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

looked upon the shaykh as their qibla and the being to whom prosternation 722 was due
(masjūd). The Shaykh propagated among them the creed of ibādat and the religious law
of Bābak’s Khurramites.” 723
But the crucial point in his account is that his accusation is much more pointed
towards the ‘foolish disciples’ than the shaykhs. “The fools of Rūm, who are a crowd of
error and a host of devilish imagination,” says Khunjī, “struck the bell of the inane claim
of Christians on the roof of the monastery of the world and, like that nation gone astray,
exposed their (own) trinity (thālith-i thalātha) to exemplary punishment in the
nethermost hell. They openly called Shaykh Junayd ‘God (ilāh) and his son ‘Son of God
(ibn-Allāh)’.” 724 Elsewhere he writes, when Uzun Hasan, after conquering Azarbaijan,
let Haydar stay in Ardabil, the khalifas of his father, who came from every direction,
foolishly announced ‘the glad tidings of his divinity (ulūhiyat)’; thus their 725 excessive
obedience caused Shaykh Haydar to acquire bad habits and manners. 726
As already warned, Khunjī’s account must be read carefully by toning down his
exaggerations especially regarding his assertion that their followers assumed deity in and
worshipped Junayd and Haydar. Recognizing his exaggerations, Roemer reckons this
assertion of Khunjī not to be accepted at its face value. 727 This assertion rather seems to
be the view of a learned sunni scholar with the zeal of orthodox sunnism, who was also
directly or indirectly commissioned to blame this group for being heretics 728 , on the
722
sic
723
TA, p. 68.
724
TA, pp. 65-6.
725
Khunji says here “the obedience of the people of Rum” See TA, p. 66.
726
TA, p. 66.
727
Roemer, “The Safavid Period”, p. 208.
728
This point appears clearly when Khunji explains how and why Sultan Yakup dispatched his 4.000
soldiers in order to fight with Shaykh Haydar. He attempts to secure the religious ground of Sultan
Yakub’s decision arguing “In fact, according to the Sharī’at, the shaykh’s behaviour with regard to a
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