Literary History of Persia
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of Sulṭán Salím [page 80] Persia and Turkey quake through fear of thee, since thou hast cast from his head the crown of the Red-cap163. O victorious one, thou hast cast his crown from his head: now manfully cast his head from his body! The Red-head is like the viper; until thou crushest his head it availeth nothing. Thou art today, through thy noble qualities, the Vicar (Khalífa) of God and of Muḥammad. Dost thou hold it right that the guebre164 and brute-heretic should revile the Companions of the Prophet?165 If thou dost not break him by the strength of thy manhood, and if thou turnest back without having cut off his head, If he obtains amnesty in safety, I will seize thy skirt in the day of Resurrection. Thus have I seen in the accounts of the Prophet, that Dhu’l-Qarnayn (“the Two-horned”)166 was Emperor in Rome. For this cause did he style himself Dhu’l-Qarnayn, because he added the dominion of Persia to that of Rome167. His two horns were sovereignty throughout the World; his orders ran through East and West. Come, break the Idol by the aid of the Faith, and add the Kingdom of Persia to the Throne of Rome168!’” Sulṭán Salím died in 926/1520, having reigned, according to the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh, 8 years, 8 months and 8 days. He was succeeded by his son Sulaymán, called by his [page 81] countrymen “the Law-giver” (Qánúní) and by Europeans “the Magnificent.” The Persian poet Amíní composed a poem on his accession, of which each half-verse (miṣrá‘) yields the date 926. The following verse is cited as a specimen by the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh: 
“Fortune hath given the Kingdom of Desire to the Ká’ús of the Age, the Second Solomon.” Three years later (in 929/1523), when Sulṭán Sulaymán conquered Rhodes, another Persian Poet, Niyází, commemorated this victory in an equally ingenious qaṣída beginning: 
where the first half-verse gives the date of Sulaymán’s accession (926/1520), and the second the date of the conquest of Rhodes169. Sháh Isma‘íl died on Monday, Rajab 19, A.H. 930 (May 23, 1524) at the age of 38 after a reign of 24 years, and was buried with his fathers at Ardabíl. He left four sons, Ṭahmásp, born on Dhu’l-Ḥijja 26, A.H. 919 (Feb. 22,1514), who succeeded him; Alqáṣ, born in 922/1516, and Sám and Bahrám, both born in the following year; besides five daughters170. In his reign the sword was more active than the pen. He not only eliminated all of his numerous rivals in Persia, but greatly enlarged her frontiers. “His kingdom,” says the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh171, [page 82] “included Ádharbáyján, Persian ‘Iráq, Khurásán, Fárs, Kirmán and Khúzistán, while Diyár Bakr, Balkh Merv were at times under his control. In the battle-field he was a lion wielding a dagger, and in the banquet-hall a cloud raining pearls. Such was his bounty that pure gold and worthless salt were alike in his sight, while by reason of his lofty spirit the produce of ocean and mine did not suffice for the donations of a single day, and his treasury was generally empty. He had a passion for the chase, and alone used to slay lions. He had issued orders that whoever should bring news of a lion should receive from his officers a horse and saddle; and he who should bring news of a leopard an unsaddled horse. He would go forth alone and kill lions and leopards. During his reign he fought five [great] battles, the first with Farrukh-Yasár king of Shírwán at the place called Jabání, the second with Alwand at Shurúr, the third with Sulṭán Murád at Alma Qúlághí near Hamadán, the fourth with Shaybak Khán in the neighbourhood of Merv, and the fifth with Sulṭán Salím at Cháldirán172.” The date of his death (930) is given by the word Ẓill, “Shadow” (of God), and by the words Khusraw-i-Dín, “Prince of the Faith,” as expressed in the two following chronograms: 
[page 83] 
As regards literature, there was, as elsewhere explained, an extraordinary dearth of remarkable poets in Persia during the whole Ṣafawí period173, while the great theologians belong to a later time when the Shí‘a faith, raised by Sháh Isma‘íl to the position of the established national religion of Persia, had taken firm root. Most of the celebrated writers whose deaths are recorded in the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh and other chronicles of Isma‘íl’s reign really belong to the brilliant circle who gathered round the Tímúrid Sulṭán Abu’l-Ghází Ḥusayn and his talented Minister Mír ‘Alí Shír Nawá’í. Such were the poets Hátifí, nephew of the great Jámí, who died in 927/1521; Amír Ḥusayn Mu‘ammá’í (d. 904/1498-9); Banná’í, who perished in the massacre wrought by Isma‘íl’s general Najm-i-Thání174 at Qarshí in 918/1512; Hilálí, who was killed by the Uzbeks at Herát in 935/1528-9 for his alleged Shí‘a proclivities; the philosopher Jalálu’d-Dín Dawání (d. 908/1502-3); the historian Mírkhwánd (d. 903/1497-8 at the age of 66); and the versatile Ḥusayn Wá‘iẓ-i-Káshifí, commentator, ethicist and narrator, best known as the author of the Anwár-i-Suhaylí175. The poet Qásimí celebrated the achievements of Sháh Isma‘íl in a Sháh-náma, hitherto unpublished and but rarely met with even in manuscript176, completed ten years after the death of that monarch, who appears to have been less susceptible than most Persian potentates to the flattery of courtiers and venal verse-makers177. 
CHAPTER III. CULMINATION AND DECLINE OF THE ṢAFAWÍ POWER, FROM SHÁH ṬAHMÁSP (A.D. 1524-1576) TO SHÁH ḤUSAYN (A.D. 1694-1722). Ṭahmásp, the eldest of Isma‘íl’s sons, was only ten years of age when he succeeded his father. He reigned over Persia for fifty-two years and a half, and died on May 14, 1576. In the contemporary chronicles he is usually denoted as Sháh-i-Dín-panáh (“the King who is the Refuge of Religion”). The date of his accession is commemorated in the following verse: 
“O Ṭahmásp, King of the World, who, by the Divine Assistance, didst take thy place on the throne of gold after the Victorious King! Thou didst take the place of thy father; thou didst subdue the world: ‘Thou didst take the place of thy father’ (já-yi-pidar giriftí)178 was the date of thine accession.” Of the numerous records of his long reign two, on which in what follows I shall chiefly draw, are worthy of special note; his own autobiography179 from his accession on Monday, Rajab 19, 930 (May 23, 1524), to his shameful surrender of the Turkish Prince [page 85] Báyazíd, who had sought refuge at his court, in 969/1561-2; and the excellent Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh of Ḥasan Beg Rúmlú, concluded in 985/1577-8 only a year after Ṭahmásp’s death. The autobiography, possibly suggested by Bábur’s incomparable Memoirs, is far inferior to that most instructive and amusing work, and is not greatly superior to the over-estimated Diaries of the late Náṣiru’d-Dín Sháh; but it throws some valuable light on the mentality of Ṭahmásp, and on those inner conditions which it is so difficult to deduce from the arid pages of the official chronicles, containing for the most part a mere record of interminable wars and massacres, and leaving us quite in the dark as to the social and intellectual state of the people. That Ṭahmásp was a bigot is indicated both by Sir John Malcolm180 and Erskine181, though the former historian takes the more favourable view of his character, describing him as “of a kind and generous disposition,” and adding that he “appears to have possessed prudence and spirit, and, if he was not distinguished by great qualities, he was free from any remarkable vices.” Anthony Jenkinson, who carried a letter of recommendation from Queen Elizabeth182, had a not very gratifying audience with him at Qazwín in November, 1562183. The Venetian Ambassador Vincentio d’Alessandri, who was accredited to his Court in 1571, describes him184, “in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the fifty-first of his reign,” as “of middling stature, well formed in [page 86] person and features, although dark, of thick lips and a grizzly beard,” and says that he was “more of a melancholy disposition than anything else, which is also known by many signs, but principally by his not having come out of his palace for the space of eleven years, nor having once gone to the chase nor any other kind of amusement, to the great dissatisfaction of his people.” He further describes him as boastful, but unwarlike and “a man of very little courage”; as caring little for law and justice, but much for women and money; as mean and avaricious, “buying and selling with the cunning of a small merchant.” “Notwithstanding the things mentioned above,” he concludes, “which make one think he ought to be hated, the reverence and love of the people for the King are incredible, as they worship him not as a king but as a god, on account of his descent from the line of ‘Alí, the great object of their veneration,” and he cites the most extraordinary instances of this devotion and even deification, which is not confined to the common people but extends to members of the Royal Family and courtiers, and to the inhabitants of the remotest parts of his realms. One magnanimous act of the king’s reign, which led to a great alleviation of the burden of taxation imposed on his people, the Venetian Ambassador ascribes to the influence of a dream, “in which the Angels took him by the throat and asked him whether it was becoming to a king, surnamed the Just and descended from ‘Alí, to get such immense profits by the ruin of so many poor people; and then ordered him to free the people from them.” This story is likely enough, for Ṭahmásp in his Memoirs records numerous dreams to which he evidently attached great importance. Thus in a dream ‘Alí promises him victory over the Uzbeks about A.D. 1528185, and a year or two later at Herát advises [page 87] him as to another campaign186, whereon he remarks, “the belief of this weak servant Ṭahmásp aṣ-Ṣafawí al-Músawí al-Ḥusayní187 is that whoever sees His Holiness the Commander of the Faithful (i.e. ‘Alí), on whom be the blessings of God, in a dream, that which he says will come to pass.” Again in his twentieth year two consecutive dreams, in the second of which he sought and obtained from the Imám ‘Alí Riḍá confirmation of the first, led him to repent of wine-drinking and other excesses, and to close all the taverns and houses of ill-repute in his domains, on which occasion he composed the following quatrain188: 
“For a while we pursued the crushed emerald189; For a while we were defiled by the liquid ruby190; Defilement it was, under whatever colour: We washed in the Water of Repentance, and were at peace.” This “repentance” or conversion of Sháh Ṭahmásp is recorded in the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh under the year 939/1532-3. About the same time the army of the Ottoman Sulṭán Sulaymán, profiting as usual by Persia’s preoccupation with one of the constantly recurring Uzbek invasions of her north-eastern province, marched into Ádharbáyján, where it was overtaken by a premature but violent snow-storm (it was in the month of [page 88] October), in which numbers of the Turkish troops perished. This disaster to the arms of his hereditary foe Sháh Ṭahmásp191 ascribes to “the help of God and the aid of the Immaculate Imáms.” It has been commemorated in the following forcible quatrain, given in the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh and the Ta’ríkh-i-‘Álam-árá-yi-‘Abbásí: 
“I went to Sulṭániyya, that rare pasture-ground: I saw two thousand dead without grave or shroud. ‘Who,’ said I, ‘killed all these Ottomans?’ The morning breeze arose from the midst saying ‘I!’” Other dreams are meticulously recorded by Sháh Ṭahmásp in his Memoirs: at Ardabíl he sees and converses with the vision of his ancestor Shaykh Ṣafiyyu‘d-Dín192; on another occasion he receives encouragement from the spirit of Shaykh Shihábu’d-Dín193; other allegorical dreams are recorded under the years 957/1550 and 961/1554194. In his domestic relations Sháh Ṭahmásp was unhappy, though not perhaps more so than most contemporary Asiatic sovereigns, notably the Ottoman Sulṭáns. He had three younger brothers, Sám (notable as a poet and biographer of poets)195, Bahrám and [page 89] Alqáṣ, of whom the first and third rebelled against him. Sám Mírzá was cast into prison in 969/1561-2 and was ultimately put to death there in 984/1576-7 by Ṭahmásp’s successor. The case of Alqáṣ was much worse, for he was a traitor as well as a rebel, and not only took refuge with Sulṭán Sulaymán at Constantinople, but incited him to attack Persia and took an active part in the ensuing war against his own country. At Hamadán, in 955/1548, he plundered the house of his sister-in-law, the wife of Bahrám Mírzá, and later advanced as far as Yazdikhwást, where he made a massacre of the inhabitants, but in the following year he was defeated and fell into the hands of his brother Bahrám, who handed him over to Ṭahmásp. The King imprisoned him in the Castle of Alamút, according to his own Memoirs196, or, according to the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh, in the Castle of Qahqaha, where he perished a week later. “In short,” says Ṭahmásp in recording the event, “after some days I saw that he did not feel safe from me, but was constantly preoccupied, so I despatched him to a fortress with Ibráhím Khán and Ḥasan Beg the centurion, who took him to the Castle of Alamút and there imprisoned him. After six days, those who had custody of him being off their guard, two or three persons there, in order to avenge their father whom Alqáṣ had killed, cast him down from the castle. After his death the land had peace.” It can scarcely be doubted that Ṭahmásp approved, if he did not actually arrange, this deed of violence. Bahrám Mírzá died the same year at the age of 33. Much worse was the case of the unfortunate Prince Báyazíd, son of the Ottoman Sulṭán Sulaymán, who, deprived of his government of Kútáhiya and driven from his native land by the intrigues of his father’s Russian wife Khurram197 (whose [page 90] one object was to secure the succession of her son Salím, afterwards known as “the Sot”) took refuge at Ṭahmásp’s court in 967/1559-60. An Ottoman mission headed by ‘Alí Páshá was sent to Qazwín to demand the surrender of Báyazíd and his children. They arrived there, as we learn from Anthony Jenkinson’s narrative198, four days earlier than himself, to wit on October 30, 1562, and Ṭahmásp, moved partly by fear of the Turkish power, partly by bribes, disregarded his solemn promises to the contrary and caused or suffered the unfortunate Prince and his four little sons to be put to death, and, as Anthony Jenkinson says, “sent his head for a present, not a little desired, and acceptable to the unnatural father.” Ṭahmásp seems to have overcome any scruples he may have felt in breaking his solemn promises to the guest he thus betrayed by handing him over not directly to his father, but to the emissaries of his brother Salím. The case is bad enough even as stated by the Sháh himself in his Memoirs, which conclude with a pretty full account of this episode199, ending thus: “At this date ‘Alí Áqá came from his Majesty the Sulṭán200, and of [my] Nobles and Court everyone who had sent a present received its equivalent, save in the case of my own gift and offering, which on this occasion also had not proved acceptable; and there was a letter full of hints and complaints. I said, ‘Here have I arrested and detained Prince Báyazíd with his four sons for the sake of His Majesty the Sulṭán and Prince Salím; but since I have given my word not to [page 91] surrender Báyazíd to the Sulṭán, I have determined that when the Sulṭán’s commands arrive and likewise the emissaries of Prince Salím, I will surrender [Báyazíd] to the latter, so that I may not break my promise.’ So when the Sulṭán’s messengers arrived, I said, ‘Your Excellency and Ḥasan Áqá are welcome, and I will act according to the commands of His Majesty and in no wise transgress his orders, but faithfully accomplish whatever service he may indicate. But in return for so material a service I desire from His Majesty the Sulṭán and Prince Salím such reward and recompense as may be worthy of them; and, moreover, I hope of the Sulṭán in a friendly way that no hurt may befall Prince Báyazíd and his sons’.” Needless to say this pious wish in no wise influenced the tragic course of events, but the Sháh’s compliance with the Sulṭán’s imperious demands led to a temporary amelioration of the relations between Persia and Turkey which is reflected both in Anthony Jenkinson’s narrative and in the concluding State Papers contained in the first volume of Firídún Bey’s Munsha’át, in which for the first time Ṭahmásp is addressed by Sulaymán with decent civility, though there is no explicit reference to this event. More creditable and better known is the reception of Humáyún, the son of Bábur and Emperor of Dihlí, at the Court of Ṭahmásp in A.D. 1544 when he was driven out of his own dominions. Of the hospitality which he received Sir John Malcolm201 speaks with enthusiasm; but Erskine202, giving less weight to the official accounts than to the “plain unvarnished tale” of Humáyún’s servant Jawhar203, takes the view (which he
The foreign relations of Persia during the reign of Ṭahmásp were chiefly, as in the reign of his father Isma‘íl, with three states — Turkey, the Uzbeks of Transoxiana, and the so-called “Great Moghuls” of Dihlí. During the greater part of his reign (until 974/1566-7) the great Sulṭán Sulaymán occupied the Ottoman throne; afterwards Salím II (“the Sot”), and, for the last two years of his life (982-4/1574-6) Murád III. Of the Uzbek rulers ‘Ubayd Khán, until his death in 946/1539-40, and afterwards Dín Muḥammad Sulṭán were his most formidable foes, who ceased not to trouble his eastern, as did the Ottoman Turks his western borders. Of the “Great Moghuls” Bábur (died 937/1530-1), Humáyún (died 962/1555) and Akbar were his contemporaries. Anthony Jenkinson, as we have seen, came to him with credentials from Queen Elizabeth in A.D. 1561, and some thirteen years later, towards the end of his reign, the arrival of a Portuguese mission from Don Sebastian is recorded in the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh under the year 982/1574-5, but it met with a bad reception. Between the Ottoman Turks on the one hand and the Uzbeks on the other, Persia enjoyed little peace at this period, and these campaigns on the N.E. and N.W. frontiers
The wars with the Uzbeks were equally continuous, especially until the death of the redoubtable ‘Ubayd Khán, the son of Shaybak Khán, a direct descendant of Chingíz, in 946/1539-40, at the age of fifty-three, after a reign of thirty years. He is said by the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh to have suffered defeat in only one of the seven campaigns he fought against the Persians. Ṭús, Mashhad, and especially Herát suffered terribly during these wars, which were nearly always accompanied by severe religious persecutions. The poet Hilálí fell a victim to the Sunní fanaticism of the Uzbeks at Herát in 935/1528-9, as the poet Banná’í had fallen a victim to Shí‘a intolerance at Qarshí in 918/1512-13; and under the year 942/1535-6 the Aḥsanu’t-Tawáríkh gives the following graphic account of the persecution of the Shí‘a which took place on the capture of Herát by ‘Ubayd Khán on Rajab 20, 942 (January 14, 1536): 
[page 95] 
“Every day by order of that unbelieving Khán (‘Ubayd) five or six individuals were slain for Shí‘a proclivities on the information of ignorant persons in the market-place208 of Herát. Godless villagers and treacherous townsmen would seize anyone against whom they cherished a grudge and drag him before the judge, asserting that in the time of the ‘Red-heads’ (i.e. the Shí‘a Persians) he used to curse Abú Bakr and ‘Uthmán209; and on the word of these two ignorant witnesses the judge would pronounce sentence of death on the victim, whom they would then drag to the market-place of Herát and put to death. Through their sinister acts the waves of sorrow and the hosts of mischief attained their culmination, while plunder and looting took place throughout the confines of Khurásán.” Yüklə 1,57 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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