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

must have been a young man when he embarked on a struggle with his uncle for the
Shaykhdom. 561 His life before 1447 is not known. But one can safely suggest that he
lived in Ardabil near his father. This being the case, then, one feels the right to ask from
which sources and how did he derive these elements of the shi’ite faith? His training and
education must have been performed under the careful auspice of his father and the
foremost dervishes of the hospice, according to the one and a half century-long tradition
of the order, which is known as bearing a sunni character. Considering such a career,
how could Junayd personally have developed a sufi-shi’ite synthesis all by himself?
Being one of the strongest candidates to the shaykhdom, his every ideas and practices
must have been closely observed. It is almost impossible for a man in such a situation to
depart from the traditional mystical way of the order and to pursue such a way that not
only contradicted but also struggled with the former teachings through only his
intellectual activities. Even his intellectual activities and cognitive development were
severely conditioned by the intellectual environment of the hospice.
Thus the only logical explanation left is to seek the answer in a long socio-
religious transformation process that took place from top to bottom,i.e. that started
among the disciples and barely transformed the ideas of the shaykhs as a result. This
point is generally ignored by modern historians, seeking the answers primarily in the
personal decisions and the strategies of the shaykhs. Mazzaoui, for example, sees this
transformation on the doctrinal level as very much connected to the newly arising
political ambitions of the shaykhs. He says, “The religious change was simply a pretext
for a political ends. The two are inextricably united in the persons of Ğunaid and
561 Hinz, p. 15.
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