Description
By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn 'Alī Yazdī (d.1454), this book presents a holistic view of intellectual life in fifteenth century Iran. İlker Evrim Binbaş argues that the intellectuals in this period formed informal networks which transcended political and linguistic boundaries, and spanned an area from the western fringes of the Ottoman State to bustling late medieval metropolises such as Cairo, Shiraz, and Samarkand. The network included an Ottoman revolutionary, a Mamluk prophet, and a Timurid occultist, as well as physicians, astronomers, devotees of the secret sciences, and those political figures who believed that the network was a force to be taken seriously. Also discussing the formation of an early modern Islamicate republic of letters, this book offers fresh insights on the study of intellectual history beyond the limitations imposed by nationalist methodologies, established genres, and recognized literary traditions.
Chapter
The crisis of 815–819/1413–1416
The crisis of 830/1426–1427
2 The making of a Timurid intellectual
Yazdī and the ʿUmar-Shaykhids
Yazdī and the Shāhrukhids
The rebellion of Sulṭān-Muḥammad
3 Informal intellectual networks in Timurid Iran
Yazdī and the Sufi networks
Sufi networks in Khorasan and Central Asia
Riddling the universe: Yazdī’s theory of muʿammā
as an occult practice
Iskandar b. ʿUmar-Shaykh and the intellectuals
The Ikhvān al-ṣafā: a clandestine network?
4 The prophet of Cairo and the master of Isfahan
The prophet of Cairo: Sayyid Ḥusayn Akhlāṭī
Akhlāṭī’s Timurid connections
Akhlāṭī’s Ottoman connection: Shaykh Bedreddīn
The master of Isfahan: Ṣā'in al-Dīn 'Alī Turka
The science of letters and the empowering of
informal networks
5 The articulation of a princely political discourse
Timurid historiography in context
Niẓām al-Dīn Shāmī and the formation of the dual canon
Mīrānshāhid historiography
ʿUmar-Shaykhid historiography in Fars
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn al-Jazarī
6 Writing history in the Timurid Empire
Medieval rhetoric and historiography
The Muqaddima of the *Tārīkh-i Jahāngīr
The Dībācha to the *Fatḥnama-yi Ṣāḥibqirānī
The Ẓafarnāma and the *Fatḥnāma-yi Humāyūn
The Second Maqāla of the Ẓafarnāma or the Mashhad Manuscript
The fragments found in the Dīvān-i Sharaf
Composition of Yazdī’s compendium
The turn of the 830s/1420–1430s
7 The king’s two lineages: the evolution of a politico-theological idea
Khurūj and ẓuhūr: cosmos and history in Yazdī’s Alexander narrative
The dual caliphate: khilāfat-i ilāhī and khilāfat-i ṣūrī
Shāhrukh as the mujaddid in the Ẓafarnāma
The caliphate redux: Sulṭān-Maḥmūd Shāhrukh
Excursus I: T.abasī and the khalīfa-yi bāṭin
Excursus II: Iskandar b. ʿUmar Shaykh and the philosopher king
The king’s two lineages and Timurid politics
The tombstone inscriptions of Samarkand: an aspect of The Timurid political discourse on genealogy
Appendix: Yazdī and his informal network
Works of Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī
Ḥulal-i muṭarraz dar fann-i mu'ammā va lughaz
Abridgments of the Ḥulal-i muṭarraz
Nikāt-i kalimāt al-tawḥīd fī al-Qur'ān
Works attributed to Yazdī
Other works cited in the book