The Idea of Iran: Renewal in the Age of Post-Mongol Prestige

The Iranian Interlude: From Mongol Decline to Tamerlane’s Invasion

Shivan Mahendrarajah, Research Fellow, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, Kabul

Three periods characterize Iran between Mongol and Turkic domination: 1220-78, when Iran was attacked and exploited by the Mongols; the years 1278-1335, where social and economic uptrends were evident; and 1335-81, where concomitant with the decline of Ilkhanid rule, independent regional polities, Turk and Tajik, Sunni and Shi‘a, manifested across Iran. This was the ‘Iranian interlude,’ and terminated by Tamerlane in 1381. As with the ‘Iranian intermezzo,’ this critical interlude witnessed continuities and changes via emerging polities. The Karts of eastern Khurasan (r. 1245-1381), and the Sarbadars of western Khurasan (r. 1336-81), reveal competing vehicles for ‘the idea of Iran’: the Kartid state’s self-image was of a ‘traditional’ Persian Padishah protecting Iran from Turan (the Chaghatay) and Islam from Shi‘ism (the Sarbadars). Meanwhile, the Sarbadars, of iconoclastic and confessionally ambiguous beginnings, evolved into a resolutely Twelver Shi‘a Iranian state.

Sufism in Late Mongol and Timurid Persia, from ‘Ala’ al-Dawla Simnani (d. 736/1326) to Shah Ni‘matullah Wali (d. 835/1431)

Leonard Lewisohn, Senior Lecturer in Persian and Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow in Classical Persian and Sufi Literature, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

This lecture is divided into six parts. In part one, an overview of the social situation of Sufism in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Persia is given, in which the political relations between Sufis and various Mongol and Timurid princes and their courts, conflicts between exoteric Shari‘a-minded clerics and Sufis, and the spread of the Khanaqah institution through greater Persia are summarized. In part two, various schools of Sufi theosophy in medieval Persia are examined, with a focus on the school (and Iranian followers) of Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 638/1240) and the legacy of Rumi’s Mathnawi and Divan-i Shams throughout greater Persia. In the third part, the rise and spread of the Persian Orders (ṭariqas) during this period will be analysed, focusing primarily on the Kubrawiyya, Naqshbandiyya, Kaziruniyya, Suhrawardiyya, Qadiriyya, Mawlawiyya and Yasiwiyya. In part four, the key Persian Sufi prose texts of the period will be surveyed, followed in part five by an overview of the key Persian Sufi mathnawi and ghazal poets of the period, from ‘Ala’ al-Dawla Simnani (d. 736/1326) down to Shah Ni‘matullah Walii(d. 835/1431) and his followers such as Shah Qasim-i Anwar (d. 837/1433) and Shah Da’i Shirazi (d. 869-70/1464-65). In part six, I offer tentative conclusions about why some of the teachings and doctrines of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Persian Sufism—viz. its ‘Religion of Love (madhhab-i ‘ishq), its humanistic ethics, its theories of symbolism, metaphysical imagination and Unity of Being, its tolerant ecumenical and anti-clerical teachings—remain timelessly relevant to the ‘Idea of Iran’ today.

Persian Narrative Poetry in the Fourteenth to Early Fifteenth Centuries and the Legacy of Firdausi’s Shahnama

Julia Rubanovich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The presentation offers a review of Persian narrative poetry of the fourteenth to early fifteenth centuries from the standpoint of its intertextual relationship with Firdausi’s Shahnama. Four major tendencies are discernible in the evolution of the epic’s reception in the period discussed: a direct continuation of the Shahnama’s thematic and stylistic patterns in a genre of historical-heroic epic with a growing admixture of religious – Islamic and Sufi – elements; a partial and mediated adoption of the heroic-epic tradition epitomised in the Shahnama, where Nizami’s romantic poem on the one hand, and the so called ‘secondary epics’ complementing the Sistani cycle on the other, act as intermediaries; a satirical emulation of Firdausi’s work and the Shahnama tradition as an impetus for the development of classical Judeao-Persian epic literature. The speaker will examine the literary and historical reasons behind the development of the above-mentioned tendencies, focusing on their interrelationship and interplay.

Reprising the Question: Why was the Shahnama Illustrated?

Marianna Shreve Simpson, Scholar, University of Pennsylvania and Guest Curator, Princeton University Art Museum

The 2010 millennial celebration of Firdausi’s epic poem occasioned an outpouring of publications and exhibitions, and attracted scholarly and public attention alike. Five years on, interest in the Book of Kings remains unabated, as evidenced by ever more articles, entire journal issues, collected studies, monographs, and catalogues. This presentation takes a historiographic look at both recent twenty-first and late-twentieth-century scholarship on the illustrated Shahnama tradition in an attempt to sort out perspectives on the still-changing question of how – and especially why – this iconic work of Persian literature developed into deluxe works of Persian art during the Ilkhanid and later periods.

The Jalayirid and Muzzaffarid Architecture of Iran

Bernard O’Kane, Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, American University in Cairo

Sandwiched between the Ilkhanids and the Timurids, the Muzzaffarids do not usually receive much credit for their architectural patronage. However, their innovations in vaulting and in decoration, particularly in tilework, deserve to place them in the first rank of benefactors. This presentation will explore some of these topics in the architecture of Isfahan, Yazd and Kerman, particularly with regard to the Friday mosques of these cities. The evidence for domestic architecture of the Muzzaffarids in Yazd will also be considered. It will also be argued that the tomb of Shaykh Safi and the Dar al-Huffaz at Ardabil should be re-dated to the Jalayirid period, from the second rather than the first half of the fourteenth century as has often been thought.