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

Safa offers plentiful information about the religious stand and views of Shaykh Safī.
Even a cursory sketch of Saffetu’s-Safa makes it clear that Safīyuddin’s ideas and mystic
interpretations can hardly be evaluated as shi’ite.. Even though there might be some
implicit implications to the contrary, these do not exceed the traditional shi’te core in all
tasavvuf schools of Islam. After an analysis of Saffetu’s-safa, Basil Nikitine, for
example, arrives at the conclusion that the work depicts the Prophet as a sufi master who
was carefully followed by Shaykh Safī; and thus, that the Shaykh did not deviate from
the traditional way of the sunna and shari’a. “Leur orthodoxie est donc” says Nikitine, “
indiscutable.” 419 Sohrweide writes in a similar manner,
Die Einstellung der frühen Safāviya zur Šari´a reiht sie eher unter die Vertreter
des gemäßigten Sufismus ein. Der Überlieferung nach hatte Scheich Zāhid Safī
ad-Din strenge Befolgung der Šari´a empfohlen, die dieser Zeit seiner Lebens
eingehalten und auch von seinen Jüngern gefordert haben soll. Mit besonderer
Schärfe lehnte Safī das Weintrinken ab. Unter seinen Jüngern ahndete er streng
jedes Vergehen gegen das Verbot; häufig war das Tod des Sünders die Folge, so
erschien es jedenfalls den Jüngern. Ob dieser tatsähhlich durch den Zorn des
Scheichs verursacht wurde, ist hier unwesentlich; wichtig ist, daß man den
Verstoß gegen das Weinverbot für eine Todsünde hielt. 420
On the other hand, a closer look at Saffetu’s-safa shows that Shaykh Safīyuddin
was a highly educated man and that among his audience were figures from cultured
classes of society as well as villagers and middle or low-class townspeople. 421 Shaykh
419 Nikitine, p. 390.
420 Sohrweide, p. 100. Sohrweide also calls attention to the negative attitudes of both Shaykh Zāhid and
Shaykh Safī toward antinomian Qalandar groups, whom they denounced as heretics. See Sohrweide, p.
103. Walther Hinz describes the daily activities of the Tekke of Ardabil: The day started with the early
morning, before the sun rose. Then followed the prayer and zikr, which continues approximately one hour;
the same zikr was repeated at the evening. In the mid-afternoon there was regular recitation of the Koran.
The disciples of the hospice were fond of fasting. Especially during the last ten days of Ramadan and the
first ten days of Zilhicce they lived in seclusion, totally devoting themselves to prayer and contemplation.
See Hinz, p. 11. This description clearly indicates that during this time the Tekke of Ardabil was a great
center of high Islamic Sufism, quite distanced from any forms of ‘heterodoxy’.
421 The fourth chapter of Saffetu’s-safa, for example, is composed of the Shaykh’s interpretation of
Qur’anic verses, of some sayings of the Prophet, and of the special phrases produced by Islamic mystics.
Even a cursory glance at its style and its evaluation of subjects makes clear that this work delves far
beyond the perception level of illiterate people. Rather, its audience must have been learned mystics.
154