Iran: Empire of the Mind (49 page)

19
Persian transliterated from Saberi, p. 20; for the translation I am grateful to Hashem Ahmadzadeh and Lenny Lewisohn for their help. The selection of poetry that follows here is a personal one, and includes a disproportionate number of rubaiyat—largely because the quatrain form is shorter than the other main verse forms and enabled me to incorporate more poetry from a variety of poets in a short space, and to include the original Persian.

20
Clinton 1987, p. xvii.

21
Ibid., pp. 72-3.

22
Idries Shah 1964, p. xiv.

23
Arberry 1958, p. 67.

24
Aminrazavi 2005, pp. 25-7 and Avery/Heath-Stubbs 1981, Appendix 1.

25
Ibid., pp. 199-200.

26
Saberi, p. 75; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh/Lewisohn. There are examples of quatrains where Fitzgerald took greater liberties with the originals.

27
Aminrazavi 2005, pp. 131-3; Yarshater 1988, pp. 148-50 (Elwell-Sutton).

28
Saberi, p. 78; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh/Lewisohn.

29
Arberry 1949, p. 14; Saidi 1992, p. 36; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh/Lewisohn/Avery.

30
For Sufism generally, see especially Lewisohn 1999, and Schimmel.

31
Lewisohn 1999, pp. 11-43; Hodgson 1974, vol. 2, pp. 203, 209, 213, 217-22, 293, 304.

32
Cambridge History
, vol. 5, p. 299.

33
Arberry 1958, pp. 90-1.

34
Gelpke 1966, p. 168.

35
Clinton 2000, p. 25.

36
Lewisohn and Shackle 2006, p. 255; and L. Lewisohn, ‘Attar, Farid al-Din’ (article) in
The Encyclopedia of Religion,
2005, p. 601—cf. Nietzsche:
Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse—That which is done out of love, always takes place beyond Good and Evil.

37
Darbandi and Davis 1984, pp. 57-75.

38
Morgan 1986 pp. 88-96 and
passim
.

39
Cambridge History
, vol. 5, pp. 313-14, based on Boyle 1958, pp. 159-62.

40
Ibid., p. 337.

41
Levy 1999, p. 245.

42
Mojaddedi, 2004, pp. 4-5.

43
Saberi, p. 257; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh.

44
Chittick and Wilson 1982, p. 34.

45
Ibid., p. 36.

46
Moin 1999, p. 47. These are deep waters; the idea of the Perfect Man refers backward to Sohravardi, neoPlatonism and possibly to the personifications (daena, fravashi) and angels in Zoroastrianism—see also Corbin 1971, vol. II, pp. 297-325.

47
Corbin 1977, p. 139; the similarity to the earlier extracts describing the
daena
is obvious.

48
Chittick and Wilson 1982, p. 60.

49
Wickens 1974 p. 150

50
Browne 1969 vol. II, p. 530

51
Saberi p. 274; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh.

52
Ibid., p. 277; translation Axworthy/Ahmadzadeh.

53
Arberry 1958 p. 331. There is more than an echo of this poem in Matthew Arnold’s
Dover Beach.

54
Arberry 1947 p. 43; I am grateful to Lenny Lewisohn for his translation. Compare with Thomas Hardy’s poem
Moments of Vision
That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?

55
And not just Iranians—western commentators have agonised over whether such poems, addressed to a Beloved in the third person singular, which in
Persian is gender-neutral, are homoerotic or conventionally heterosexual. The answer (given the absence of clear gender markers, such as one finds in other poems) is surely that the ambiguity is deliberate. One might more profitably reflect how appropriate the neutral third person is to the higher meaning of the Beloved, ie to God.

56
Khanlari 1980 ghazal 197; also quoted in Limbert 1987 p. 144.

57
Saberi p. 384; Saberi’s translation.

58
Cambridge History
, vol. 5, pp. 546-547.

59
Paul 1997 pp. 46–47 and
passim
.

60
Cf Vaziri 1993
passim
.

61
Ibn Khaldun,
Muqaddimah
, vol. 1, pp. 353-5; Gellner 1991
passim
.

4. SHI‘ISM AND THE SAFAVIDS

1
The following draws largely on Momen 1985, pp. 28-33 and
passim
.

2
See for example Bill and Williams 2002, pp. 1-7 and Frye 1968, pp. 19 and 57.

3
Babayan 2002, p. xxxviii.

4
Ibid., p. xxxix.

5
Encyclopedia Iranica
, ‘Esmail’ (Savory); see also Newman 2006, pp. 9-12.

6
Ibid., ‘Esmail’ (Savory).

7
Newman 2006, pp. 24-5 and 1993,
passim
.

8
The extent of Shi‘ism in Iran before 1500 and the changes thereafter have been thoroughly explored by Rasul Ja‘farian (Ja‘farian 1991).

9
Foltz 2004, p. 134.

10
Minorsky 1943, pp. 33-5.

11
See Floor 2000, and Matthee, 1999.

12
Bayly 1989, p. 30; Foran 1992 (
passim
); Sefatgol 2003, p. 408.

13
See Floor 2001 and Minorsky, 1943.

14
Encyclopaedia Iranica
, ‘Molla Sadra Shirazi’ (Sajjad Rizvi). ‘Molla’ and ‘Mullah’ are the same word, but I refer to Molla Sadra in this way in an attempt to distance him from modern connotations that could be misleading.

15
Mottahedeh 1987, p. 179.

16
Yarshater 1988, pp. 249–88 and, notably, the quotation from Bausani, p. 275.

17
Levy/Ebrami 1999, pp 293–5; see also Sanasarian 2000, p. 45.

18
To get a sense of this, albeit in a description from a later period, the relationship between the Jewish family and their village mullah in Dorit Rabinyan’s
Persian Brides
(Edinburgh 1998) is vivid and memorable.

19
Mottahedeh 1987, p. 203. The thinker Ali Shariati (1933-1977) also attacked the Shi‘ism of the Safavid period (Black Shi‘ism) but arguably was addressing deficiencies of religious practice in his own time rather than making a historical point. His priority was to encourage a resurgence of true Shi‘ism (Red Shi‘ism)—a revolutionary Shi‘ism of social justice—see
Chapter 7
below.

20
See Matthee 1996, and Axworthy 2007.

21
Matthee 2005, p. 61.

22
Ibid., pp. 50-6.

23
Savory 1980, p. 232.

24
Matthee 2005, pp. 58-60.

25
Ibid., pp. 91-2, 92n. The evidence comes not just from western observers at court, but also from Persian sources; the Shaykh olEslam of Qom had the temerity to criticise the Shah’s drinking, and was lucky to escape execution for it.

26
Newman 2006, p. 99; ‘part of this struggle for the hearts and minds of the “popular” classes’.

27
See Moreen 1992
passim.

28
Calmard 2003, p. 331.

5. THE FALL OF THE SAFAVIDS, NADER SHAH,
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INTERREGNUM,
AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE QAJAR DYNASTY

1
This version is taken from Malcolm 1829, vol. 1, pp. 399-400, but a number of Persian and other sources give the same story—cf. Mohammad Kazem Marvi, p.18 and Krusinski, vol.1, pp. 62-4.

2
Matthee 2005, pp. 92-4; Babayan 2002, p. 485; Lewisohn 1999, pp. 132-3.

3
Hoffmann, 1986 vol. 1, pp. 203-4, 290; Krusinski, vol. 1, pp. 121-2; Axworthy 2006, pp. 31-3.

4
Bayly 1989, p. 30; Foran 1992.

5
Krusinski, vol. 2, pp. 196-8.

6
Axworthy 2006, p. 142.

7
Miklukho-Maklai 1952, p. 97.

8
Vatatzes, pp. 131-3.

9
Levy/Ebrami 1999, pp 360-2; Axworthy 2006, p. 169.

10
The full significance of Nader’s religious policy is covered admirably in Tucker 2006.

11
See Axworthy 2006, pp. 249-50 and my forthcoming article ‘The Army of Nader Shah’,
Iranian Studies
. The size of the army is corroborated from a number of sources, and is plausible given earlier trends.

12
Bayly 1989, p. 23 (Ottoman and Moghul figures): Floor 2000, p. 2: Issawi 1971 p. 20; Floor, Dutch Trade (forthcoming).

13
Axworthy 2006, pp 280-1.

14
Astarabadi, vol. 2, p. 187.

15
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, pp. 63-5.

16
Floor 2000, p. 3.

17
Ibid.

18
Ibid., pp. 2-3; Issawi 1971 p. 20.

19
Floor, Dutch Trade (forthcoming).

20
Notably by Lambton 1977. For this paragraph see also
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, pp. 506-41 (Richard Tapper), Tapper 1997 pp. 1-33 and Gellner 1991.

21
Hasan-e Fasa’i, p. 4.

22
Ibid., pp. 52-4.

23
Malcolm 1829, vol. 2, p. 125.

24
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, p. 125.

25
See Algar 1977.

26
Mottahedeh 1987 p. 233; a similar process took place in the later Roman Empire with the title of Senator and other honorifics.

27
Momen 1985, pp. 238-4; Keddie (Ghaffary) 1999, pp. 94-6.

28
For example, Hasan-e Fasa’i, pp.101-2.

29
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, pp. 142-3.

30
Malcolm 1829, vol. 2, p. 217.

31
Wright 1977, pp. 4-5.

32
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, pp. 331-3; Hasan-e Fasa’i, p. 111.

33
Ibid., p. 334; Keddie 1999, p. 22.

34
Ibid., pp. 335-8.

35
Keddie 2006 pp. 42-3.

36
Kelly 2002, pp. 190-4.

37
Keddie 1971, pp. 3-4;
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, pp. 174-81.

38
Keddie 1999, p. 17;
Cambridge History
, vol. 7, p. 174.

6. THE CRISIS OF THE QAJAR MONARCHY, THE REVOLUTION OF 1905-1911 AND THE ACCESSION OF THE PAHLAVI DYNASTY

1
Amanat 1997, p. 252.

2
Levy/Ebrami 1999, p. 427.

3
Ibid., p. 430.

4
Sahim 2005, pp. 293-310.

5
Sanasarian 2000, pp. 45-6.