FROM THE BIRTH OF ISLAM UNTIL TODAY:
TASHAYYU (SHIA SECT) AS A GOVERNMENTAL
IDEOLOGY-II
SAFAVIDS AND THE SHIA SECT
One of the most significant questions of the
history perhaps was
“Why
did Shah Ismail with a Shafi Sunni background begin to
impose the Shia sect relying on the advices of his Safavid
advisers and oppose all the non-Shia sects? Did Shah Ismail
choose this sect to protect the unity of Iran which began to
dissolve? Why did the rebellion of the Safavid clergymen
started in the Sunni dominated areas but not in the Shiite
centers?
We will have to try to find the answers of
those questions in the changes of world powers in the end of
the 15th century. Out of the Iranian borders, the
most significant development of the 15th century
was the conquest of Ghostantaniyye (Istanbul) by Ottoman
Sultan Mehmed II and thus a new era started in history.
Following this victory, which advanced to the last trenches
of the Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire took a new breath and
gained strength. The Ottoman Emperor who saw himself as the
leader of the east and the Islamic World, wanted to rule the
Caucasus and the Middle East that time. Prior to the Safavid
State most of the Iranian population were Shafi and Hanafi
Muslims. The Shiites used to live only in Ghom, Kahsan,
Sabzevar, Ardestan, Rey, Saveh and in a few more cities and
villages. Then the Shia sect was not very popular.
In hegira 907, when he was just 14 or 15,
Shah Ismail Safavid came to Tabriz, the capital of Iran,
declared himself as the ruler of Iran and declared Shia as
the official sect of Iran. His advisers from Tabriz, most of
the population of which was Sunni, told the young Shah that
we believe that the people will not adopt this sect and will
alienate from you. However, Shah Ismail answered
“I
am not afraid of anybody I will kill everybody if necessary.”
On the day when he was crowned and officially declared Shia
sect, the members of the Kizilbash(Ghezelbash) Army, walking
in the crowd with their swords in their hands, were killing
the ones who had hesitations regarding the Shia sect and who
did not adopt this sect. The limited theosophical point of
view of the Kizilbash notables, the essential supporters of
the Shah, regarding the Shia, caused this sect to be
interpreted as a very simple and ordinary sect. Thus
“Enmity
with the Sunni sects”,
“to
swear at the first three Caliphs of Islam”
and
“to
praise Ali and his family”
became a tradition. Even Shah Ismail himself was so unaware
of the values of Shia sect and Islam that he argued that
having wine was not against the rules of Islam. (Shah
Ismail, who killed many innocent people, died due to having
too much alcohol.) Basing on Labbol Tavarikh, Habibol
Seyr, Ahsanol Tavarikh, Aamaraye Shah Ismail, Alam Araye
Amini and many other historical documents, it is possible to
mention that Shah Ismail Safavid, with the support of the
Kizilbash Army and by his unique cruelty, forced the
Iranians to adopt the Shia sect. As mentioned by Eskander
Beg in his book
“Alam
Araye Abbasi”,
Shah Ismail had many Sunni clergymen and imams killed since
they did not adopt the Shia sect.
The Faghih and the scholars, desiring to
have
“the
Shia sect based on the doctrine of 12 imams integrated into
the state structure”,
turned a blind eye to the bloodshed by Shah Ismail and the
Kizilbash Army and denied the enmity and genocides of that
regime against the members of other sects. Furthermore,
those Faghih and scholars denied the fact that Shah Ismail
was the son of a Christian woman and argued that he had
kinship with the Seventh Imam Musa Kazem who was from the
family of Imam Ali. Some of those scholars believed that the
Safavid State substituted the 12th Imam (Mahdi)
who was missing for the time being. Undoubtedly, the swords
of the Kizilbash people who came from Anatolia to Iran
gathered various tribes and clans under one flag and under
the leadership of the Safavid King and ensured the unity of
Iran. The states, established within the Iranian borders
after the Safavid States, were based on the foundations
established solidly on Shia by the Safavid Empire of 230
years. The Safavid State thus aimed at assuring the
integrity of Iran against the day-by-day strengthening
Ottoman Empire.
During the Safavid period, the Shahs on the
advices of some statesmen and palace advisers began to
develop and strengthen relations with the Europeans whom
they initially described as
“nasty”.
In line with this development, for example Shah Soleyman
Safavid, exempted the Lenjan Christians from taxes. During
this period the Christian missioners were rushing into Iran.
Thanks to those missioners, the statesmen and palace staff
got closely acquainted with foreign languages, culture,
philosophy, worldview, science and other religions and
improved their knowledge. Within the Iranian state, the
influence and effect of the Christian and Jewish clergymen
increased so much that many travelers visiting Iran, forgot
the initial hardliner attitude of the Safavid State and
wrote how widespread the tolerance regarding the sects was
in the country!
When the Shia was integrated into the state
structure, kelam and fiqh (Islamic theology) reached their
peak, but on the other hand philosophy and wisdom were
disgraced. The Shia clergymen and the Faghih (the scholar
who is an expert on kelam), who for the first time became
power focus during the Safavid State period, started to have
a say in the state affairs. The facts that the Shia sect was
declared as the official sect of the state although it had a
limited point of view regarding Islam religion, and that the
Safavid State had the desire to have an institutional sect
were actually serious blows on religious circles and the
intellectuals of the Islamic World.
In the meanwhile, the establishment of the
Safavid State created a new milieu for the maturation of the
Shia clergymen. Since the Arab invasion, the Shia clergymen
and the Faghih had no significant influence in the royal
palace. Intermittently they were consulted on some issues.
The Shia clergymen mostly consisted of marginal groups. For
example, Mohammed Ibn Yaghub Koleyni and Abu Jafer Tousy,
one of the writers of
“Ketab
Arbaeh”
and one of the masters of the Shia community, avoided
politics.
The Shia intellectuals had no interest in
the palaces and having political power even in the period,
in which the tendency towards the Shia sect increased and
which followed the collapse of the Sunni Turkish states and
the Mongolian invasion. As a matter of fact some of the
greatest scholars of Shia, such as Ebne Tavus, his brother
Shekh Raziaddin, Allameh Hally who made one of the Mongolian
Emperor convert to Islam, and his son Fakhrolmohagheghin
lived in Halleh city, in the vicinity of Bagdad and never
came to Iran.
Although the Shia sect, which was based on
the doctrine of 12 Imams, was integrated into the state
structure, there were a few preachers who had knowledge of
fiqh during the rule of Shah Tahmaseb, and for that reason a
prominent clergyman was brought to Iran from Lebanon Jebel
Amal.
His name was Mohaghegh Korki and was called
“Sheykh
Korki”.
After Sheykh Korki, Sheykh Bahayi who was also from the
southern part of Lebanon was brought to Iran and introduced
as the Sheykholeslam.
The adoption of the Shia sect as the state
regime started with Shah Ismail, reached its peak with Shah
Tahmaseb and then started to decline. In the last years of
the Safavid Empire, the worldview of the Shia sect was
replaced by superstition and oneiromancy in the national
affairs. Prominent figures of the Shia community such as
Mohammad Bagher Mirdamad, Mirza Abulghasem Mirfendereski and
Molla Sadra had no more access to the palace and their
influence totally diminished. Molla Mohsen Feyz, Molla
Mohammed Taghi Majlesi and his son Mohammed Bagher Majlesi,
who encouraged the palace and the state to resort to
superstition, blackened the Shia sect. In the Safavid State,
religion was used as a tool to prove the sovereignty of the
Shahs. In the last years of this system nobody was able to
think. The dark clouds were on the country. The Hadith,
rumors and superstitions replaced logic, science, law and
insight.
In order to alienate the people from the
mosques, which were the gathering places of the people, the
Safavid State started to decorate the mosques. Thus, as the
decorated guest rooms of the houses, the mosques would not
be used. In the Safavid State the dervish lodges(tekke),
Hearths and Houseyniyes were structured serving to this aim.
The people were no more able to gather in the mosques and
react against the negative events that took place in the
country.
The demonstrations carried out on the
“Ashura”,
the traditional date of the 3rd Imam Husayn’s
death, the 10th day of the Islamic month
Moharram, are one of the gifts inherited by Iran from the
Safavid State. During those demonstrations which had their
roots in Christianity and were copied from the condolence
ceremonies carried out in Eastern Europe on the anniversary
of Jesus Christ, groups of people whipped themselves and
cried. On the other hand, in Iran, the day of death of the 2nd
Caliph Omar was celebrated as a festival.
Briefly, in its last years, by exploiting
religion, the Safavid State was trying to protect the
country against the enemies and especially the Sunni Ottoman
Empire. The significant roles and aims of the colonist
states with a similar tendency should not be forgotten.
Those foreign states did not want the Ottoman Empire to
strengthen and wanted to prevent it from occupying the
Caucasus and India. For that reason in Iran, they supported
the establishment of a regime with a special ideology. The
worldview of this regime was Shia.
Thus Tashayyou or also called the Shia sect was divided into
two.
One was the
“Alawite
Tashayyu”,
which developed having its roots in the rise of Islam and
survived until today, and the other was the
“Safavid
Tashayyu”
which did not exist until that time but which unfortunately
still survives.
Safaviya came and Tashayyu left the
Community Mosque and settled in the Shah Mosque in the Ali
Kapu Palace (that is to say the State). The Red Tashoyyu was
gone and the Black Tashoyyu replaced it. The Martyrdom Sect
was gone and the Mourning Sect replaced it.
