An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Sufism, Part II: A Socio-Cultural Profile of Sufism, from the Dhahabī Revival to the Present Day

Abstract

The revival of the Dhahabī order in modern Persia took place several decades earlier than that of the Ni'matullāhī through the person of Quṭb al-Dīn Nayrīzī (d. 1173/1759), the thirty-second in line from the Prophet. Nayrīzī was well-versed in all of the various Islamic sciences of his day and among his followers are counted a number of notable Shiite clerics, such as Shaykh Jaՙfar Najafī, Mullā Miḥrab Gīlānī, Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥs¯'ī and Sayyid Mahdī Ṭabāṭaba'ī (‘Baḥr al- ՙUlum’). In the Tadhkirat al-awliyā-yi Dhahabiyya, a versified history of the Dhahabī masters by Āqā Mīrẓā Bābā Shīrāzī, the studies, exploits, compositions, charismatic powers and travels of Nayrīzī are recorded in detail. Nayrīzī was also the author of numerous poetical works and prose treatises in Persian and Arabic, including Risāla-yi Faṣl al-khiṭāb, Shams al-ḥikma, Kanz al-ḥikma, Anwār al-wilāya, Nūr al-hidāya and Risāla-yi ՙIshqiyya. ‘Faṣl al-khiṭāb’, his celebrated Arabic poem of some 8,000 couplets, expounds the tenets of Akbarian theosophy and details his mystical experiences. While attacking the corruption of the Safavid clerical establishment, it records in detail the persecution endured by the Sufis and the destruction of their khānaqāhs at the hands of the ՙulamā-yi ẓāhir.5 Nayrīzī's Faṣl al-khiṭāb also apparently formed the literary model for Hādī Sabzavārā's (d. 1878) celebrated Arabic Manẓūma-yi Ḥikmat.