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

servants to bring his own sword, which, when brought, he fastened with his own
hands to the girdle of the child. Then he said “You may now depart.” Having
recited Fātiha he entrusted the child to the two or three persons who had brought
him in. when they had taken the child away, he made a sign to the young Arab to
lead the dervish back to his caravan; and having brought him to it, said: “This is
the caravan from which you were separated.” When Dede Muhammad saw the
caravan he said: “Oh! Youth, tell me, for God’s sake, who that prince was and
who the child?” He replied: “Did you not know that the prince whom you saw
was no other than the Lord of the Age [The twelfth Imam]?” 836
Before analyzing the content I would like to call attention to the author and
authorship of the source. According to Ross, some details in the narration suggest that
the anonymous author of this history must have participated in most of the events he
recounts. Ross also deduces that he (the anonymous author) must be closely connected
with the Safavids. 837 A close examination of the narration, indeed, reveals that the author
was a sincere qizilbash. As for the time of completion, one might feel justified in
supposing that it was completed soon after the accession of Tahmasp in 930 / 1524, for
the work ends with a short account of the accession of Tahmasp. 838 According to
Sarwar, however, the work was composed between 1540 and 1548. 839 Andrew H.
Morton, on the other hand, identifies this work with Jahāngushā-yi khākān and suggests
a 17th-century date of composition. 840 Whatever the date was, it appears as a clear fact
that the aforesaid account should be regarded as a retrospective re-production of the
ideological frame of Ismail’s huruj by qizilbash authorship. Although the above story is,
836
Ross Anonymous, pp. 329-331.
837
E. Denison Ross, “The Early Years of Shāh Isma’īl, Founder of the Safavī Dynasty”, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, p. 252. The author’s full name is unknown, but Ghulām Sarwar determines from an
incomplete marginal note that it starts with Bijan. See Sarwar, History of Shah Isma’il Safawī, p. 9.
838
Ross, p. 250.
839
See Sarwar, p. 10.
840
See Morton, “The Date and Attribution of Ross Anonymous. Notes on a Persian History of Shah Isma’īl
I”, History and Literature in Iran: Persian and Islamic Studies in Honour of P. W. Avery, ed. Charles
Melville, Chambridge: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1990, pp. 179-212. Also consider his “The
Early Years of Shah Isma’il in the Afzal al-tavārikh and Elsewhere”, in Safavid Persia. The History and
Politics of an Islamic Society, ed., Charles Melville, London, New York, 1996, pp. 27-28.
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