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Notes on Timurid Legitimacy in Three Safavid Chronicles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sholeh A. Quinn
Sholeh A. Quinn*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Ohio University
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Extract

In his Study on Afsharid Historiography, Ernest Tucker has Shown that Nadir Shah's chroniclers depicted him as the restorer of the Safavid dynasty, and appealed to notions of Safavid legitimacy in their histories. One chronicler, Muhammad Kazim Marvi, accomplished this partly by relating how Nadir Shah found a tablet (lawḥ) upon which Timur had inscribed instructions for Nadir Shah. Although Marvi was predominantly appealing to Safavid legitimacy, in the process he also linked Nadir's name with Timur. Laurence Lockhart notes a number of similarities between Nadir and Timur, indicating instances where Nadir seems to have modeled his reign on Timur's. These include (1) Nadir's naming his grandson Shahrukh, (2) Nadir's wife and Timur's daughter-in-law (wife of Shahrukh) both sharing the same name, Gawhar Shad, and (3) Nadir's use of certain Timurid military tactics.

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Articles
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Iranian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 2: Historiography and Representation in Safavid and Afsharid Iran , Spring 1998, pp. 149 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1998

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Footnotes

This paper was first presented at the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting in 1996, in Providence, Rhode Island. It synthesizes material from two previous articles that I have written (see below), and is a small portion of a forthcoming monograph on Safavid historiography. I am grateful to Rudi Matthee for organizing the papers to be published, and to the other panelists, Rudi Matthee, Rosemary Stanfield-Johnson, and Ernest Tucker; the panel chair, John Emerson; and the panel discussant, Kathryn Babayan, for an outstanding session. Maria Szuppe's “L'évolution de l'image de Timour et des Timourides dans l'historiographie safavide du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle,” in Cahiers d'Asie centrale, no. 3-4 (1997): 313-31, was brought to my attention after this present essay was already accepted for publication. I have therefore been unable to incorporate its conclusions into this article.

References

1. Tucker, Ernest “Explaining Nadir Shah: Kingship and Royal Legitimacy in Muhammad Kazim Marvi's Tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi Nādirī,” Iranian Studies 26 (1993): 95-115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. See Marvi, Muhammad Kazim Tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi Nādirī, 3 vols., ed. Riyahi, Muhammad Amin (Tehran: Intisharat-i cilmi, 1995), 1:14—15.Google Scholar

3. See Lockhart, Laurence Nadir Shah (London: Luzac, 1938), 80-81Google Scholar; 138. I am grateful to Ernest Tucker for bringing some of these points to my attention.

4. I am grateful to Kathryn Babayan for bringing this detail to my attention. See Munshi, Iskandar Beg and Yusuf, Muhammad Ẕayl-i tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi cAbbāsī, ed. Suhayl Khwansari (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-i Islamiyah, 1317/1938), 129-30.Google Scholar

5. This, of course, is a highly simplified appraisal. For a more nuanced discussion of this topic, see Arjomand, Said The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shicite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 178-87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 180-82.

6. “It took the form of a summons to ‘those loyal to the king,’ the royalists. It seems that in this way reliable elements among the Qizilbash were identified and then probably reorganized into fresh military units.” Roemer, Hans R. ‘The Safavid Period,” in Jackson, Peter and Lockhart, Laurence eds., Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 264-65.Google Scholar

7. For a detailed discussion of the evolution of Imami legitimacy, see Babayan, Kathryn “The Waning of the Qizilbash: The Temporal and the Spiritual in Seventeenth Century Iran” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1993).Google Scholar

8. Munshi Qummi, Qazi Ahmad Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, 2 vols., ed. Ishraqi, Ihsan (Tehran: Danishgah-i Tihran, 1363/1984), 5-6.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Khulāṣat. For a more detailed discussion of Qazi Ahmad's preface and several others, see Quinn, Sholeh A. “The Historiography of Safavid Prefaces,” in Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society, ed. Melville, Charles (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 1 — 25.Google Scholar

9. For an analysis of this dream narrative in a number of Safavid chronicles, see Quinn, Sholeh A. “The Dreams of Shaykh Safi al-Din and Safavid Historical Writing,” Iranian Studies 29 (1996): 127-47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Khwand Amir, Amir Mahmud b. Īrān dar rūzgār-i Shāh Ismācīl wa Shāh Ṭahmāsp, ed. Tabatabai, Ghulam Riza (Tehran: Bunyad-i mawqufat-i Duktur Mahmud Afshar, 1370/1991), 35.Google Scholar Amir Mahmud interprets the dream to mean, “The rising of the sun of kingship and the unsheathing of the blood-shedding sword of a ruler, who is the [true] protector of the caliphate. For it is apparent to all that this sun of the constellation of the sultanate has arisen from the horizon of the progeny of that heaven of the imamate, and that this world-conquering blade has come into existence through the spiritual assistance of that manifestation of magnanimity, and likewise that this resplendent crown, which has been placed on the brow of that king of East and West, has been sent forth from the treasure house of his bestowals.” See Quinn, “Dreams of Shaykh Safi,” 143-47, for full translations of numerous versions of the dream narrative.

11. Khulāṣat, 12.

12. See Tihrani, Abu Bakr Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya, ed. Lugal, Necati and Sumer, Faruk (Ankara, 1962-64), 11.Google Scholar

13. Qazi Ahmad Ghaffari Qazvini Kashani, Nusakh-i jahān-ārā, ed. Naraqi, Hasan (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-i Hafiz, 1342/1963), 261.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Jahān-ārā.

14. Khulāṣat, 32.

15. For more informaton on this episode, see Horst, Heribert Timur und Hogä cAli: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Safawiden, Abhandlungen der geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, 2 (Mainz: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1958).Google Scholar

16. Khulāṣat, 32-33.

17. John E. Woods has listed, according to the early Timurid sources, the important religious individuals and shrines that Timur visited around this time. They number nearly thirty, and none of them are Safavid. Personal communication from John E. Woods.

18. Khulāṣat, 909.

19. Qazi Ahmad says that Yacqub Khan was an enemy of Islam because he destroyed the graves of Muslims between Jacfarabad and Musalla, and used the stones for the wall (ḥiṣār) of the fortress, the building of which was completed in a few days. Khulāṣat, 909.

20. Ibrahim Sultan was Timur's grandson, who was appointed governor of Fars by his father Shahrukh.

21. Munshi Qummi, Qazi Ahmad Gulistān-i hunar, trans, by Minorsky, V. as Calligraphers and Painters, with an introduction by Zakhoder, B. N. Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Papers, vol. 3, no. 2 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1959), 69-70.Google Scholar The Persian edition of this text does not include this portion of the narrative; Minorsky's translation utilizes a different manuscript. For a discussion of the different manuscript and edited versions of this work, see Porter, Yves “Notes sur le Golestan-e Honor de Qazi Ahmad Qomi,” Studia Iranica 17 (1988): 207-23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Nizam, Siyaqi Futūḥāt-i humāyūn, ed., trans., and ann. by Adle, Chahryar as “Fotuhat-e homayun: ‘Les Victoires augustes,’ 1007/1598” (Ph.D. diss., University of Paris, 1976), 334.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Futūḥāt.

23. This is not apparently the case; Timur was actually quite aware and concerned with whether or not the time was auspicious. Personal communication, John E. Woods.

24. Futūḥāt, 334.

25. Futūḥāt, 334.

26. Munshi, Iskandar Beg Tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi cAbbāsī, ed. Afshar, Iraj 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1350/1971), 373.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as TAAA. See also Munshi, Iskandar Beg History of Shah cAbbas the Great, trans. Savory, Roger 2 vols., Persian Heritage Series 28 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978), 544Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Savory.

27. Savory, 519;TAAA, 1102.

28. One of Khwajah cAli's dervish appearances was only as a vision.

29. Savory, 28;TAAA, 16.

30. See Horst, 47, and Islam, Riazul Indo-Persian Relations: A Study of the Political and Diplomatic Relations between the Mughul Empire and Iran (Tehran: Īrānian Cultural Foundation, 1970), 191.Google Scholar

31. See Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian Relations, 189-90, and Islam, Riazul A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500-1750), 2 vols., (Tehran: Iranian Cultural Foundation; Karachi: Institute of Central and West Asian Studies, 1979), 1:144.Google Scholar

32. I am grateful to Dr. Giorgio Rota for bringing this point to my attention.

33. TAAA, 647; Savory, 837-38.

34. cĀlamcārā-yi Ṣafavī, ed. Shukri, Yad Allah (Tehran: Intisharat-i bunyad-i farhang-i Iran, 1350/1971), 18-25Google Scholar; Pirzadah Zahidi, Shaykh Husayn Silsilat al-nasab al-Ṣafavīyah, ed. Kazimzadah, (Berlin: Iranschahr, 1924), 46-48.Google Scholar

35. See Szuppe, Maria Entre Timourides, Uzbeks et Safavides: questions d'histoire politique et sociale de Hérat dans la première moitié du XVIe siècle (Paris: Association pour l'avancemerit des études iraniennes, 1992), 147-48.Google Scholar

36. See Fleischer, Cornell Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 273-92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Imber, Colin “Ideals and Legitimation in Early Ottoman History,” in Kunt, Metin and Woodhead, Christine eds., Suleyman the Magnificent and His Age: The Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern World, (London: Longman, 1995), 138-53.Google Scholar

37. See Streusand, Douglas E. The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 129-31.Google Scholar