The Rhetoric of Exemplarity in Perso-Islamic Advice Literature: Amīr Khusrow, Kamāl al-Dīn Banā’ī, Hibatullāh Ḥusaynī Shīrāzī, and ‘Alī Naqī Kamarehī

This panel takes as its subject the multi-faceted genre of Perso-Islamic avice literature. This literary genre constituted a cornerstone of literary creativity and socio-political philosophy in the medieval and early modern Muslim world. Attention will be paid to the continuities and diversity of advice literature across the medieval and early modern periods—its reliance on tradition and self-renewal—as well as to questions of authority, social control, and the socially and religiously constructed nature of advice. The presenters are particularly interested in the literature’s articulations of the ideal ruler and the refinement of character. The panel offers a comprehensive overview of this pervasive and influential genre by dealing with a range of texts. Amīr Khusrow’s The Alexandrine Mirror, wherein Khusrow (d.1325) depicts Alexander as a philosopher-saint-king engineer and patron of engineers, is a prefiguration of post-Mongol occultist kingship that later became the dominant model of Persianate kingship after Khusrow. Bāgh-i iram, an allegorical romance by Kamāl al-Dīn Shīr ‘Alī Banā’ī Haravī (d. 1512), which involves twin-brothers—one evil, the other virtuous—articulates idealized Perso-Islamic rulership through exemplary (or refined) character. Akhlāq-i ʻAlā’ī, usually referred to as Adāb-i saltanat (The Rules of Kingship), by Hibatullāh Ḥusaynī Shīrāzī, or Shāh Mīr (d. 1493), is one of the last examples of a pre-Safavid “mirror for princes.” Throughout it, Shāh Mīr, in addition to summarizing earlier examples of this genre, conceptualizes the foremost qualities of an ideal ruler—wisdom (hikmat), modesty (‘effat), bravery (shujā’at), and justice (‘adālat)—within the context of Islamic teachings. Finally, Himam al-thawāqib is a significant text in which ‘Alī Naqī Kamarehī (d. 1650), the leading Safavid scholar of his time, presents unique political ideas. Kamarehī simultaneously appropriates some ideas from pre-Safavid mirrors for princes, but breaks away from typical Perso-Islamic advice literature by trying to develop a new, exemplary model of governance that is Shi‘i.


Presentations

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As religious life in Safavid Iran took its Shi‘i form, the question of exemplary governance became one of the main concerns of Shi‘i scholars -- particularly in the second half of the Safavids reign. Hence, a number of prominent Safavid scholars produced important works in the genre of advice literature. For example, ‘Alī Naqī Ṭughā’i Kamarahī (d. 1650) and Muhammad Bāqir Khurāsānī, more commonly known as Muhaqqiq Sabzavārī (d. 1679) -- both of whom served as the shaykh al-Islam of Isfahan during the reign of Abbās II (d. 1666) -- each wrote such treatises. During the same era, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hassīb b. Sayyid Ahmad ‘Alawī ‘Amilī dedicated his Qawā’id al-salātīn to Shah Sulayman (d. 1694). Kamarehī’s Himam al-thawaqib, Sabzavārī’s Rowzat al-anwār and ‘Amilī’s Qawā‘id al-salātīn -- which were influenced to varying degrees by the earlier examples of advice literature -- help us to define the ideal kingship as it relates to Shi‘i Islam specifically.
My paper examines ‘Alī Naqī Kamarehī’s Himam al-thawāqib, a significant text that he dedicated to Shah Safī (d.1642) and which still remains in manuscript format. Himam al-thawāqib, in particular, presents the important link between the changing appropriations of ancient ideals of governance -- such as monarchial authority as the protector of the right religion -- and justice, with an intense emphasis on Shi‘i dogmas. The text gives us the opportunity to study a leading Shi‘i religious scholar’s attempts to appropriate models from ancient cultures for the purposes of influencing the young Safavid shah to maintain the supremacy of Shi‘ism and the Shi‘a. Furthermore, because of its emphasis on religious and political issues, it permits us to explore the relationship between historical Shi‘i exemplars, i.e. the imams, and practical advice. Lastly, the text reveals how Kamarehī’s discourse breaks away from the Perso-Islamic advice literature and begins to develop a new model of exemplary Shi’i governance.

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This paper demonstrates that Bāgh-i iram, a Persian romance by Kamāl al-Dīn Shīr-ʿAlī Banāʾī (d. 918/1512) of Herat, the narrative of which presents a love triangle involving brother-dynasts—hence its alternative title, Bahrām u Bihrūz—is a work of moral and spiritual advice for Muslim rulers and that its tale of fraternal discord is relevant to Yaʿqūb b. Ūzūn Ḥasan (d. 898/1490), leader of the Āq Qoyūnlū tribal confederation, and his uterine brother, Yūsuf (d. 898/1490). The paper is significant for several reasons: First, other than the 1957 Russian study by Tajik scholar A. M. Mirzoev, the poem, composed by Banāʾī in masnavī format ca. 912/1506, has not been the subject of modern scholarship; second, it contends that the narrative of Bāgh-i iram, specifically its twin-born siblings—one evil (Bahrām), the other virtuous (Bihrūz)—though reminiscent of the creation myth contained in the Gāthās (Yasna 30.3), presents a Perso-Islamic perspective on the duality of the human soul that reflects idealized conceptions of late-medieval Muslim kingship; and third, it asserts that Bāgh-i iram, though completed after the deaths of Yaʿqūb and Yūsuf, implicates the two as inspirations for the poem, a claim exposited in its discussion of Banāʾī and his presence in Āq Qoyūnlū-ruled Tabriz where the poet—a luminary amongst its galaxy of literati—conceivably knew about disharmony in the royal household, as well as Yaʿqūb’s licentiousness. The paper therefore sheds new light onto Banāʾī, who also went by the sobriquet Ḥālī—an important though neglected Timurid-era Persian versifier—through its analysis of his only-surviving romantic couplets, Bāgh-i iram, MS copies of which (used for this study), are held at the British Library and the Bodleian Library. In so doing, it situates the 7,000-line poem within a distinctive sub-category of classical Persian masnavī: that of the didactic allegorical romance—the hermeneutics of which, the paper explains, dictate that such works ultimately function as (spiritual) mirrors for princes.

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This paper compares and contrasts the concept of justice as discussed by Hibatullāh Ḥusaynī Shīrāzī, or Shāh Mīr (d. 1493), in his Akhlāq-i ʻAlā’ī, usually referred to as Adāb-i saltanat (The Rules of Kingship), with that of Muhammad Bāghir Muhaghigh Sabzevārī (d. 1606) in his Rowzat al-anwār-i Abbāsī. For its part, Akhlāq-i ʻAlā’ī was one of the last examples of a pre-Safavid "mirror for princes." In it, Shāh Mīr summarizes earlier examples of this genre and particularly relies on Akhlāq-i nāsirī by Nasīr al-Dīn Tusī (d. 1274). Shāh Mīr divides his treatise into four chapters, each of which systematically explicates the proper conduct and duties of kings. His frequent citations from the Qur’an and hadith literature, in addition to several sayings of ‘Alī (d. 661), the first Shi‘i Imam, as well as Shāh Mīr’s emphasis on Islamic law, suggest that he was a religious scholar with Shi‘i tendencies rather than just a philosopher. However, despite its religious tone, the treatise contains Greco-Persian political and ethical ideas and advice that one finds in earlier examples of mirrors literature, particularly Akhlāq-i nāsirī. In this connection, Shāh Mīr believes that the foremost qualities a king should possess were: wisdom (hikmat), modesty (‘effat), bravery (shujā’at), and justice (‘adālat). Throughout his treatise, Shāh Mīr attempts to reconcile practical wisdom with Islamic religious teachings. In contrast, Sabzevārī’s discussion of these notions in Rowzat al-anwār-i Abbāsī is based mostly on Shi’i traditions and historical experiences rather than on philosophical argumentation. This comparative study is therefore significant, as it gives fresh and nuanced perspectives on justice as it was defined and idealized in a Shi'i milieu.

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When he completed a response poem called *The Alexandrine Mirror* to Niẓāmī’s *Alexander Book* (1202), Amīr Khusrow (d.1325) transformed the arc Niẓāmī had traced from Alexander’s imperial adventuring to his humbling as a prophet. In Khusrow’s re-telling Alexander was a “divinely inspired” Sufi king, not a prophet. This freed Khusrow to turn Alexander into a philosopher-saint-king engineer and patron of engineers. It also allowed him to turn Alexander into an exemplum for his patron Sultan ‘Alā al-Dīn Khalajī of Delhi who had styled himself “the Second Alexander”.

Early in the poem Khusrow tells a striking tale concerning a man who doubted the literalness of the Prophet’s Ascension and was humbled for it. The plot, however, derives wholly from the *Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha* where it concerns a Brahman’s experience of the relativity of space and time. How, by this tale, did Khusrow seek to prescribe the proper ethical response to his poem’s unprecedented equation of Sunni royal authority with engineering? Why did he set in Syria a tale his immediate Indian readers would have recognised as concerning a Brahman? This paper will make a case for the monologic submission to Sufi royal reason in Khusrow’s poem of the Brahman of early kalām or Islamic speculative theology and of the Advaitic monist Sanskrit tradition available to Khusrow in what were probably vernacular oral forms.