Literary History of Persia

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Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh, completed in A.D. 1577, only about a year after the death of Shah Ṭahmásp, whose reign together with that of his father and predecessor Sháh Isma‘íl, the founder of the dynasty, it records ; and the Ta’ríkh-i-‘Álam-árá-yi-‘Abbásí, an immense monograph on the reign of Sháh ‘Abbás the Great. Not one of these has been published⁷,much less translated, and all except the last are very rare even in manuscript. Of the Nasab-náma and the ‘Álam-árá I am fortunate enough to possess copies which formerly belonged to the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler, while the incomparable generosity of Mr. A. G. Ellis placed at my disposal manuscripts of the two other histories mentioned above. And though the authors of later general histories in Persian, such as Riḍá-qulí Khán in his supplement to Mírkhwánd’s Rawḍatu’s-Ṣafá, have made use of some of these works, they too often not merely abridge but grievously distort the passages they cite.

Of such wanton distortion the following is a good instance. In July, A.D. 1599, Sháh ‘Abbás the Great sent to Europe a mission accredited to the Courts of Russia Poland, Germany, France, Spain, England and Scotland, and to the Pope of Rome and the Seniory of Venice. This mission included Ḥusayn ‘Alí Beg⁸ as Persian Envoy, with four Persian gentlemen or “knights” (caballeros, as they are called in Don Juan of Persia’s narrative), fifteen Persian servants, the celebrated Sir Anthony Sherley with fifteen English attendants, two Portuguese friars, and five interpreters.

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Travelling by way of the Caspian Sea and the Volga, they first visited Moscow, where they remained for five or six months; thence through Germany to Italy, where they were not permitted to go to Venice for fear of offending an Ottoman envoy who happened to be there at the time, but were well received at Rome, where they arrived in April, 1601, and remained for two months. Thence they proceeded by ship from Genoa to the south of France and so to Spain, where three of the four “Persian knights” adopted the Catholic faith and took the names of Don Philippe, Don Diego and Don Juan of Persia.

Sir Anthony Sherley, whose relations with his Persian colleague had from the first been very strained, separated himself from the mission at Rome, but up to that point the independent accounts written by himself and some of his companions⁹ enable us to check Don Juan’s narrative. Don Juan, however, having apostasized from Islám, dared not return to Persia to meet the fate of a renegade, so that for the tragic sequel we must turn to the Persian historians. In the ‘Álam-árá-yi-‘Abbásí under the year 1022/1613-4¹⁰ we find an account of the arrival at Iṣfahán of ambassadors from the King of Spain, accompanied by several Christian priests and a Persian envoy returning from Europe¹¹. The latter, who had incurred the Sháh’s displeasure, was incontinently put to death in the most cruel manner, without being permitted any opportunity for explanation or apology; and the Sháh then explained to the Spaniards that he had dealt thus with him because of sundry treasonable and disrespectful acts of

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which he had been guilty during his mission, such as opening letters sealed with the royal seal and making known their contents; wearing mourning on the occasion of the Queen of Spain’s death; and selling the credentials to the Pope with which he had been provided to a merchant who should impersonate him and derive what profit he could from the transaction. “But,” the Sháh concluded, “the chief of his faults and the chief reason for his punishment was that he behaved so ill towards the attendants who accompanied him, and vexed them so much, that several of them adopted the Christian faith and remained in Europe in order to escape from his tyranny, so that zeal for Islám required his punishment, and thus he received his deserts.”

Turning now to Riḍá-qulí Khán’s supplement to the Rawḍatu’ṣ-Ṣafá, a general history of Persia compiled about A.D. 1858, we find an account of the same event obviously copied, with very slight modifications, from the ‘Álam-árá-yi-‘Abbásí, but with one important and most wanton alteration, for Sháh ‘Abbás is there represented as saying that the chief of his ambassador’s faults was that several persons were disposed to embrace Islám and come to Persia, but the Persian envoy treated them so ill that they repented of their intention, returned to the Christian faith, and remained in that country. For this deliberate falsification of history I can only account by supposing that Riḍá-qulí Khán did not wish to encourage the idea that a Persian Muslim could possibly become a Christian; but the moral I wish to draw is that the later Persian historians must be used with great caution, and that every statement should, where possible, be traced to contemporary records.

Before leaving this subject, I must refer to an erroneous conjecture of Sir John Malcolm’s arising from an inadequate use of the Persian sources. In the year 1002/1593-4, being the seventh year of Sháh ‘Abbás’s reign, Jalál, the Chief Astrologer, foretold dis-
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aster to the occupant of the Throne, and advised that the Sháh should abdicate for a few days and substitute for himself some person worthy of death on whom the prediction of the stars might be fulfilled. This was accordingly done, and a man named Yúsufí was made king for three days, at the conclusion of which he was put to death, and Sháh ‘Abbás resumed the Throne. Sir John Malcolm¹² says that this Yúsufí, “whom Persian authors take care to tell us was an unbeliever,” was “probably a Christian,” but this is an error; he belonged to a heterodox Muslim sect called Nuqṭawiyya (“People of the Point”) who believed in metempsychosis and other heretical doctrines, and of whose appearance and destruction a full account is given by the ‘Álam-árá-yi-‘Abbásí¹³ and reproduced in the Rawḍatu’ṣ-Ṣafá. It is therefore essential, if a true history of the Ṣafawís is to be written, that we should go back to the original sources, and, as a preliminary, that these sources, at present existing only in manuscript, should be published.

The Persian histories, however, are only part of the material available for such a work: the numerous and in some cases excellent Turkish chronicles, published and unpublished, dealing with this period, and especially with the Turco-Persian wars which continued almost without intermission during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, constitute an indispensable supplement and corrective. Almost more important is Firídún Bey’s great collection of Turkish State Papers entitled Munsha’át-i-Saláṭín, compiled some time before 991/1583 and published at Constantinople in two volumes¹⁴ in 1274/1858.

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The diplomatic correspondence contained in this valuable and insufficiently-appreciated book is arranged chronologically and is partly in Turkish, partly in Arabic, and partly in Persian. From the time of Tímúr onwards much of it is concerned with contemporary Persian affairs, and of the last half of the first volume a large portion consists of letters interchanged between the Sulṭáns Báyazíd II (A.D. 1482-1512), Salím I (A.D. 1512-1520), and Sulaymán I (A.D. 1520-1566) on the one hand, and Sháh Isma‘íl (A.D. 1500-1524) and his son and successor Sháh Ṭahmásp (A.D. 1524-1576) on the other. There are also valuable journals of certain campaigns, such as that which culminated in the Battle of Cháldirán, so disastrous to the Persians, on August 23, 1514, wherein the movements of the Ottoman army and the incidents of their outward and homeward marches are chronicled day by day. Other State Papers, both Persian and Turkish, which exist only in manuscript, have hitherto remained practically unexplored¹⁵.

A third class of materials of which it is impossible to overestimate the importance consists of the writings of Europeans who visited Persia during this period on diplomatic, missionary or commercial business. Thanks to the liberal attitude of Sháh ‘Abbás the Great towards Christians, the number of these in his and the succeeding reigns was very large. The best general account of them and their works with which I have met is that given by the late M. Charles Schefer, in the Introduction (pp. i-cxv) to his edition of l’Estat de la Perse en 1660¹⁶ by le Père Raphaël du Mans, Superior of the Capuchin Mission at Iṣfahán, a man singularly qualified by

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his high character and intellectual attainments, as well as by his prolonged sojourn of fifty years (A.D. 1644-1696) in Iṣfahán, to speak with authority. The works enumerated by M. Schefer¹⁷ are variously written in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese and Spanish, but many of the more important have appeared in two or three different languages. Of their authors (excluding the earlier Venetian envoys to the Court of Úzún Ḥasan, such as Caterino Zeno, Josepho Barbaro and Ambrosio Contarini, most of whom visited Persia during the latter half of the fifteenth century, and consequently before the rise of the Ṣafawí dynasty) the best known are Anthony Jenkinson, the Sherley brothers, Cartwright, Parry and Sir Thomas Herbert of the English, and of the others Antonio di Govea, Don Garcias de Silva Figuerosa, Olearius, Teixeira, Pietro della Valle, Tavernier, Thevenot, and last but not least Chardin and Pétis de la Croix. M. Schefer does not carry his survey beyond the seventeenth century, but the final downfall of the Ṣafawís before the Afghán onslaught in A.D. 1722 found an able historian in the Jesuit Père Krusinski, while letters from some of the Dutch merchants in Iṣfahán, a few of which have been published by H. Dunlop in his Perzië (Haarlem, 1912; pp. 242-7), serve to illuminate the tragic details of that disaster. From this time until the rise of the present Qájár dynasty towards the end of the eighteenth century comparatively few Europeans visited or resided in Persia, a fact due partly to the unsettled state of the country, and the consequent difficulties in the way of missionary or commercial enterprises, and partly to the
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changed political conditions. The object of the numerous diplomatic missions from various European countries which visited Persia during and immediately before the Ṣafawí period was, in nearly all cases, to seek her cooperation in combating the formidable power of the Ottoman Turks, which was at its height during the period which began with their conquest of Constantinople in A.D. 1453 and culminated in the reigns of Sulṭáns Salím “the Grim” and Sulaymán “the Magnificent” (A.D. 1512-1566), of whom the former conquered Egypt and the Holy Cities and assumed the title of Caliph, while the latter only failed by the narrowest margin to capture Vienna. So formidable did the Turkish menace appear to European statesmen that Busbecq, Ferdinand’s ambassador at the Court of Sulaymán, expressed himself in the following remarkable words: “’Tis only the Persian stands between us and ruin. The Turk would fain be upon us, but he keeps him back. This war with him affords us only a respite, not a deliverance¹⁸.” In A.D. 1722 when the Ṣafawí dynasty, long degenerate, finally collapsed, Persia was left for the moment a negligible quantity, the Turks had ceased to be a menace to Europe, and the bitter sectarian quarrel which lay at the root of two centuries of Turco-Persian warfare gradually lost much of its virulence, especially after the development of the more conciliatory policy of the great Nádir Sháh. Under these changed conditions the earlier European policy became at once unnecessary and impossible.

From this brief survey of the sources whence our knowledge of the Ṣafawí dynasty is derived, we must now pass to the consideration of its chief characteristics. These, though clear enough in general outline, present a series of very interesting problems

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which even yet cannot be regarded in all cases as definitely solved. These problems group themselves under the headings of Nationality, Religion, Art and Literature, and in this order we shall now proceed to consider them.

Nationality.
It has been said above that to the Ṣafawís belongs the credit of making Persia, after the lapse of eight centuries and a half, “a nation once again.” This is true, but the nationalism which thus found expression was very different in several respects from the various forms of nationalism with which we are familiar at the present day. Language and race, which are the key-notes of the latter, played a very small part in it compared with religion. At no time was the mutual hatred of Turk and Persian more violent and bitter than during the eight years (A.D. 1512-1520) when Sulṭán Salím “the Grim,” and Sháh Isma‘íl, the founder of the Ṣafawí power, were the respective protagonists of the two nations. The despatches of this period, recorded by Firídún Bey, pass from the realm of diplomacy to that of vulgar abuse, and “rascally Red-heads” (Awbásh-i-Qizil-básh) is the politest expression wherewith the Turkish Sulṭán refers to his Persian foes, The cause of this intense hatred, equally adequate and obvious, will be discussed under the heading of “Religion,” but it did not extend to race or language. When America entered the late War it was stated in the newspapers that in certain towns the people, to give vent to their hatred of everything German, collected all the German books they could find and burned them. No Turk or Persian of the sixteenth century would have given expression to his feelings of hostility in so puerile a fashion. On the contrary, it is a remarkable fact that while Sulṭán Salím and Sháh Isma‘íl both possessed considerable poetic talent, the former wrote almost exclusively in Persian, and the latter, under the pen-
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name of Khaṭá’í, almost exclusively in Turkish¹⁹. Ottoman hatred was directed against the heretical Qizil-básh as misbelievers, not as Persians (Írání), while the Persian language (Fársí) continued to hold its position as the polite idiom of literature and diplomacy. And though the ancient conflict between Írán and Túrán was familiar to all educated Turks and Persians in the classical Sháh-náma, or “Book of Kings,” of Firdawsí, Salím, in the following curious exordium to a despatch written in April, 1514 (Ṣafar, 920)²⁰, compares himself to the legendary Persian kings Firídún, Kay-Khusraw and Dárá, while likening his Persian opponent Sháh Isma‘íl to the Turkish protagonist Afrásiyáb:

[After the doxology] “But to proceed. This excellent address hath been issued on our part, we who are the Refuge of the Caliphate²¹, the slayer of the infidels and polytheists,
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the extirpator of the foes of the Faith, the humbler of the Pharaohs’ pride²², the tarnisher of the Kháqán’s²³ crowns, the King of those who fight and strive for Religion, whose pomp is as that of Firídún, whose Court is as that of Alexander, whose justice and equity is as that of Kay-Khusraw, that Dárá of noble descent, Sulṭán Salím Sháh, son of Sulṭán Báyazíd, son of Sulṭán Muḥammad Khán, to thee, who art the ruler of the Persians, the most mighty general and puissant leader, the Ḍaḥḥák²⁴ of the time, the Dáráb of the combat, the Afrásiyáb of the age, the famous Amír Isma‘íl.”
On the other hand I have only found one verse wherein Sháh Isma‘íl is definitely identified with the Persian as contrasted with the Shí‘a cause. This verse occurs in the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh²⁵ and runs:

“The illuminator of the crown and throne of the Kayánians²⁶,

The upholder of the star of the Káwayán²⁷.”

For the rest, the seven tribes who formed the back-bone of the Qizil-básh army were, as their names Rúmlú, Shámlú, Mawṣillú, etc., sufficiently indicate, almost exclusively Turkish, as were the principal officers of the Ṣafawí army, whose war-cry, as we learn
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from the rare history of Sháh Isma‘íl²⁸, was not “Long live Persia!” or the like, but, in the Turkish language, “O my spiritual guide and master whose sacrifice I am!”

More than a century after Isma‘íl’s death, when the capital had been transferred from the north of Persia to Iṣfahán, Turkish seems still to have been the language generally spoken at Court²⁹. These instances, to which might be added many more, will suffice to show how different was the spirit which animated the Ṣafawí revival (though it undoubtedly produced that homogeneity which is the basis of national sentiment) from the Nationalism of the modern Pan-Turanians and “Young Persians,” who put the extension and purification from foreign elements of the national language in the foremost place in their programme. At the present time the Turkish nationalists of Angora proclaim their new Caliph in Turkish instead of in the time-honoured Arabic, while Riḍá Khán, the Persian military dictator, strives to introduce in his army a purely Persian military terminology.

Religion.
Although the Muhammadans, according to their own statements, are divided into seventy-two or seventy-three different sects³⁰, in later times at any rate, when certain controversies, such as those connected with Free Will and Predestination and the
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Creation of the Qur’án, have sunk into a subordinate position, it may fairly be said that the capital and cardinal division is into the People of the Sunnat and the People of the Shí‘a. Scattered communities of the latter are found in Asia Minor, Syria (where they are called Mutawallí, pl. Matáwila), India and other Muhammadan lands, but in Persia only is the Shí‘a doctrine not only that held by the great majority of the people, but also the State Religion. Before considering how it was raised to this position by the Ṣafawís about the year A.D. 1500, we must briefly consider its essential nature, and here we cannot do better than quote Shahristání, the learned author of the Kitábu’l-Milal, or “Book of Sects,” who died in the middle of the twelfth century, and who writes of them³¹ as follows:

“The Shí‘a. — They are those who took the side of (Sháya‘ú) ‘Alí in particular, declaring him to be Imám and Khalífa by explicit written deed, public or secret, and believing that the Imámate cannot quit his posterity; and that, should it do so, it is only by reason of wrong wrought by another, or prudential renunciation on his own part³². They assert that the Imámate is not a question of expediency but of principle: it does not depend on popular choice, so that an Imám can be set up by their appointment, but is an essential of Religion which it is not permissible for even the Apostle of God to ignore or neglect, and which cannot be transferred or committed to the common people. They are united in their assertion as to the necessity of such explicit designation [of the Imám on the part of his predecessor] and the established innocence of the Imáms of all sins, small or great, and also

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in their principles of recognition and repudiation, alike in word, deed and faith, save in cases of ‘prudential concealment’ (taqiyya), in which point, however, some of the Zaydís oppose them. As to the actual transmission of the Imámate. however, there is much discussion and difference of opinion, and at each such transmission and stage there is an argument, a doctrine and a schism. There are five [principal] divisions, the Kaysánis, the Zaydís, the Imámís, the Extremists (Ghulát) and the Isma‘ílís, of whom some incline in their principles to the Mu‘tazila, some to the Sunna and; some to Anthropomorphism (tashbíh).”

Put in a briefer, clearer and more concrete form, this means that all the Shí‘a reject and repudiate the first three of the “Four Orthodox Caliphs” (al-Khulafá-u’r-Ráshidún), Abú Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthmán, who were elected, and hold that ‘Alí, the cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad and the husband of his daughter Fáṭima, should have succeeded him, and had in fact been nominated by him as his successor; and that after ‘Alí the succession continued in his family by Divine Right. But even within this family there was no place for election, each Imám specifically choosing and nominating his successor, as the Prophet had chosen and nominated ‘Alí. Amongst those who agreed in these general principles, however, there was plenty of room for disagreement as to details. Some of the Shí‘a were content that the Imám should be descended from ‘Alí, and were therefore ready to recognise Muḥammad ibnu’l-Ḥanafiyya, “the son of the Ḥanafite woman”; others, including the “Sect of the Seven” or Isma‘ílís and the “Sect of the Twelve” or Imámís, with which last we are chiefly concerned, limited the succession to the children born to ‘Alí by his wife Fáṭima, the Prophet’s daughter. With the third Imám Ḥusayn, ‘Alí’s younger son by Fáṭima, a new factor came into operation, for, according to quite early and respectable historians, such as

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al-Ya‘qúbí³³, a daughter of the last Sásánian king of Persia, Yazdigird III, was given to him in marriage and bore him a son named ‘Alí and entitled Zaynu’l-’Ábidín, who was the Fourth Imám, and who combined in himself direct descent from the Prophet through his daughter Fáṭima and from the ancient Royal House of Persia. Small wonder that to him and his descendants the loyal devotion of the Persians was so freely rendered!

Thus we see that the quarrel between Sunní and Shí‘a is by no means one of names and personalities only, but of the essentially antagonistic doctrines of Democracy and the Divine Right of Kings. The Arabs are, and always have been, in large measure democratic in their ideas, while the Persians have ever been disposed to see in their Kings divine or semi-divine beings. And if the idea of a humanly-elected head of the State be repugnant, how much more that of an Imám, or Vice-gerent of the Prophet, chosen by popular suffrage? Hence the Imámí and Isma‘ílí sects of the Shí‘a have always had their stronghold in Persia, though under the Sunní Turkish dynasties of the Ghaznawís and Saljúqs they were kept in a state of subordination³⁴. They were more favoured under the Buwayhids and some of the Mongols, notably Gházán and Khudá-banda (Uljáytú), but they first obtained unquestioned supremacy throughout the whole of Persia under the Ṣafawís.

Who, then, were these Ṣafawís, when did they so vehemently adopt the Shí‘a doctrine, and how did they succeed in establishing their supremacy?
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Ṣafawí is the adjective formed from Ṣafí, a notable Ṣúfí saint, named in full Ṣafiyyu’d-Dín, who died in Gílán in A.D. 1334 at the age of 85 in the odour of sanctity, and who claimed to be descended in the twentieth degree from Músá Káẓim the seventh Imám³⁵. That he was really a man of note in his own time is proved beyond doubt by the way in which his contemporary, the great statesman and historian Rashídu’d-Dín Faḍlu’lláh, speaks of him in his letters³⁶, and also by the fact that an immense biography of him, the Ṣafwatu’ṣ-Ṣafá, was composed shortly after his death, largely from data supplied by his son Ṣadru’d-Dín, which has been used directly or indirectly by all the historians of the great dynasty whereof he was the ancestor. Sháh Isma‘íl, the actual founder of the dynasty, was sixth in descent from him, but I have found no evidence to prove that he himself adopted the violent Shí‘a views characteristic of his descendants. The little evidence available points rather the other way, for in a letter written to Isma‘íl’s son Sháh Ṭahmásp in A.D. 1529-30 by the Uzbek leaders, they say that, according to what they have heard, Shaykh Ṣafiyyu’d-Dín was a good Sunní, and express their astonishment that Ṭahmásp “neither follows the example of His Holiness Murtaḍá ‘Alí, nor that of his forefather³⁷.” Khwája ‘Alí, grandson of Ṣafiyyu’d-Dín and great-great-grandfather of Sháh Isma‘íl, is the first member of the House who shows a strong Shí‘a bias³⁸ and holds converse in his dreams with the Imáms, and his grandson Junayd and his great-grandson Ḥaydar are the first to assert their claims with the sword and to die on the field of battle.