Translation, Authority and Exegesis in Modern Iranian Sufism: Two Iranian Sufi Masters in Dialogue

Abstract

Abstract This paper is a reflection on the treatise, Qor’ān-e majid va se dāstān-e asrār-āmiz-e ‘erfāni (“The noble Koran and three arcane mystical stories”), composed by the Iranian Sufi master Hājj Soltān-Hoseyn Tābanda Gonābādi “Rezā-‘Ali Shāh” (d. 1992). The “three arcane mystical stories” in this treatise are the pericopes presented in the Surat al-Kahf (i.e., those of the seven sleepers, Moses and al-Khezr, and Zu’l-qarneyn), and the work itself is what I call an “augmented translation” into Persian of the relevant passages of Soltān-‘Ali Shāh’s (1835-1909) tafsir, the Bayān al-saāda fi maqāmāt al-‘ebāda.The augmented translation carried out by Rezā-‘Ali Shāh is interesting not only because of its doctrinal content (and, in this respect, probably only to a limited extent), but also because it provides an example of how religious authority is articulated in contemporary Iran. The way it was done, the language that was used, the conscious introduction of new material all show how a modern 20th-century Iranian spiritual master struggled to transform the language of tradition while respecting the very authority from which his religious status stemmed.