Neighbours in Reality, Neighbours in Eschatology - Ethnic Groups and Their Representations in the Dīwān‐i Qā’imiyyāt

The present paper examines the representations of different ethnic groups in the Dīwān‐i Qā’imiyyāt. Even though the evidence is rather scarce, a recently published collection of poems entitled Dīwān‐i Qā’imiyyāt, a predominantly eschatological text, suggests that the Nizari Ismaili state acted successfully as a balance between rivalling powers of his time. Due to the extreme scarcity of our historical data relating to the contacts held by the Nizari Ismailis with their direct neighbours, the evidence provided by the poems of the Dīwān‐i Qā’imiyyāt about the Khwarizmian Empire, the Mongols, the Ildiguzid Turks as well as different local Shi’i kingdoms of Mazandaran can be of significant importance.
As far as the reprentation of these diverse ethnic groups is concerned, one can see a twofold system ruling the main narrative of these qaṣīdas. Direct references to historical events and well-known historical figures, battles are often mixed with eschatological statements where only the title, the ethnic background or sometimes a fabricated name of different persons is mentioned by the authors of these poems. This double system raises several questions: whether this technique of a deliberate mystification of certain historical characters is due to the poetrical conventions of the period intented to a very limited audience well aware of these events, or it is because of the fragmented knowledge of the authors about these incidents, or these imaginative pseudo-historical data suggest perhaps a deliberate and hitherto unnoticed connection to the main eschatological message of the Dīwān‐i Qā’imiyyāt.