the administrative and bureaucratic dynamics of this relationship which comprise Gottfried
Herrmann's meticulous and formidable study, PersiscbeUrkundender Mongolen!eit.
A well-noted documentary historian and paleographer of the medieval period,
Herrmann explains in his introduction that the roots of this project lay originally
in the 1971 -discovery of hundreds of Persian documents in the Porcelain Room
(chin-khana)of the Safavid shrine at Ardabil. Portions of this archival largesse
have since been studied by Morton, Gronke, Doerfer, and the author himself,
but this is the first attempt to systematically edit, publish, and evaluate twentyeight original "public" decrees (as opposed to private correspondence) which
had been preserved from the Ilkhanid and Jalayarid periods. Herrmann brings
a strong sense of typology to this study, dividing the book between a lengthy
section on understanding such documents ("Zum Urkundenwesen der
Mongolenzeit"), the presentation of the texts themselves (with transcriptions,
translations, commentaries), and an Appendix of glossy black and white facsimiles. The documents are broadly divided into three categories: royal
and administrative
(Herrscher-Urkunden), financial (Diwan-Urkunden),
(Beamten-Urkunden), although these can be further subdivided based on respective ontologies (GroBdiwan-Urkunden, Behorden-Urkunden). To provide a

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