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Abstract
This paper presents some of the preliminary findings of the research on the history and religion of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq in nineteenth century Iran. It seeks to shed light on the Qajar-era statesmen’s efforts to learn more about and thus better understand the otherwise enigmatic community, their origins, identities, beliefs, and practices as well as political loyalties. In particular, the article discusses arguably the most important text pertaining to the group and produced in late nineteenth century Iran, addresses the question of its authorship and sources, seeks to contextualize its composition and finally offers its full translation. Lastly, the paper offers a partial review of the most important Persian-language research and scholarship on the subject, points to several hitherto untapped primary sources for the study of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq, and also discusses the major actors and trends essential to understanding of and further research on the history of the community during the period in question and beyond.
Notes
1 The two names will be used interchangeably throughout this article.
2 de Gobineau, Trois ans en Asie; Jukovsky, “Sekta ‘Lyudey Istiny’”; Minorsky, Materialy dlya Izucheniya Sekty (1911). The reworked and expanded French version appeared, in two parts, a decade later – “Notes sur la Secte des Ahle-Haqq.” See also Minorsky’s “Etudes sur les Ahl-i Haqq.” The revised and expanded French work, however, does not contain the abridged annotated translation of Nāmeh-ye Sarānjām included in the earlier Russian publication. A facsimile of the Persian text of the Sarānjām used by Minorsky is currently kept, along with other materials of his personal library, at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg (Fond-Arkhiv V.F. Minorskogo, catalogue number not available to me).
3 See, for example, Edmonds, “The Beliefs and Practices of the Ahl-i Ḥaqq”; Mir-Hosseini, “Inner Truth and Outer History” and “Redefining the Truth”; or the recent volume containing a number of entries on the subject: Raei, Islamic Alternatives.
4 Ivanow, The Truth-Worshippers of Kurdistan; Ivanow, “An Ali-Ilahi Fragment”; Mokri, Shāhnāmeh-ye Ḥaqīqat; Ozgoli-Membrado, “Forqân Al-Akhbâr de Hâjj.”
5 Over the past few decades numerous books and articles on the Ahl-e Ḥaqq have been published in Iran. While some of them can hardly be characterized as scholarly, a few that can, despite certain flaws, have remained largely unknown or willfully ignored by researchers outside of Iran, not least by those working in the field of the Anatolian Qezelbāsh-Alevi history. See, for example, Delfānī’s Tārīkh-e Moshaʿshaʿīyān: Peyrovān-e Ahl-e Ḥaqq and Peydāyesh-e Selseleh-ye Ahl-e Ḥaqq, or Solṭānī, in two volumes, Qiyām va Nehżat-e ʿAlavīyān-e Zāgros.
6 It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that the Arabic word ẕokāʾ (ذُكاء) means intelligence, astuteness, or intellect, leading to a rather prosaic translation of “Ẕokāʾ al-Molk” into English as “the Intelligence of the Realm.” However, the word for intelligence is ẕakāʾ (ذَكاء) whereas ẕokāʾ in fact means “the Sun” (ibn al-ẕokā, for example, is commonly translated as dawn or morning). Figuratively speaking, and given the Sun’s illuminating and enlightening qualities, “Ẕokāʾ al-Molk” is better rendered into English as “the Sun of the Realm.” See, for example, Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary, 558.
7 For two contemporary and somewhat similar, though significantly shorter, reports on the Anatolian Qezelbāsh-Alevis prepared upon Abdülhamid II’s (d. 1918) orders by the governors of Ankara and Tokat, in 1894 and 1899 respectively, see Alandağlı’s “Kızılbaşlara Dair İki Rapor.”
8 National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran – catalogue number: ف 918; see the digitalized version at http://opac.nlai.ir/opac-prod/bibliographic/1714697. Although there is nothing in the text itself to confirm that, the online bibliographical description indicates that the text was dedicated to (ehdāʾbeh) Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh.
9 The majmūʿeh containing the second copy is also freely accessible through the Digital Library of the Museum and Center for Documents of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran; catalogue number: 717588, http://dlib.ical.ir/site/catalogue/717588
10 Majaleh-ye Vaḥīd, Khordād–Tīr 1357 (June–July 1978), no. 234–235: 46–55.
11 Solṭānī, Seh Goftār-e Taḥqīqī dar Ᾱyīn-e Ahl-e Ḥaqq, 4–19. Solṭānī’s edition is partially redacted and the elements of the original text concerning the group’s alleged views on the Qurʾan, the Prophet and the first three caliphs, as well as Sunnis in general, are missing. See also, Kordestani, “The Sect of Ahl-i Haqq.”
12 The date most likely indicates when this copy was produced rather than when the original was written.
13 Afżal al-Molk is the author of Afżal al-tavārīkh as well as several travelogues.
14 Kia, “Inside the Court of Naser od-Din Shah Qajar” pp. 109-11; Amanat, “Eʿtemād-al-salṭana.”
15 Kasheff, “Forūghī, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khān Ḏokāʾ-al-Molk.”
16 Vejdani, Making History in Iran, 41-2.
17 Ibid.
18 Shīrāzī, Ṭarāyeq al-Ḥaqāyeq; for Ẕokāʾ al-Molk’s preface see volume one of Maḥjūb’s edition, 7–11. Lewisohn, citing M. Homāyūnī, writes that the first volume of the work was composed by Raḥmat ʿAlī Shāh (d. 1861) while Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh wrote the other two. The first lithographed edition of the three volumes was apparently published between 1316 and 1319 [1898 and 1901]; see Lewisohn, “An Introduction,” 449.
19 See, for example, Shīrāzī, Ṭarāyeq al-Ḥaqāyeq, vol. 2, 191–7, 247–9, 299, 523.
20 What Forūghī refers to as the “books of trusted and respected authors” and “those who have studied and know about the religions (adyān) and denominations (maẕāheb) as well as nations (melal) and sects (neḥal) of the world” – see the translation below.
21 Moḥsen Fānī, Dabestān-e Maẕāheb. There is quite a bit of scholarship on the Dabestān, including an apparently ongoing debate over its authorship; see, for example, Ali, “Pursuing an Elusive Seeker of Universal Truth”; or Sheth, “Manuscript Variations of Dabistān-i Maẕāhib.”
22 Lewisohn, “An Introduction,” 446.
23 Ibid.
24 For a discussion of some of these accounts see Musalı, “Hacı Zeynel Abidin.”
25 Shīrvānī, Bostān al-Siyāḥah, 378–9.
26 While the Dabestān was composed in the second half of the seventeenth century, it is not at all clear whether the chapter on the Deifiers of ʿAlī was included in the original work. In other words, at present there is not enough evidence to suggest that the term ʿAlī Allāhī was commonly used before the nineteenth century.
27 Shīrvānī, Bostān, 378.
28 Ibid.
29 Though Shīrvānī gives no names, Forūghī offers a detailed though partly suspect and confused catalogue while failing to clearly distinguish the historical (or imaginary) Gholāt sects from the contemporary Ahl-e Ḥaqq ojāq-seyyeds and their followers.
30 The seyyed in question appears to be Mīrzā ʿAbbās Beg (d. 1797/8), the head of the Moshaʿshaʿī ojāq; see Delfānī, Tārīkh-e Moshaʿshaʿīyān, 250. Even though Seyyed ʿAbbās, at least according to Delfānī’s research, had already been dead for almost three decades by the time of the completion of Bostān al-Siyāḥah (early 1830s) and had been succeeded by his son Mīrzā Neẓām (d. 1820), who was in turn replaced upon his death by Shāh Ᾱqā Mīrzā Moshaʿshaʿī (d. 1870), it is possible that our author was simply misinformed or not completely up to date regarding the affairs of the community during the composition of the section on the Gholāt. The genealogy of the Moshaʿshaʿī ojāq-seyyeds is also found in Ivanow’s copy of Taẕkereh-ye Aʿlā; see Ivanow, Truth-worshippers, 146.
31 It is noteworthy that Ṭarāyeq al-Ḥaqāyeq also contains passages reproduced almost verbatim from Bostān al-Siyāḥah: “rāqem az sādāt-e ʿalī allāhī besyār dīdeh va beh ṣoḥbat-e īshān resīdeh,” followed by “while they deny all formal learning [and] do not veil their women there is little or no immorality among them.” Shīrāzī, Ṭarāyeq al-Ḥaqāyeq, vol. 2, 247.
32 See Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran, 136–40; or the recent, and not available to me, Omīd, Seyyed-e Kalārdashtī. For the Ahl-e Ḥaqq account of the events see Delfānī, Tārīkh-e Moshaʿshaʿīyān, 323–46.
33 Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, 3.
34 Ibid., 9.
35 Ibid., 89.
36 It is noteworthy, though hardly surprising, that none of the books on the Ahl-e Ḥaqq published in Iran in recent decades contains any references to the Babis (or Bahaʾis) as if there was virtually no interaction between these groups.
37 Amanat, Resurrection, 370.
38 ʿAbd al-Razzāq Donbolī, Tajribat al-Aḥrār va Taslīyat al-Abrār, ed. H. Qāżī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, 2. Vols, (Tabriz, 1971), II, 196-197, cited in Amanat, Resurrection, 85.
39 Amanat, Resurrection, 87. ʿAbd al-Karīm apparently joined the Babis during his stay in the ʿAtabāt in the 1840s.
40 According to Minorsky, the seyyed died in 1873, was succeeded by his son Seyyed Ayāz and subsequently by Seyyed Rostam who was still alive as late as 1920; see his “The Guran,” BSOAS, 11:1 (1943), 95. Minorsky’s article also contains a brief survey of Gurani literature most of which remains in manuscript form.
41 Farāhānī, Dīvān-e Kāmel-e Mīrzā Ṣādeq Khān, pp. 699-83. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
42 Sepehr, Nāsekh al-Tavārīkh, 29–30.
43 Amanat, Resurrection, 312.
44 Ibid., 313.
45 Ibid., 284.
46 Ibid.
47 Minorsky, Materialy, viii.
48 I have been able to find at least nine copies (including a translation into Persian) in Iranian and European libraries produced in the decades following Taymūr’s rebellion, and not even one from the period before. The oldest version, dated Shaʿbān 1271 (April–May 1855), is kept in Qom at the Library of Ᾱyatollāh Marʿashī Najafī (33r. 9799). The text was copied by Moḥammad Ḥosayn Tafrīshī on the order of Mīrzā Mūsā Mostoufī Ashtiyānī (d. 1881). The latter, described by Amanat as “crafty and Machiavellian,” eventually went on to become the Qajar minister of army (vazīr-e lashkar); Amanat, Pivot of the Universe, 381. The translation (at least partial) of the dīvān, currently kept at the Staatsbibliotek in Berlin (VOHD 30, 7), was prepared by Moḥammad Qolī Harsīnī (a native of the eponymous country in Kermanshah just, south of Ṣaḥneh, both areas inhabited by the Gurani-speaking Ahl-e Ḥaqq even today) in 1896, just three years after the composition of the report by Ẕokāʾ al-Molk.
49 Interestingly, during his trois ans en Asie, between 1855 and 1858, Comte de Gobineau described the Ahl-e Ḥaqq religious assemblies and the recited poetry in the following way: “None of [their] compositions exist in the Persian language; they are all in Chaghatay Turkish or Azerbaijani, in Lurish or in Kurdish. Many are quite ancient, but of those I have seen none dated back more than four centuries.” De Gobineau, Comte de Gobineau and Orientalism, 54. Could these be references to Mollā Parīshān, Nasīmī, Khaṭāʾī, others?
50 Farāhānī, Dīvān-e Kāmel-e Mīrzā Ṣādeq Khān.
51 Dehqan, “Notes on a Bahaʾi Polemic,” 137–141.
52 A book by a Bahaʾi author titled Estedlāliyyeh barā-ye Ahl-e Ḥaqq apparently contains some later messianic prophecies and, judging by the title, is likely to shed further light on the nature of the relationship between the Ahl-e Ḥaqq and the Babi/Bahaʾis: see Ṣaḥīḥ Forūsh, Estedlāliyyeh barā-ye Ahl-e Ḥaqq, cited in Amanat, Resurrection, 86. Unfortunately, the book was not available to me and Professor Amanat could not locate it in his private library.
53 Browne, The Persian Revolution, 52.
54 Rūznāmeh-ye khāṭerāt-e ʿAyn al-Salṭaneh, ed. Sālvar and Afshār 319–20.
55 Rūznāmeh-ye khāṭerāt-e Eʿtemād al-Salṭaneh, ed. Afshār, 778
56 Rūznāmeh-ye khāṭerāt-e Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh, ed. Khalīlī and ʿAbdamīn, 321.
57 Eʿtemād al-Salṭaneh, Rūznāmeh, 778.
58 Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh, Rūznāmeh, 321.
59 Eʿtemād al-Salṭaneh, Rūznāmeh, 778.
60 For the discussion of Nāṣer al-Dīn’s lifelong devotion to ‘Alī as his protector and patron saint, as well as the intellectual mark upon the young monarch left by Sorūsh Eṣfahānī, see Amanat, Pivot of the Universe, 66–7. Sorūsh “was a court poet of some repute who later became the first poet laureate of the Shah … [and] also left his intellectual mark on the young Nāṣer al-Dīn.” Amanat, judging by his poetry, decidedly declares him a ghālī—“an excessive admirer of ‘Alī with extremist beliefs concerning his incarnation”—and goes on to assert that his influence upon the young Shah was both “subtle and enduring.” For Sorūsh’s biography, see Jalāl al-Dīn Homā’ī and Moḥammad Ja’far Maḥjūb’s introductions to the following works Dīvān-e Sorūsh and Shams al-Shoʾarā, ed. M.J. Maḥjūb, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1339/1960), 1–90 and 91–208, cited in Amanat, Pivot of the Universe, 66–7.
61 Alandağlı, “Kızılbaşlara Dair İki Rapor,” 234.
62 Ibid., 233.
63 Ibid., 235.
64 Another document from the region of Gömeç in the Province of Tokat, dated 4 August 1894, reports an incident of an ambush by Armenian gangs on a postal carriage. Eventually, we are told, over fifty people were arrested among whom was a “qezelbāsh” by the name of Kelbaba. Alandağlı, “Kızılbaşlara Dair İki Rapor,” 229.
65 It is worth noting that Forūghī is keenly aware, in part certainly from reading Shīrvānī’s works, of the existence of ʿAlī Allāhīs beyond the Qajar dominions as well as the long-standing connection between the communities in Iran and Anatolia, where, he tells us, “people call them Qezelbāsh.”
66 Akpınar, “II. Abdülhamid Dönemi Devlet,” 223.
67 For the seyyed’s letter to Minorsky see “Notes,” Revue du Monde Musulman XLV (1921): 273.
68 Minorsky, Materialy, x.
69 Throughout I have tried to keep the flow of the text as simple as possible, avoided translating honorifics (of God or, for example, the Imāms or the Prophet) and largely avoided various epithets unless deemed essential. The translations of the few Qurʾanic passages found throughout the text are taken from Arberry, The Koran Interpreted. Finally, I have not rearranged the different sections and paragraphs thematically, instead keeping everything in the order it appears in the original Persian text.
70 Terms such as ṭarīqeh, ṭāyefeh, zomreh, ferqeh, jamāʿat, or qoum are used interchangeably and with little consistency throughout the text.
71 For a discussion of this figure see Mokri, “Le kalam gourani.”
72 See Sean W. Anthony's The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Saba and the Origins of Shiʿism.
73 The Noṣayrīs, while technically belonging to the Gholāt in character and beliefs, do not actually have a presence in Iran. The figure of ibn Noṣayr in Iran, as Ivanow pointed out, appears to have nothing to do with the eponymous founder of the Noṣayrī sect of Syria, Moḥammad ibn Noṣayr (d. 873), and instead, “according to the darwish theories,” was certain Shāh Maḥmūd-e Pātilī. Ivanow further suggests that the reason why some ʿAlī Allāhīs in Iran, especially those who live amongst the Persians, make themselves Noṣayrī is simply because they are somewhat ashamed of the general style of their mythology so firmly connected with the tribal life of the “wild Kurds.” The term Noṣayrī, Ivanow suggests, implies little or no definite religious content yet is somewhat attractive as more “respectable, Arabic.” Ivanow, “An Ali-Ilahi Fragment,” n. 5.
74 See Floor, “Who Were the Candle Extinguishers.”
75 Qezelbāsh-Alevis reportedly call those outside of their community ağzı kara (“black mouth”) while Azeris refer to the non-Shiʿa as kara boğaz (“black throat”)—the relationship between the two expressions seems rather obvious.
76 Today’s Garrehbān or Dūrūd.
77 As late as the first decade of the twentieth century, an American missionary in the Ottoman Empire, Stephen van Rensselaer Trowbridge, encountered a group of Qezelbāsh-Alevis in Aintab who informed him that the center of their religion was in the town of Kerend, Kermanshah province of Persia, where four of ʿAlī’s male descendants were said to reside: “They are by name, Seyyid Berake, Seyyid Rustem, Seyyid Essed Ullah, Seyyid Farraj Ullah.” This community further informed the missionary that “these men sen[t] representatives throughout Asia Minor and northern Syria for preaching and for the moral training of their followers,” to which Trowbridge added, with hardly any evidence, that “in Persia and Mesopotamia there are from two to three million Alevis.” Trowbridge, “The Alevis, Or Deifiers of Ali,” 342–3. Significantly, the Anatolian disciples of the Gurani-speaking Kermanshah-based seyyeds corroborate Forūghī’s claim, the apparently “well-known” fact that it was “during the reign of Shah Ṣafī I that [their ancestors] came from Anatolian (khāk-e rūm) and made [Gahvāreh-ye Gūrān] their home.” Trowbridge, quoting one of his informants, tells us: “Shah Sefi Sultan was the first Alevi to sit upon the throne of Persia,” and was said, correctly, to have been followed by “four [more] Alevi Shahs, among them Abbas.” However, “since then, Sunnis and Shiʿa have been upon the throne.” Shāh Ṣafī is said to have “brought about a renaissance of the faith, sent criers out upon the highways to witness for ʿAlī, to bring honour to his name, to redeem the down-trodden cause, and throughout his reign proved himself a just and noble shah.”
78 Located in Zanjan.
79 While the story is most likely apocryphal, this particular version, Israel Friedlaender argued, is an invention of the moderate Shiʿa seeking to cast ‘Alī in the role of the foremost enemy of the Gholāt; see Israel Friedlaender, trans., “The Heterodoxies of the Shi‘ites in the Presentation of Ibn Hazm.” Journal of the American Oriental Society XXVIII (1907): 1–80, cited in Tucker, Mahdis and Millenarians, 13.
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Gennady Kurin
Gennady Kurin is a DPhil Student and an ONGC Scholar at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.