TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

write a satisfactory history of the order between Shaykh Safī and Ismail, especially in
terms of the religious agenda of the order. From a historian’s point of view, this period
resembles a long, dark tunnel into which the order entered as a typical sunni mystical
tarīqa, but emerged as a shi’ite, militant order featuring many ghulat elements. Since
this passage through the ‘tunnel’ is not sufficiently documented, one can not properly
determine the mechanism, dynamics, socio-cultural and theological grounds, nor the
doctrinal basis of this transformation. Nonetheless, thanks to the great respect awarded
to early Safavid Shaykhs and to their influence, we find some information in bits and
pieces in contemporary Mongol, Timurid, and Sufi sources.
Even a cursory glance at the contemporary sources leaves no doubt that Shaykh
Safīyuddin Ishak (1252-1334) 414 , who founded the Safaviyya order at the beginning of
the fourteenth century in Ardabil 415 , was an adherent of the sunni interpretation of
Islam. 416 He is unanimously reported by contemporary sources as a sunni Shaykh who
414 After a spiritual query under the auspices of several Shaykhs, the eponymous founder of the Safavid
Order became the disciple of Shaykh Zāhid Gilāni, and married his daughter Bībī Fātima. Following the
death of Shaykh Zāhid in 1301, Safīyuddin Ishak succeeded to the post of his master in accordance with
the will of the latter. See HS, p. 557; AA, p. 23; HT, pp. 126-8; Ghulām Sarwar, History of Shāh Ismā’īl
Safawī, Aligarh, 1939, p. 21; Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980, p. 6.
415 For the geographical position of Ardabil and its effect on the growth of the order, which was not
ignorable, see Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Safavids. Šī’ism, Sūfism, and the Āulāt,
Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1972, pp. 43-46; Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 1.
416 See, for example, BRW, p. 43. A letter recorded in Ahsanu’t-tevārih, from Uzbek Ubeyd Khan to Shah
Tahmasb reads, “We have thus heard concerning your ancestor, His sainted Holiness Shaykh Safī, that he
was a good man and an orthodox Sunnī, and we are greatly astonished that you neither follow the conduct
of Murtaza Ali nor that of your ancestor.” Quoted in BRW, p. 44. In Saffetu’s-safa, “Shaykh Safī asked
once: ‘What is your madhab?’ He replied that he believed in the madhab of the imāms (i.e. the four
schools of Abū Hanīfa, Šāfi’ī, Mālik, and Inb Hanbal) whom he loved, and that from among the (four)
medāhib he chose those hadīts that had the strongest chain of authority (asnad) and are the best (ağwad),
and applied them. He added that he did not allow for himself or his murīds any license in these matters,
but rather carried out the details that are expressed in the various madāhib.” Quoted in Mazzaoui, p. 49.
Ottoman sources, which were used to take a vigorously opposing stand to the Safavid movement, also
unanimously depict Safīyuddin and early Safavid Shaykhs up to Junayd as saintly and respected figures.
These sources will be cited in the following pages. Even Fazlullah Ruzbihan Khunji, a rigorous sunni
scholar who frequently expressed his hatred of Safavids in his writings, describes the early Safavid
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