Literary History of Persia
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Nothing could appear more unpromising than the position of the three little sons of Shaykh Ḥaydar, who were for the moment entirely at the mercy of their father’s enemies. Sulṭán Ya‘qúb, the son of Úzún Ḥasan, however, shrank from killing them for the sake of their mother, who was his sister, and contented himself with exiling them to Iṣṭakhr in Fárs, where they were placed in the custody of the governor Manṣúr Beg Parnák. According to Angiolello96, however, the three boys were confined on an island in the “Lake of Astumar” (identified by the translator with Lake Van) inhabited by Armenian Christians, where they remained for three years and became “very much beloved, especially Ismael, the second, for his beauty and pleasing manners,” so that when Rustam, the grandson of Úzún Ḥasan, after the death of his uncle Ya‘qúb, sent a message to demand their surrender, intending to put them to death, the Armenians not only made excuses for not giving them up but enabled them to escape by boat to the “country of Carabas” (Qará-bágh). In the Persian accounts, however, Rustam is credited with their release from Iṣṭakhr, because, being at war with his cousin Baysunqur, he thought to strengthen himself by an alliance with them and their numerous devoted followers. He accordingly invited the eldest brother Sulṭán ‘Alí to Tabríz, [page 50] received him with much honour, conferred on him all the paraphernalia of sovereignty and the title of Pádisháh, and despatched him to attack Baysunqur, whom he defeated and slew in a battle near Ahar. Having thus got rid of his rival, Rustam sought to rid himself of his ally, who, warned by one of his Turkmán disciples, fled to Ardabíl, but was overtaken by his enemies at the neighbouring village of Shamásí and killed in the ensuing skirmish in the year 900/1494-597. His two brothers, however, reached Ardabíl in safety, and were concealed by their faithful followers during the house-to-house search instituted by the Turkmáns, until an opportunity presented itself of conveying them secretly into Gílán, first to Rasht, where they remained for a short period, estimated at anything from seven to thirty days, and then to Láhiján, the ruler of which place, Kár-kiyá Mírzá ‘Alí, accorded them hospitality and protection for several years. It is related that on one occasion when their Turkmán foes came to look for them he caused them to be suspended in a cage in the woods so as to enable him to swear that they had no foothold on his territory. To the valour and devotion of Isma‘íl’s disciples, the “Ṣúfís of Láhiján,” contemporary European writers testify as forcibly as the Persian historians. “This Sophi,” says the anonymous Italian merchant98, “is loved and reverenced by his people as a [page 51] god, and especially by his soldiers, many of whom enter into battle without armour, expecting their master Ismael to watch over them in the fight. … The name of God is forgotten throughout Persia and only that of Ismael remembered.” “The Suffaveans fought like lions” is a phrase which repeatedly occurs in the pages of the Venetian travellers. Yet for all this, and the numbers and wide ramifications of the Order (“from the remotest West to the limits of Balkh and Bukhárá,” says the rare history of Sháh Isma‘íl, speaking of the days of his grandfather Junayd), it is doubtful if their astounding successes would have been possible in the first instance but for the bitter internecine feuds of the ruling “White Sheep” dynasty after the death of the great and wise Úzún Ḥasan in A.D. 1478, from which time onwards their history is a mere welter of fratricidal warfare. Isma‘íl was only thirteen years of age when he set out from the seclusion of Láhiján on his career of conquest. He was accompanied at first by only seven age of thirteen devoted “Ṣúfís,” but, as he advanced by way Ṭárum and Khalkhál to Ardabíl, he was reinforced at every stage by brave and ardent disciples, many from Syria and Asia Minor99. Ordered to leave Ardabíl by the Turkmán Sulṭán ‘Alí Beg Chákarlú, he retired for a while to Arjawán near Astárá on the Caspian Sea, where he amused himself with fishing, of which he was very fond; but in the spring of A.D. 1500 he was back at Ardabíl, having rallied round him a goodly army of the seven Turkish tribes who constituted the backbone of the [page 52] Ṣafawí military power100. He now felt himself strong enough embark on a holy war against the Georgian “infidels” and a war of revenge against Farrukh-Yasár, king of Shírwán, whom he defeated and killed near Gulistán (906/1500). He decapitated and burned the corpse, built a tower of his enemies’ heads, destroyed the tombs of the Shírwánsháhs, and exhumed and burned the remains of the last king, Khalíl, who had killed his grandfather Shaykh Junayd. The noble dynasty thus extinguished claimed descent from the great Sásánian king Anúsharwán (Núshírwán), and numbered amongst them the patron of the famous panegyrist Kháqání. Having captured Bákú (Bádkúya, Bádkúba) Isma‘íl, advised in a dream by the Imáms, decided to raise the siege of Gulistán and march on Ádharbáyján. Alwand and his “White Sheep” Turkmáns endeavoured to arrest his advance, but were utterly defeated at the decisive battle of Shurúr with great slaughter. Alwand fled to Arzinján, while Isma‘íl entered Tabríz in triumph and was there crowned King of Persia (907/1501-2). Henceforth, therefore, we shall speak of him as Sháh Isma‘íl, but by the Persian historians he is often entitled Kháqán-i-Iskandar-shán (“the Prince like unto Alexander in state”), as his son and successor Sháh Ṭahmásp is called Sháh-i-Dín-panáh (“the King who is the Refuge of Religion”). Already Sháh Isma‘íl and his partisans had given ample proof of their strong Shí‘a convictions. Their battle-cry on the day they slew Shírwánsháh was Alláh! Alláh! wa ‘Alí waliyyu’lláh (God! God! and ‘Alí is the Friend of God!”)101, while Alwand was offered peace if he would
Immediately after his coronation, according to the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh104,he ordered all preachers (Khuṭabá) throughout his realms to introduce the distinctively Shí‘a formulae “I bear witness that ‘Alí is the Friend of God” and “hasten to the best of deeds” (ḥayya ila khayri’l-‘amal) into the profession of Faith and the call to Prayer respectively; which formulae had been in abeyance since Ṭughril Beg the Saljúq had put to flight and slain al-Basásírí five hundred and twenty-eight years previously105. He also instituted the public cursing of Abú Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthmán in the streets and markets, as above mentioned, threatening recalcitrants with decapitation. Owing to the dearth of Shí‘a theological works the religious instruction of the people necessitated by the change of doctrine presented great difficulties, but finally the Qáḍí Naṣru’lláh Zaytúní produced from his library the first volume of the Qawá‘idu’l-Islám (“Rules of Islám”) of Shaykh Jamálu’d-Dín … ibn ‘Alí ibnu’l-Muṭahhir al-Ḥillí106, which served as a basis of instruction “until day by day the Sun of Truth of the Doctrine of the Twelve [Imáms] [page 55] increased its altitude, and all parts and regions of the world became illuminated by the dawning effulgences of the Path of Verification.” Of the anger and alarm aroused by these proceedings in the neighbouring kingdoms, and especially in the Ottoman Empire, we shall have to speak presently, but first we may with advantage give from the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh107 the list of potentates in Persia itself who at this time claimed sovereign power: (1) Sháh Isma‘íl in Ádharbáyján; (2) Sulṭán Murád in most of ‘Iráq; (3) Murád Beg Báyandarí in Yazd; (4) Ra’ís Muḥammad Karra (?ﻩﺮڪ) in Abarqúh; (5) Ḥusayn Kiyá-yi-Chaláwí in Samnán, Khwár and Fírúzkúh; (6) Bárík Parnák in ‘Iráq-i-‘Arab; (7) Qásim Beg ibn Jahángír Beg ibn ‘Alí Beg in Diyár Bakr; (8) Qáḍí Muḥammad in conjunction with Mawláná Mas‘úd in Káshán; (9) Sulṭán Ḥusayn Mírzá (the Tímúrid) in Khurásán; (10) Amír Dhu’n-Nún in Qandahár; (11) Badí‘u’z-Zamán Mírzá (the Tímúrid) in Balkh; and (12) Abu’l-Fatḥ Beg Báyandarí in Kirmán. Many of these petty rulers (Mulúku’ṭ-Ṭawá’if) were quite insignificant, and several of them I cannot even identify. None of them long stood in Sháh Isma‘íl’s victorious path. His old enemy Alwand of the “White Sheep” dynasty suffered a decisive defeat at his hands in the summer of A.D. 1503, and died a year or so later at Diyár Bakr or Baghdád108. His brother Murád was defeated and Shíráz occupied about the same time, and stern punishment overtook the Sunni doctors of Kázarún, many of whom were put to death, while the tombs and foundations of their predecessors were destroyed109. The words Raḥmatun li’l-‘Ála- [page 56] mín (“a Mercy to the Worlds”) were found, not very appropriately from an impartial point of view, to give the date 909 (A.D. 1503-4) of this event; while the equivalent chronogram Shaltáq-i-Sipáhí (“Military Coercion”) was observed by the poets and wits of Fárs to commemorate in like manner the appointment by Sháh Isma‘íl of his captain Ilyás Beg Dhu’l-Qadar as governor of Shíráz. Káshán, always a stronghold of the Shí‘a110, received Isma‘íl with enthusiasm, and he held a great reception at the beautiful suburb of Fín. Thence he passed to the holy city of Qum, intending, apparently, to winter there, but hearing that Ilyás Beg, one of his most trusted officers, “a Ṣúfí of pure disposition and right belief111,” had been murdered by Ḥusayn Kiyá-yi-Chaláwí, he marched out on February 25, 1504, to avenge him. Three weeks later he was at Astarábád, where he was met by Muḥammad Muḥsin Mírzá, the son of the Tímúrid Sulṭán Ḥusayn Mírzá, and, having attacked and destroyed the fortresses of Gulkhandán and Fírúzkúh, he reduced the stronghold of Ustá by cutting off the water-supply, massacred the garrison (ten thousand souls, according to the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh), and took captive the wretched Ḥusayn Kiyá, whom he confined in an iron cage, but who succeeded in inflicting on himself a wound which in a few days proved mortal112. Still more unfortunate was Ra’ís Muḥammad Karra of Abarqúh, who rebelled and took possession of the ancient city of Yazd. Him also Sháh Isma‘íl confined in a cage, and smeared his body with honey so that the wasps tormented him until he was finally burned alive in the maydán of Iṣfahán. [page 57] About the same time an embassy came from the Ottoman Sulṭán Báyazíd II (A.D. 1481-1512) to offer “suitable gifts and presents” and congratulations on Sháh Isma‘íl’s conquest of ‘Iráq and Fárs. They were dismissed with robes of honour and assurances of Isma‘íl’s friendly sentiments, but were compelled to witness several executions, including, perhaps, that of the philosopher and judge Mír Ḥusayn-i-Maybudí113, whose chief offence seems to have been that he was a “fanatical Sunni.” Persian kings were disposed to take this means of impressing foreign envoys with their “justice”; Clavijo relates a similar procedure on the part of Tímúr114, and Sháh Isma‘íl’s son and successor Ṭahmásp sought to impress and intimidate Humáyún’s ambassador Bayrám Beg by putting to death in his presence a number of heretics115. To the Turkish envoys it would naturally be particularly disagreeable to witness the execution of a learned Sunní doctor by those whom they regarded as detestable schismatics. Of the increasingly strained relations between Turkey and Persia, culminating in the Battle of Cháldirán (August, 1514), we shall have to speak very shortly, but we must first conclude our brief survey of Sháh Isma‘íl’s career of conquest. To describe in detail his incessant military activities would be impossible in a work of the scope and character of this book, and only the barest summary is possible. During the years A.H. 911-915 (A.D. 1506-1510) Sháh Isma‘íl was for the most part busy in the West. He first entered Hamadán and visited the tomb of the Imám-záda Sahl ‘Alí. A serious revolt [page 58] of the “Yazídí” Kurds116 next demanded his attention. Their leader, Shír Ṣárim, was defeated and captured in a bloody battle wherein several important officers of Sháh Isma‘íl lost their lives. To their relatives the Kurdish prisoners were surrendered to be put to death “with torments worse than which there may not be.” War was next waged against the conjoined forces of Sulṭán Murád, the thirteenth117 and last of the “White Sheep” dynasty, and ‘Alá’u’d-Dawla Dhu’l-Qadar (the “Aliduli” of the Italian travellers of this period), who, refusing Isma‘íl’s proposal that he should “set his tongue in motion with the goodly word ‘Alí is the Friend of God, and curse the enemies of the Faith” (to wit, the first three Caliphs), appealed for help to the Ottoman Turks. Sháh Isma‘íl, however, was not to be denied, and successively captured Diyár Bakr, Akhláṭ, Bitlís, Arjísh, and finally in 914/1508 Baghdád itself, whereby he obtained possession of the Holy Shrines of Karbalá and Najaf, so dear to Shí‘a hearts, where he hastened to offer prayers and thanksgivings. At Ḥuwayza he showed that, ardent Shí‘a as he was, he would not tolerate the exaggerated veneration of ‘Alí characteristic of the Ghulát, represented there by certain Arabs called Musha‘shi‘, who venerated ‘Alí as God, and, invoking his name, would cast themselves on sharp swords without [page 59] sustaining injury, after the fashion of the modern ‘Ísáwiyya of North Africa. Their leader, Mír Sulṭán Muḥsin, died about this time, and was succeeded by his son Sultan Fayyáḍ, who claimed for himself divine honours118. Sháh Isma‘íl ruthlessly suppressed these heretics, and proceeded to Dizful and Shúshtar, receiving the submission of the Lur chieftain Sháh Rustam, who won his favour by “the utterance of prayer and praise in the Lurí tongue with extreme sweetness.” Thence Sháh Isma‘íl made his way eastwards to Fárs, encamped for a while at Dárábjird, and organised a great hunting expedition, of which the special object was a kind of mountain goat which yields the “animal antidote” (pádzahr-i-ḥaywání)119. He also put to death the Qáḍí Muḥammad-i-Káshí, who held the high ecclesiastical office of Ṣadr, and replaced him by the Sayyid-i-Sharíf of Astarábád, who was descended on his mother’s side from the celebrated Jurjání. He further erected at Qaṣr-i-Zar a mausoleum in memory of his brother Sulṭán Aḥmad Mírzá, who had died there, and, under the title of Najm-i-Thání (“the Second Star”), appointed Amír Yár Aḥmad-i-Khúzání of Iṣfahán to succeed “the First Star,” Amír Najmu’d-Dín Mas‘úd of Rasht, who had recently died and been buried at Najaf. The poet Ummídí celebrated this appointment in a very ingenious and sonorous qaṣída beginning: 
[page 60] From Fárs Sháh Isma‘íl marched into Shírwán (where Shaykh Sháh, the son of Farrukh-Yasár, had re-established himself), recovered the body of his father Shaykh Ḥaydar and conveyed it to Ardabíl for burial, as already related, and took Darband. So far Sháh Isma‘íl had been chiefly occupied in putting down minor princes and pretenders and in consolidating his power in Persia, of which he had to the West and North-West greatly enlarged the territories, and had almost restored the ancient frontiers of Sásánian times. Hitherto he had hardly come into conflict with the two powerful enemies who were destined to give so much trouble to himself and his successors, to wit the Uzbeks of Central Asia and the Ottoman Turks. Of his relations with these formidable rivals we must now speak, but, before doing so, a few more words may be said of Sháh Isma‘íl’s character and appearance. As usual, a much more vivid picture of these is given by contemporary travellers than by his own countrymen, though his courage, energy, cruelty and restless activity are sufficiently apparent in the Persian chronicles of his reign. At the age of thirteen, when he began his career of conquest, he was, according to Caterino Zeno120, “of noble presence and a truly royal bearing, as in his eyes there was something, I know not what, so great and commanding, which plainly showed that he would yet some day become a great ruler. Nor did the virtues of his mind disaccord with the beauty of his person, as he had an elevated genius, and such a lofty idea of things as seemed incredible at such a tender age. … He had vigour of mind, quickness of perception, and a personal valour … never yet … equalled by any of his contemporaries.” Angio- [page 61] lello121 speaks of “his beauty and pleasing manners” when he was a child, and relates122 how, in his campaign against ‘Alá’u’d-Dawla (“Alidoli”), “he supplied himself with provisions, paying for everything, and proclaiming abroad that everyone might bring supplies to the camp for sale, and that anyone taking anything without paying for it would be put to death.” “This Sophi,” he says a little further on123, “is fair, handsome, and very pleasing; not very tall, but of a light and well-framed figure; rather stout than slight, with broad shoulders. His hair is reddish; he only wears moustachios, and uses his left hand instead of his right. He is as brave as a game-cock, and stronger than any of his lords; in the archery contests, out of the ten apples that are knocked down, he knocks down seven; while he is at his sport they play on various instruments and sing his praises.” “He is almost worshipped,” he remarks in another place124, “more especially by his soldiers, many of whom fight without armour, being willing to die for their master. While I was in Tauris [Tabríz] I heard that the king is displeased with this adoration, and being called God!” The anonymous merchant describes him125 at the age of thirty-one as “Very handsome, of a magnanimous countenance, and about middle height; he is fair, stout, and with broad shoulders, his beard is shaved and he only wears a moustache, not appearing to be a very heavy man. He is as amiable as a girl, left-handed by nature, is as lively as a fawn, and stronger than any of his lords. In the archery trials at the apple he is so expert that of every ten he hits six.” The same writer, on the other hand, after describing his massacre of Alwand’s soldiers, of the male and female kinsmen of Sulṭán Ya‘qúb, of three [page 62] hundred courtezans of Tabríz, of “eight hundred avaricious Blasi126” who had been brought up under Alumut [i.e. Alwand], of “all the dogs in Tauris,” and of his own mother [or step-mother], concludes, “From the time of Nero to the present, I doubt whether so bloodthirsty a tyrant has ever existed.” He presented, in short, the strangest blend of antithetical qualities; and we are alternately attracted by his personal charm, his unquestionable valour, generosity and — within certain limits — justice, and repelled by actions, such as those recorded above, revealing a savagery remarkable even in that cruel and bloodthirsty age. His courage was shown not only on the field of battle but in the chase. Hearing after his conquest and occupation of Baghdád of a singularly fierce man-eating lion which had its lair in a thicket and terrified the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, he insisted, in spite of all remonstrances, in destroying it single-handed with the bow he knew so well how to use127. At the age of thirteen he had already slain a fierce bear in like manner in a cave near Arzinján128. When “immense treasures” fell into his hands on the capture of one of the Caspian ports, “he divided them amongst his men, keeping nothing for himself129.” Yet the same traveller who reports this instance of generosity and political foresight (for in consequence of it “he was joined by numbers, even those who were not Suffaveans flocking to his standard in hopes of receiving gifts of this nature from the valiant Ismael”) describes how the Sháh with his own hand cut off the head of the unfortunate young prince “Alumut130,” captured by treachery, whom he himself had seen bound in chains in a tent; and tells of even darker deeds wrought at Tabríz on the occasion of the Sháh’s [page 63] second entry into that city in A.D. 1520131. Towards the Sunnís he showed himself ruthless, sparing neither eminent divines like the learned Farídu’d-Dín Aḥmad, a grandson of the celebrated scholar Sa‘du’d-Dín-i-Taftázání, who for thirty years had held the office of Shaykhu’l-Islám in Herát132, nor witty poets like Banná’í, who perished in the massacre of Qarshí in 918/1512. But perhaps the most conspicuous instance of a ferocity which pursued his foes even after their death was his treatment of the body of his old enemy Muḥammad Khán Shaybání, or Shaybak, the Uzbek, of which we shall have to speak very shortly. It has already been stated that the foreign relations of Sháh Isma‘íl, after he had cleared Persia of the “White Sheep” and other rivals for the sceptre of that ancient kingdom, were chiefly with three Powers, the Tímúrids, who still kept a precarious hold on Herát and portions of Khurásán and Central Asia; the formidable Uzbeks of Transoxiana; and the Ottoman Turks. With the last two, rigid Sunnís in both cases, the relations of Persia were, and continued to be, uniformly hostile; with the Tímúrids, themselves menaced by the Uzbeks, comparatively friendly and at times even cordial. The aged Sulṭán Ḥusayn ibn Bayqará, whose brilliant and luxurious court at Herát was so famous a centre of literature and art133, is reckoned amongst the rulers who, with less success than Sháh Isma‘íl, endeavoured to replace the Sunní by the Shí‘a doctrine in their dominions134; and Bábur, whether [page 64] from conviction or policy, showed enough partiality towards the Shí‘a faction to cause grave disaffection amongst his Central Asian Sunní subjects135. There existed, then, in this case no such essential cause of enmity as in the two others, while a common hatred of Shaybání Khán and his redoubtable Uzbeks naturally tended to unite Bábur to Isma‘íl. It is beyond the scope of this work to enter into a detailed account of the decline of the Tímúrid and the rise of the Uzbek power, of which ample particulars may be found in Erskine’s and other works136. Suffice it to say that Shaybání or Shaybak Khán, a direct descendant of Chingíz Khán137, first became prominent about A.D. 1500, when he captured Samarqand and Bukhárá, and later Táshkand and Farghána. He invaded Khurásán in 911/1505-6, in the year of Sulṭán Ḥusayn’s death, and in the course of the next year or two practically exterminated the Tímúrids, with the exception of Bábur and Badí‘u’z-Zamán, of whom the latter sought refuge with Sháh Isma‘íl. It was not until 916/1510-11, however, that he came into direct conflict with Sháh Isma‘íl, whom he had provoked by a raid on Kirmán in the previous year and a most insulting letter in reply to Isma‘íl’s politely-worded remonstrance138. Sháh Isma‘íl was not slow to respond to his taunts, and, Yüklə 1,57 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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