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

Muhammad Zakariya, who had been the former prime minister of Aqquyunlu rulers and
had been accepted to Ismail’s service after the victory against Shirvanshah, was brought
to the vizierate and the office of chief of divan. 979
Among first deeds of Shah Ismail as a state founder was the proclamation of
Twelver Shi’ism not only the approved and encouraged official sect but the only
tolerated one. 980 During the Friday prayer Ismail read the khutba in the name of the
twelve Immaculate Imams. In Hasan-ı Rumlu’s words, the phrase “I witness that Ali is
the Friend of God, come to the best of deeds”, which was rubbed out in the Islamic
realm by the coming of Sultan Tuğrul Seljuk to the power “five hundred and twenty
eight years ago” 981 , is again affixed to the prayer call. 982 Ismail ordered the cursing of
the first three caliphs Abu Bakr, Omar, and Osman, in public areas; he also ordered the
the ‘Amili Migration to Safavid Iran: Husayn b. ‘Abd al-samad al-‘Amili’s Travel Account”, Iranian
Studies, v. 39, no. 4, December 2006, 481-508; Said Amir Arjomand, “Shi’ism as the State Religion under
the Safavids”, in his The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam, Chicago, London: University of Chicago
Press, 1984, 105-212; “The Clerical Estate and the Emergence of a Shi’ite Hierocracy in Savafid Iran”,
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 28, 1985, 169-219; Albert Hourani, “From
Jabal ‘Āmil to Persia”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 49, 1986, 133-40; Andrew
Newman, “The Myth of Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ‘Ali al-Karakī and
Safawid Shiism”, Die Welt des Islams, 33, 1993, 66-112; Kathryn Babayan, “The Safavid Synthesis: From
Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shi’ism”, Iranian Studies, v. 27, no. 1-4, 1994, 135-61.) The office of sadr
was the head of religious institution. As Savory puts, “The main function of the sadr under the early
Safawids was to impose doctrinal unity by directing and accelerating the propagation of the Shi’ī faith.
Upon the successful imposition of doctrinal uniformity depended the smooth operation of the temporal
arm of the government and the ability of the state to survive hostile attacks by its Sunnī neighbors. As a
corollary, the sadr was responsible for the rooting out of heresy.” See Savory, “The Principal Offices of
the Safawid State during the Reign of Ismā’īl”, p. 103. Nonetheless, under Shah Tahmasb I, the sadr rather
assumed to consolidation of the newly establishing official faith, the Twelver Shi’ism, which was yet alien
even to the founders of the state, that is to the Qizilbash. See Savory, “The Principal Offices of the
Safawid State during the Reign of Tahmāsp I (930-84/1524-76”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies, XXIV, 1961, p. 81.
979
HS, p. 576; HR, p. 64. (HR narrates as if the appointments of these two were occurred following the
victory over Shirvanshah.)
980
Compare BRW, p. 53.
981
HR, p. 74. Hasan-i Rumlu makes a mistake in this calculation. Tugrul Beg entered Baghdad in 447 /
1055 and finished the Shi’ite Buyids’ domination on the Islamic Khalifate. (See, for example, David
Morgan, Medieval Persia 1040-1797, London and New York: Longman, 1988, p. 27.) So when subtracted
447 from 907, it makes 460. For a similar, but not identical, calculation see BRW, p. 54, footnote, 2.
982
HR, p. 74. Also see HT, p. 213.
300