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

mystics and saints appeared. Shaykh Safī was also invited, however, since “his rectitude
was opposed to accepting food (navāla) from sultans”, 510 the Shaykh made a pretext of
his age and sent his son Sadruddin. Being a young man “who had not yet plucked a rose
from the gardens of asceticism” 511 Sadruddin did not refuse to partake of the food.
According to Khunjī, it was this navāla of Uljaytu that passed through
Sadruddin’s craw that deteriorated the pure mysticism in the line of this family and
injected the seeds of desire for the worldly throne. He says, “As the author was writing
the story a thought crossed his mind: what a pity that, while Safī al-dīn preserved his
being from a doubtful repast, he did not restrain his children from the vanities of this
world. As a result, his progeny forsook poverty and humility for the throne of a
kingdom.” 512 But the effect of this navāla would appear after three generations. After
Shaykh Safī, his descendants Shaykh Sadruddin, Hoca Ali, and Shaykh-shah Ibrahim
followed his footprints. “But when the boon (navāla) of succession reached Junayd, he
altered the way of life of his ancestors: the bird of anxiety laid an egg of longing for
power in the nest of his imagination. Every moment he strove to conquer a land or a
region.” 513
A rare example in Safavid sources points to the change in the teaching and policy
of the order, as well as its disciple-stereotype, during this period an anonymous history
of Shah Ismail supposedly compiled in the first half of the seventeenth century, during
the reign of Abbas I is available in ‘Ālam-ārā-yi Shāh Ismā’īl,. Here Shaykh Junayd is
described as a man responsible for changing the secret teaching of the order. However,
510 TA, p. 62.
511 TA, p. 62.
512 TA, p. 63.
513 TA, p. 63. Similar arguments are recorded in a letter of Sultan Yakub Aqqoyunlu to Bayezid II. See
Feridun Bey, Münşe’āt-ı Selātīn, I, Đstanbul, 1274, pp. 300-301.
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