‘Alī al-Karakī’s Nafaḥāt al-lahūt fī la‘n al-jibt wa’l-ṭāghūt is formally a treatise setting forth the criteria and conditions for calling upon God to forsake the enemies of religion by cursing them. Al-Karakī (d. 1533) wrote this argument in 1512 to support Shāh Ismā‘īl I (d. 1524) following the Herāt conquest, aware of the sectarian chaos to which the city was being subjected, and knowing that the city’s pro-‘Alid factions could profitably be attracted to the public ritual of cursing the first three Sunnī caliphs. Thus, in writing the Nafaḥāt, al-Karakī served the shāh by uniting two doctrines of Twelver Shī‘ism on the treatment of the perceived enemies of ahl al-bayt: dissociation (barā’a) and cursing (la‘n). Consequently, his text, once applied to society at large, unified praxis and doctrine in the Safavid public square.
Given the origins and application of al-Karaki’s Nafaḥāt, it’s no wonder that historians approach it mostly as a politically motivated document, giving little attention to its religious claims. Keeping in mind that to a Shī‘ī scholar of the early sixteenth century the act of expounding the truth or falsity of a doctrinal position would have a direct bearing on salvation, this paper examines al-Karakī’s doctrinal strategies for drawing his community nearer to God through the discourse of the Nafaḥāt.
