tucker, nadir shah

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International Society for Iranian Studies Nadir Shah and the Ja 'fari Madhhab Reconsidered Author(s): Ernest Tucker Source: Iranian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1/4, Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre- Modern Era (1994), pp. 163-179 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4310891 Accessed: 05/12/2008 10:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=isis. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. International Society for Iranian Studies and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Iranian Studies. http://www.jstor.org

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Page 1: Tucker, Nadir Shah

International Society for Iranian Studies

Nadir Shah and the Ja 'fari Madhhab ReconsideredAuthor(s): Ernest TuckerSource: Iranian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1/4, Religion and Society in Islamic Iran during the Pre-Modern Era (1994), pp. 163-179Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4310891Accessed: 05/12/2008 10:59

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=isis.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

International Society for Iranian Studies and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Iranian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

Page 2: Tucker, Nadir Shah

Iranian Studies, volume 27, numbers 1-4, 1994

Ernest Tucker

Nadir Shah and the Ja'fari Madhhab Reconsidered

I. Introduction

In less than twenty years, Nadir Shah built an empire across Iran, India, and Cen- tral Asia. When he took the throne on the Mughan steppe in 1148/1736, Nadir confronted the problem of how to legitimize his reign after two centuries of Shi'i Safavid rule. He attempted to solve this problem, in part, by challenging Iran's Twelver Shi'i identity.1

Nadir proposed to the Ottomans that Twelver Shi'ism be considered a fifth school of Sunni Islam, to be called the Ja'fari madhhab after the sixth Imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq.2 In exchange for Shi'i renunciation of such practices as sabb (the ritual cursing of the first three caliphs), Nadir proposed that the Ottomans give this Ja'fari madhhab all the privileges enjoyed by the four Sunni schools, and that a fifth pillar be erected in the Ka'bah in Mecca to commemorate it. He asked that the Ottomans allow him to appoint the leader of the annual hajj cara- van from Iran. He stated that the legal opinions of Ja'far al-Sadiq would be con- sidered the cornerstone texts of this madhhab, parallel to the writings of the founders of the other schools. Nadir continued to promote this concept until nearly the end of his reign.

Several explanations have been offered for Nadir's introduction of the Ja'fari madhhab. It has been interpreted as a device to transform Iran into a Sunni coun- try in order to counter the legacy of the Safavids, whose legitimacy had been based, in part, upon their role as defenders of Shi'ism. Some evidence points to its use as a tool to ease tensions between the Sunni Afghan and Shi'i Qizilbash parts of Nadir' s army. The proposal clearly had an economic dimension, since it would have offered Nadir a way to control a greater part of the revenue of the lu- crative Iranian hajj trade.

To explore all these hypotheses fully is beyond the scope of this discussion. In- stead, it will focus on why and how the Ja'fari madhhab was depicted in quite

1. The terms "Shi'i" and "Shi'ism," as used in this essay, refer only to Twelver Shi'is and Twelver Shi'ism. 2. The phrase madhhab-i ja'farl has long been used to refer to Twelver Shi'ism.

Ja'far al-Sadiq is regarded by Shi'is as one of the foremost scholars of fiqh (Islamic ju- risprudence). See Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. "DJA'FAR AL-SADIK."

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different ways for foreign and domestic consumption. Additionally, the reaction to it at home and abroad will be examined to gauge its actual impact.

To the Ottomans, Nadir presented the Ja'fari madhhab as the elimination of vir- tually all distinct Shi'i practices, clearing the way for Iranian Shi'is to be ac- cepted completely as Sunnis. He anathematized anti-Sunni activities such as the cursing of the first three caliphs, calling them Safavid innovations (bid'at-i safaviyah). He tried to transform the Safavids from defenders of Shi'ism into corrupters of the true faith of Iran, which he claimed to be Sunnism. Nadir ex- plained to the Ottomans in official letters that after Safavid corruptions had been removed, this madhhab would differ from the four orthodox Sunni madhhabs no more than they did from one another.

The domestic version of the Ja'fari madhhab also required that Nadir's Shi'i sub- jects refrain from anti-Sunni demonstrations associated with the Safavids. In re- turn, Nadir encouraged Shi'i rituals less highly charged with feeling against Sunnis such as pilgrimage to the shrines of the Imams (ziyd rat).3 Nadir's do- mestic religious policy redefined these n'tuals to be the fundamental outward ex- pressions of Shi'ism, in which he could play a principal role, for example, as a patron of holy shrines. Although he prohibited Safavid-era ceremonies which openly attacked Sunnism, Nadir signaled, through the way he implemented his religious policy in Iran, that he condoned dissimulation by Shi'is to maintain inward belief in doctrines which Sunnis did not accept. In contrast to the way it was presented to the Ottomans, the domestic version of the Ja'fari madhhab was portrayed as preserving the essential facets of Shi'ism, although with the bound- aries redrawn between public and private manifestations of faith.

Such a dichotomy between the foreign and domestic versions of the Ja'fari pro- posal reveals that it served several distinct purposes: it would have deprived the Ottomans of a formal pretext for waging war against Iran and persecuting Shi'is as religious rebels or infidels, while allowing Nadir to legitimize his status as a Sunni ruler in the broader Islamic world. At the same time, it was designed to establish Nadir's reputation in Iran as a defender of Shi'ism, but a Shi'ism stripped of Safavid associations-a necessary step in securing domestic accep- tance of his rule.

Nadir could not fully implement the Ja'fari madhhab either at home or abroad, yet the relatively mild reaction to it in both spheres is noteworthy. Considerable evidence suggests that domestic opposition to it cannot be blamed for Nadir's downfall. Greater anger erupted at Nadir due to the execution of the Safavids at the behest of his son, Riza Quli Mirza, than due to his attempt to impose new religious ideas. Although the Ottomans persistently rejected Nadir's formal de- mands that they recognize the Ja'fari madhhab, they did conclude a peace treaty

3. The Ja'fari madhhab excluded those aspects of Shi'i law (fiqh) which were abhor- rent to Sunnis, such as temporary marriage (mut'ah), but retained the details of the systematic application of Shi'i jurisprudence (furui'at-i shar'iyah) that were not offen- sive to them.

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with him in 1159/1746 which embodied certain principles the proposal was de- signed to promote: they formally accepted Iran as part of the Sunni world and agreed to protect the rights of Shi'i Iranian travelers in Ottoman territory. Given the radical departure it represented from Safavid religious norms, the fact that the Ja'fari madhhab received only a slightly negative reception at home and contrib- uted something to the treaty of 1159/1746 indicates that it cannot be considered a total failure. In the end, though, Nadir's military adventurism and oppressive rule overshadowed its moderate impact.

Nadir employed the Ja'fari madhhab in two divergent and somewhat contradictory systems of external and internal legitimation. The two versions of his idea can be regarded as complimentary parts of Nadir's early modern attempt to define an Islamic universalism which looked to the past for the ideal of a united ummah, but also tried to find a way not to erase the divisions between Muslims, but to transcend them in order to reduce the effects of sectarian conflict on domestic and foreign politics.

II. Secondary Scholarship on the Ja fari Madhhab

Few scholars examine the Ja'fari question at length. Laurence Lockhart, in his biography of Nadir Shah, states that "Nadir's adoption of the term 'Ja'fari' to designate the fifth sect of the Sunnis which the Persian people were to form is somewhat mystifying; his action made the word ambiguous." Lockhart con- cludes that the Ja'fari proposal constituted "the substitution of the Sunni for the Shi'a religion."4 He notes that it may have been motivated by political consid- erations, but does not address the possibility that it may have been framed in two very different ways for foreign and domestic consumption.

A. E. Schmidt portrays Nadir's religious policy as a political ploy and ascribes the Iranian Shi'i ulama's willingness to go along with the council of Najaf to their simple fear of Nadir. He concludes that "With regard to the actual reconcil- iation of Sunnis and Shi'is, even within the area under Nadir's control, this staged event [the council of Najaf] ultimately did not produce real results."5 In a similar vein, Riza Sha'bani believes that the Ja'fari madhhab formed part of Nadir's "religious politics." Sha'bani observes that Nadir adopted an opportunis- tic approach to religious affairs, honoring Sunni and Shi'i symbols as his quest for power dictated.6

4. Laurence Lockhart, Nadir Shah (London: Luzac, 1938), 279, 271. 5. A. E. Schmidt, "Iz istorii Sunnitsko-Shiitskikh otnoshenii," in A. E. Schmidt and

E. K. Betger, eds., "'Iqd al-juman": V. V. Bartol'du Turkestanskie druz'ya ucheniki i pochitateli (Tashkent: Tipo-Litografiya Kazgiza, 1927), 105.

6. Riza Sha'bani, "Siyasat-i madhhabi-yi Nadir Shah Afshar," Vahid 7 (1349 Sh./1970): 1132-56. For another view that fundamentally agrees with Sha'bani's thesis about the political nature of Nadir's policy see Emine Giirsoy, "An Analysis of Nadir Shah's Religious Policy," BogaziVi Universitesi Dergisi 2 (1974): 13-18.

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Two other authors address the theological ramificaitons of Nadir's actions more directly. B. S. Amoretti observes that since "to renounce the execration of the three caliphs [i.e., sabb] is not, for a Shi'i, an indicator of theological aberra- tion," Nadir's Mughan declaration could be viewed as the sign of the definitive end of inter-Muslim jihad, with Shi'ism accepted, de facto if not de jure, as a fifth juridical school.7 Hamid Algar, in a general survey of religious trends in twelfth/eighteenth-century Iran, calls Nadir's Ja'fari madhhab "an unnatural hy- brid, a truncated Shi'ism that he [Nadir] sought to integrate into the Sunni main- stream of Islam."8 He focuses on how the proposal, if viewed as a serious at- tempt to reconcile Sunni and Shi'i theology, would have required abandoning in- tegral parts of the imamology of Twelver Shi'ism. Although cognizant of the questions which he and others raise, this article will attempt to explore how Nadir used the Ja'fari madhhab not simply as a political ruse, nor as a genuine program of religious reconciliation, but as something between the two-a com- promise designed to reduce the effects of sectarian difference between Sunnis and Shi'is as well as preserve certain aspects of Shi'ism through recourse to selective dissimulation.

III. The Beginning of the Ja fari Madhhab

The Ja'fari madhhab was not an issue during the first few years of Nadir's career. He appears in chronicles and documents as an unflagging devotee of the Safavids and Shi'ism from the beginning of his rise to power until his assumption of the throne. When the Safavid Shah Tahmasb II, son of Sultan Husayn, chose Nadir to be his deputy, Nadir assumed the name Tahmasb Quli ("slave of Tahmasb").

The first known diplomatic contacts between Nadir and the Ottomans provide ev- idence of this loyalty. Nadir, as Tahmasb's deputy, sent a letter to the Ottoman sultan in the fall of 1142/1729, imploring him to help reestablish Tahmasb over "hereditary domains long ruled by his fathers and grandfathers...."9 In general, the letter presented a strong case for the ancestral legitimacy of the Safavids.

Other evidence confirms Nadir's Shi'i affiliations during the early 1140s/1730s. Nadir gave his first two children typically Shi'i names, Riza Quli and Murtaza Quli. He proclaimed that he had achieved victory over the Ottomans in 1144/1731 under "the happy auspices of the House of Haydar ['Ali] and the Twelve Holy Imams.... This day is great with ruin to their enemies and with joy to the sect of the Shi'ah, the discomfort of the evil-minded is the glory of

7. B. S. Amoretti, "Religion in the Timurid and Safavid Periods," in Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart, eds., The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 6:655. 8. Hamid Algar, "Shi'ism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century," in Thomas Naff and

Roger Owen, eds., Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History (Carbondale: South- ern Illinois University Press, 1977), 291. 9. Muhammad Riza Nasiri, ed., Asnad va mukatabat-i tcrikht-yi Iran, vol. 1: Dawrah-

yi AfshMrtyah (Tehran: Nima, 1364 Sh./1985), 206.

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the followers of 'Ali."10 He endowed a waqf at the shrine of the eighth Imam, 'Ali Riza, in Mashhad to celebrate a victory over the Abdali Afghans. The deed for this waqf is dated Muharram 1145/June 1732, and bears Nadir's personal seal which employed an unmistakably Shi'i formula: "There is no exemplary youth save 'Ali, no sword except Dhu'l-Fiqar. I am the rarity of the age, by the grace of God, servant of the Twelve [Imams]." II Nadir thus made a clear declaration of Shi'i faith less than four years before his accession to the throne. However, he offered hints of a change in religious policy as early as 1146/1734, when he sent a message to the Ottomans that he would order the names of the first four caliphs to be recited in the khutbah and have the phrase "'Ali is the deputy of God" taken out.12

By 1148/1736 Nadir felt that he had achieved enough prestige through military victories to take the throne himself. He assembled nomadic and sedentary leaders from all parts of the Safavid empire into a vast encampment on the plain of Mughan. When he asked them to choose either him or one of the Safavids to rule the country, they declared him their sovereign. In a speech outlining the conditions under which he would accept the throne, Nadir introduced the Ja'fari madhhab concept as part of a peace proposal to the Ottomans. This proposal consisted of five principles: (1) recognition of the Ja'fari madhhab as a fifth school of Sunni Islam; (2) erection of a pillar in the Ka'bah to commemorate it; (3) appointment of an Iranian hajj caravan leader; (4) exchange of permanent am- bassadors between himself and the Ottoman sultan; and (5) exchange of war pris- oners and prohibition of buying and selling them. He stated that in return for Ottoman acceptance of these principles, Shi'i practices objectionable to the Sun- nis such as the cursing of the first three caliphs and denial of their legitimacy (sabb and rafd) would be prohibited in Iran. Nadir's speech condemned certain followers of Shah Isma'il I for introducing these practices in Iran:

The leader praised by the world, Shah Isma'il Safavi, may God make his earth pleasant and may He make heaven his abode, in the beginning of his rule, for the good of his state (bina bar salaih-i dawlat-i khud) ... propagated and promoted Shi'ism. In addition to that, sabb and rafd, which are empty actions and sources of corruption, began to be pronounced by the tongues and mouths of the masses and the underclass . . and the soil of Iran was stained with the blood of chaos and disorder.13

Nadir tried to portray sabb and rafd as innovations of Isma'il's followers which had turned Iran away from the path of Muslim unity, although he was careful not

10. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 60. 11. "La-fata' illa 'Ali, la sayfah illa Dhu'l-Fiqar, Nadir-i 'asram zi luff-i haqq,

ghulam-i hasht u char" (Riza Sha'bani, Tarikh-i ijtima '-yi Iran dar 'asr-i Afshari-yah, 2 vols. [Tehran: Khushah, 1365 Sh./1986], 1:375).

12. Willem Floor, Hukumat-i Nadir Shah (Tehran: Tus, 1368 Sh./1989), 73. 13. Mirza Muhammad Mahdi Khan Astarabadi, Tarikh-i jahangusha-yi Nadirl, ed.

Sayyid 'Abdullah Anvar (Tehran: Bahman, 1341 Sh./1962), 269.

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to depict the introduction of Shi'ism itself in such a negative light.'4

Immediately after his coronation, Nadir sent an embassy to the Ottomans to pre- sent his proposals. His emissaries carried letters reiterating and intensifying the message of his coronation speech. Addressing the Ottoman ruler Mahmud I, Nadir claimed that "after the appearance of Shah Isma'il . . . words issued from him steeped in fanaticism and extremism which caused mutual mistrust and strife [to arise] among the groups of Muslims."'15 In his letter to the Ottoman grand vizier, he announced, "We [Nadir] stated [at Mughan] that these useless affairs [Iran's foreign wars] resulted from the corrupt fanaticism of the Safavid dynasty and were against the sayings of [Muhammad] . . . and the Great Companions."16 In his letters to the Ottomans, Nadir chastised Isma'il and the Safavids far more directly than in his coronation speech for Iran's current woes.

The Ja'fari madhhab, as presented in these letters, was designed not only to exco- riate the Safavids, but also to convince the Ottomans that Iran had "returned" to Sunnism. Nadir asserted to Mahmud that before the Safavids, "we [the Iranians] had been favored, as the people of the sunnah, to follow in the path of the Prophet." He called Sunnism "the clear faith which has been inherited by the people of Iran."'17

In response, the Ottomans lauded Nadir's attempt to bring Iran back to the Sunni fold, but totally rebuffed any idea of creating a Ja'fari madhhab. Sultan Mah- mud's reply commended Nadir for removing the innovations and corrupt practices that had arisen during the reign of the Safavids.18 Nevertheless, it rejected the two proposals concerning the Ja'fari madhhab as contrary to both Islamic law

14. Such popular manifestations of piety as sabb, in addition to affirming distinc- tive aspects of Shi'i belief, also helped mobilize public sentiment in favor of the Safavids as defenders of Twelver Shi'ism. Thus, elimination of such rituals would mark not just a change in the expression of religious identity in Iran, but also the end of a potent symbol of dynastic and political allegiance. Given that the Safavids themselves, though, had agreed to refrain from sabb in two peace agreements with the Ottomans, in 998/1590 and 1049/1639, Nadir's proposal to eradicate it signaled less of a departure from actual Safavid precedent, at least in the foreign sphere, than his criticism of them in this speech would suggest. See R. K. Ramazani, The Foreign Policy of Iran, 1500-1941 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1966), 18-19; I. H. Uzunqarqili, Osmanli tarihi, 8 vols. (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1983), 3:1:206. Some theologians, such as Shaykh Yusuf al-Bahrani, a prominent Akhbari Shi'i scholar from Bahrayn who spent part of his career in Shiraz in the early 1150s/late 1730s, even argued that Shi'i doctrine forbade sabb. See Etan Kohlberg, "Aspects of Akhbari Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," in Ne- hemia Levtzion and John Voll, eds., Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 148.

15. Nasiri, Asndd va mukatabat, 82. 16. Ibid., 88. 17. Koca Ragib Pa~a, "Tahkik ve tevfik," in Inlaat-i Ragib PaEa, MS Topkapi Sarayi

Kutuiphanesi Yeni Yazmalari 763, lllr-113r. 18. Ibid., 154r.

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Nadir Shah and the Ja fari Madhhab 169

and the strategic interests of the Ottoman state.19

For the Ottomans to have accepted Nadir's proposals would have required them to set aside centuries of tradition and to rethink their complex relationship with the rulers of Mecca, neither of which they were prepared to do in the uncertain atmosphere of the 1140s/1730s following the Patrona Halil revolt of 1142/1730. Therefore they congratulated Nadir on his assumption of the throne of Iran and agreed to accord him full legitimacy as the sovereign of that country, but only if he would embrace Sunni Islam as defined by the Ottomans, which emphatically did not include a madhhab based on the teachings of Ja'far al-Sadiq. This attitude towards Nadir's proposals would define the official Ottoman position on the Ja'fari madhhab until the end of his reign, and the Ottomans only signed a peace treaty when Nadir appeared to accept Sunni Islam unconditionally in 1159/1746 (see below).

In contrast, coins, seals, and documents of Nadir's court show that Nadir pre- sented the Ja'fari proposal to his own subjects as an appeal to dissimulation which, while allowing for reconciliation with the Sunni world, would leave the foundations of Shi'ism, as Nadir defined them, undisturbed. In a majority-Sunni ummah, selective dissimulation would permit Nadir's Shi'i subjects to maintain their inner beliefs while outwardly seeking concord with Sunnis.

Nadir's coronation speech itself exemplified this phenomenon. He asserted that Isma'il I had introduced Shi'ism "for the good of his state," even though in his letters to the Ottomans he described Isma'il's support of Shi'ism as the source of corruption in Iran. In his speech, Nadir blamed the introduction of sabb on an ignorant rabble, in contrast to his letters to the Ottomans, in which he charges Isma'il himself with propagating sabb. Although the difference in emphasis is subtle, when addressing a domestic audience Nadir moderated his rhetoric just enough to indicate that his true intention was to focus criticism on certain anti- Sunni rituals, not Shi'ism as a whole, while in letters to the Ottomans, he de- picted Iran as an essentially Sunni country that had been corrupted by the Safavids.

The Ja'fari madhhab was represented, in a document sent to the ulama of Isfahan soon after the Mughan coronation in 1149/1736, as nothing more or less than an attempt to keep peace between Sunnis and Shi'is. The document announced a ban on reciting any special blessing upon 'Ali and justified this prohibition by asserting that it caused enmity between Nadir's Sunni and Shi'i subjects. It specified, though, that 'Ali would continue to be revered as one specially beloved by God, implicitly arguing for abandonment of an outward ritual in order to fos- ter harmonious relations with Sunnis while allowing for the preservation of inward faith in 'Ali's exalted status.20

19. Ibid., 156r. 20. See the text of this document in Muhammad Husayn Quddusi, Nddirndmah

(Mashhad: Chapkhanah-yi Khurasan, 1339 Sh./1960), 540.

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Nadir's post- 1 148/1736 coins and seals adopted another sort of dissimulation by avoiding obvious references to either Sunni or Shi'i symbols. Nadir neither in- cluded the names of the first four caliphs on his coins-a device often employed by Islamic rulers who wished to emphasize their Sunni orientation-nor men- tioned any of the Imams on them, as the Safavids had done.21 Instead, he chose a motto for his post-coronation coins and seals that avoided any specific sectarian references: "When the seal of state and religion had been displaced, God gave or- der to Iran in the name of Nadir."22

As a matter of policy, Nadir suppressed aspects of Shi'ism which connoted overt hostility to Sunnism. However, he not only did not prohibit outward signs of Shi'i devotion which he did not perceive as inimical to Sunnis, he actually pro- moted them. In fact, one of the staunchest anti-Nadir chroniclers of the twelfth/eighteenth century, Shaykh Muhammad 'Ali Hazin, recorded that Nadir had the shrine of Imam Riza decorated and repaired in honor of his coronation, revealing that Nadir was careful to display at least one sign of Shi'i piety in the wake of his removal of the Safavids from power.23

After assuming the throne, Nadir kept up his role as patron of the shrines of var- ious Imams, continuing to pay for the improvement of the mausoleum of Imam Riza. He issued afirmdn appointing a new custodian from among the ulama of Mashhad for that shrine in 1154/1742.24 Nadir also financed the renovation of the dome of the shrine of 'Ali in Najaf after his invasion of Iraq in 1156/1743.25 Such veneration of holy shrines constituted an essential expression of Shi'i de- votion but was not highly objectionable to the Sunnis, at least in its outward manifestations.

IV. The Council of Najaf

Soon after establishing himself on the throne at Mughan, Nadir embarked on an expedition which culminated in his conquest of India in 1151/1739, a feat com- municated to the Ottomans through an embassy that brought them lavish gifts from the Mughal treasury.26 Even after such largesse, the Ottomans did not re

21. See, for example, the coinage of Mahmud and Ashraf, the Sunni Ghalzay Afghan monarchs of Iran, in H. L. Rabino, Coins, Medals and Seals of the Shahs of Iran (London: n.p., 1910), 48-50. 22. "Nigiln-i dawlat u din raftah buid chun az ja/bi-nam-i Nadir Iramn qarar dad khudac

1148 [17361" (ibid., 52). 23. See Muhammad Malayiri's summary of Hazin's account in Nadir Shaih (Tehran:

Intisharat-i Bunyad, 1357 Sh./1978), 153. 24. 'Abd al-Husayn Nava'i, ed., Na-dir Sha-h va bdzmandagainash: hamra-h bd

namahha-yi sal.tanatzi va asnad-i siyasc va iddri (Tehran: Intisharat-i Zarrin, 1368 Sh./1989), 480-81. 25. Lockhart, Nadir Shah, 197, 233, n. 1. Nadir also visited the tomb of Abu Hani-

fah during his 1156/1743 Iraqi campaign, perhaps as a gesture to both the Ottomans and his Sunni followers. 26. For a list of the gifts he sent them, see Nava'i, Nadir Shah, 303-4.

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Nadir Shah and the Ja 'fari Madhhab 171

consider their rejection of the Ja'fari madhhab concept. When they finally de- cided to go to war against Nadir in 1155/1742, their Shaykh al-Islam issued a fatwa condemning the Ja'fari madhhab as a heretical innovation.27 To counter this rejection, Nadir summoned ulama from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia to the shrine city of Najaf during his 1156/1743 invasion of Iraq to a for- mal council to ratify the Ja'fari madhhab idea.

'Abdullah al-Suwaydi, a Shafi'i 'alim from a prominent Baghdad family sent by the Ottoman governor of Baghdad to observe this event, wrote the most compre- hensive eyewitness account of it.28 His work confirms the dual nature of the Ja'fari proposal, showing how Nadir simultaneously pursued the divergent goals of its foreign and domestic versions at this meeting.

For example, al-Suwaydi noted that on the way to Najaf, Nadir visited several shrines, including the tomb of the ninth Imam, Muhammad al-Jawad, and that he was holding the council at the shrine of 'Ali.29 In a private audience with al- Suwaydi, Nadir told him that he had convened the council because

in my realm there are two areas, Afghanistan and Turkistan, in which they call the Iranians infidels. Infidelity is loathsome and it is not appropriate that there should be in my domains one people who call another infidels. Now I make you my representative to go and remove all of the charges of in- fidelity and witness this in front of the three groups with whatever is re- quired. You will report everything that you see and hear to me and relay your account to Ahmad Khan [Ahmet Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Bagh- dad].30

Through his visits to holy sites on the road to Najaf, Nadir emphasized his commitment to certain parts of Shi'i tradition. At the same time, his remarks to al-Suwaydi indicated that he wanted to end the Sunni labeling of Shi'is as infi- dels in his own domains. Finally, by using al-Suwaydi, an Ottoman cleric, to witness an agreement on his religious ideas, Nadir could also address the foreign context of the Ja'fari proposal by having an Ottoman 'dlim certify that it was in- deed a shift to Sunnism.

The council of Najaf, however, was not an occasion to harmonize these different aspects of the Ja'fari madhhab, but to establish them as distinct but related parts of Nadir's religious policy. Al-Suwaydi quickly grasped that the real purpose of the meeting was not to produce a true reconciliation between Sunnism and Shi'ism. He portrayed Nadir's chief religious official, the Mullabashi 'Ali Ak- bar, as a man not interested in the nuances of theological discussion. Curiously, the only real debate occurred over whom the prophet Muhammad had designated as his successor, a dispute that Nadir would seem to have made irrelevant by his

27. Ba?bakanlik Arivi, Istanbul, Muhimme defteri 142: 227, 243. 28. 'Abdullah b. Husayn al-Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'iyah li-ittifdq al-firaq al-

Islcmi-yah (Cairo: al-Matba'ah al-Halabiyah, 1905). 29. Ibid., 5. 30. Ibid., 11.

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ban on cursing the first three caliphs. In discussions with al-Suwaydi, Mulla- bashi went to some lengths to prove that Muhammad had designated 'Ali to be his successor, citing two ahaldith which the Ottoman observer summarily re- jected as weak traditions. 'Ali Akbar then quoted a Qur'anic verse-"Your pro- tectors are God, his Apostle, and those who pray, give alms, and bow down be- fore God"-and stated that most people believed that this referred to 'Ali.31 When al-Suwaydi disagreed with his interpretation, 'Ali Akbar complained that perhaps because his own Arabic was not very good, al-Suwaydi had not under- stood what he was trying to say. This was the end of any formal debate, which clearly had been put on for show.

The real purpose of the meeting became clear when Nadir Shah assembled the ulama and invited al-Suwaydi to witness the signing of a document by the clerics of Iran, Afghanistan, and Transoxiana which would confirm the removal of all the mukaffirdt, the specific practices, such as sabb, which led to the denuncia- tion of Shi'is as infidels. They gathered under a canopy that had been con- structed over the tomb of 'Ali, a gesture calculated to heighten the impact of the agreement.32

After they had assembled, the Mullabashi asked the Sunnis to explain why they declared the Shi'is infidels. He did not appeal to fine points of theology, but re- cited a litany of Sunni authorities' opinions:

We have not been declared infidels, even by Abu Hanifah. He said in his Jami' al-usul that Islam encompasses five madhhabs, the fifth being the imdmi madhhab, and knowledgeable scholars consider the imdmi madhhab to be one of the Islamic sects.... Abu Hanifah, in the Fiqh al-akbar, says that the ahl al-qiblah must not be declared infidels. The author of the Sharh hidayat al-fiqh al-Hanafi wa'l-sahih said that al-imdmiyah was an Islamic sect, yet your authorities who followed [them] have declared us infidels and our authorities who followed have declared you infidels.33

Reverting to basic theology, the qad1 of Bukhara, Hadi Khwajah, pointed out, "We declare you infidels because you curse the two shaykhs" [Abu Bakr and 'Umar]. The Mullabashi responded, "We have stopped this practice." The qddi observed that a person could not simply repent from this cursing and added, "We also declare you infidels because of your disparagement of the Companions of the Prophet." The Mullabashi replied, "All of the Companions are just."

When the qddi- asserted, "You practice temporary marriage" (mut'ah), 'Ali Akbar answered, "It is forbidden and only ignorant people accept it."34 The qddi next

31. Ibid., 17, quoting Qur'an 5:58. 32. Al-Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'iyah, 18-20. Al-Suwaydi included a detailed list of

the participants, who represented the major ulama of Iran, Afghanistan, and Trans- oxiana. Of the Iranian participants, only one, Sayyid Ahmad of Ardalan, was a Sunni. Like al-Suwaydi, he was a Shafi'i. 33. Ibid., 19-20. 34. Ibid., 19.

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charged that the Shi'is preferred 'Ali to the other caliphs and believed that he was the successor of Muhammad. The Mullabashi responded, "The most excellent human being after Muhammad is Abu Bakr, followed by 'Umar, then 'Uthman, and then 'Ali. Their caliphates occurred in that order."35

The qa-di then asked what authority the Iranians were relying on for their theo- logical interpretations. The Mullabashi replied that they followed al-Ash'ari.36 As the Mullabashi began to recite the ways in which the Iranians had conformed to Sunni practice, the qadi of Bukhara kept repeating under his breath, "cursing the two shaykhs [i.e., Abu Bakr and 'Umar] is unbelief (kufr)."37 Al-Suwaydi explained that the qadi's intention was to emphasize that the sin of cursing the first three caliphs could not be expiated according to the Hanafi madhhab, and since most of these Iranians had cursed these caliphs at one time, they could not now be forgiven.

In response, Mulla Hamzah, an Afghan delegate, asked the qadi if he could pro- duce evidence that anyone present had cursed the first three caliphs. The qddi confessed that he had none, and on this inconclusive note the Mullabashi declared the theological discussion to be over.38 The delegates then signed a document reiterating Nadir's prohibition on sabb and restating most of the proposals he had made to the Ottomans in 1 148/1736.39

At first glance, the document appears to have accepted the legitimacy of the first four caliphs-one of the bedrock foundations of Sunni doctrine. Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and even 'Uthman, were duly accorded their Sunni honorific titles and salutations.40 More careful examination, however, reveals important ambigui- ties. A good example can be found in its citation of what 'Ali was reported to have said about the first two caliphs. His words can be interpreted either to mean "they were two just and righteous leaders, [ruling] according to the truth [i.e., God] and dying according to the truth [i.e., God]" or "they were two unjust and tyrannical leaders, [ruling] against truth, and dying against truth."'41 This

35. Ibid., 20. This statement contradicted 'Ali Akbar's earlier assertions about Muhammad's designation of 'Ali as his successor (see above). 36. Ibid. Moojan Momen observes that the Akhbari school of Shi'i theology

adopted an "almost-Ash'ari" approach to theology, so 'Ali Akbar's statement might be evidence of an Akhbari orientation among some of Nadir's ulama. See Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 222. 37. Al-Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'iyah, 21. 38. Ibid., 20-21. 39. Ibid., 23-5. A more complete Persian version of the Najaf document appears in

Mahdi Khan, Tdrikh, 388-94. Another complete version of the text can be found in 'Abbas Iqbal, "Vasiqah-yi ittihad-i Islam-i Nadiri," Yddgar 6 (1326 Sh./1947): 43- 55. 40. Al-Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'iyah, 22; Mahdi Khan, Tdrikh, 392; Iqbal, "Vasi-

qah," 52. 41. "Humd imaman 'adilan qasitan kana 'ala al-haqq, wa mdta 'ala al-haqq" (al-

Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'lyah, 23). See also Mahdi Khan, Tdrikh, 393; lqbal, "Vas- iqah," 52.

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particular phrase is a well-attested double entendre in Arabic lexicography.42 Ju- dicious use of such ambiguity provided the only way for the two divergent ver- sions of the Ja'fari madhhab to coexist. Sunnis could sign the Najaf document interpreting 'Ali's words as praise for the first two caliphs. Shi'is could sign it interpreting them, inwardly of course, as blame. By employing such multiva- lent phrases, the document assured that both could preserve their fundamental be- liefs, the Sunnis openly and the Shi'is through dissimulative interpretation.

Because it appeared to him to represent a conversion to Sunni belief on the part of Nadir's ulama, al-Suwaydi signed the document and described the whole event as "a time witnessed as one of the curiosities of the world, which brought joy and happiness to the Sunnis. Nothing like it has occurred through the ages. No wedding feast or holiday celebration can be compared to it. Praise be to God for it."43 Al-Suwaydi was clearly glad to welcome the Iranians to the Sunni fold, however suspicious he might have been of what had actually transpired in Najaf.

After the signing ceremony he noted that Nadir's soldiers suddenly were over- flowing with praise for the first three caliphs and all the Companions of the Prophet. Although suspicious of their sincerity, al-Suwaydi recorded their ap- parently unabashed expressions of Sunni piety. After invoking the names of the first four caliphs and the Ottoman sultan, the Mullabashi offered a blessing for Nadir Shah and led a ritual prayer.44 Al-Suwaydi became more suspicious when he realized that this prayer did not conform to any of the four Sunni madhhabs and complained about it to Nadir. Nadir replied that he should ignore minor dis- crepancies in the prayer and focus instead on how he was to inform Ahmet Pasha that the conflicts between Sunnism and Shi'ism had been resolved by the ratifi- cation of the Najaf document.

This admonition did not satisfy al-Suwaydi, who confronted the Mullabashi and asked him why the Iranians had prayed in such an unorthodox way. The Mulla- bashi explained that the Iranians followed the madhhab of Ja'far al-Sadiq-the first mention of the Imam in al-Suwaydi's account. Al-Suwaydi retorted that if that were so, then they could do almost anything, since Ja'far excused almost any activity on the pretext of ritual dissimulation (taqiyah).45 Al-Suwaydi asked several 'alims how they could act on the basis of his sayings. The Mulla- bashi responded, "Our madhhab is such that if a person is competent to perform ijtihad (independent judicial reasoning), he should do so according to the words of Ja'far."46 Ultimately, al-Suwaydi was alarmed to discover that the entire council of Najaf might have been a gigantic exercise in taqiyah, in which case

42. It is said that the same words were used by a woman to insult the Umayyad gov- ernor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (41-95/661-714), but that she was spared when he interpreted them with their positive meaning. Al-qasitun was also used to refer to the followers of Mu'awiyah at the battle of Siffin (37/657). See E. W. Lane, Arabic- English Lexicon, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1984), 1975, 2523. 43. Al-Suwaydi, al-Hujaj al-qat'iyah, 24. 44. Ibid., 27. 45. Ibid., 28. 46. Ibid.

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the agreement he had signed would have been of doubtful validity, if not totally meaningless in his eyes.

As depicted by al-Suwaydi, the council of Najaf brought together various parts of Nadir's religious vision. To al-Suwaydi, as official representative of the Otto- mans, the Ja'fari madhhab was presented emphatically as a return to Sunnism. To the Iranian participants it was offered not as an attempt to resolve longstand- ing theological quarrels, but as a formula to defuse the power that those dis- agreements had to create sectarian strife. It appealed implicitly to dissimulation as a way to protect those aspects of Shi'i belief and practice to which al-Suwaydi and the Sunnis raised objections. Finally, since it was signed at Najaf, it under- scored Nadir's commitment to promote the veneration of Shi'i holy shrines.

The juxtaposition of the foreign and domestic versions of the Ja'fari proposal at the council of Najaf so thoroughly disconcerted al-Suwaydi that he decided to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca immediately upon returning to Baghdad, perhaps to cleanse his soul of the uncertainties produced by this experience. Although al- Suwaydi appears to have been delighted to see the Iranians declare that they were giving up heretical practices, he remained suspicious that the Ja'fari madhhab might be a trick. His confusion reflected the actual nature of the Ja'fari madh- hab-a compromise designed not to reconcile, but to set aside sectarian differ- ences.

V. The End of the Ja'fari Madhhab

In the end, despite al-Suwaydi's approval of the Najaf agreement, Nadir made peace with the Ottomans only after a long series of military campaigns and after he abandoned his call for a Ja'fari madhhab and a pillar in the Ka'bah. In 1159/1746, he signed a treaty with them that ostensibly recognized the conver- sion of Iran to Sunnism and definitively prohibited the ritual cursing of the first three caliphs in his empire.

However, an appendix to the treaty implied that Iranians would continue to make pilgrimages to the shrine cities ('atabdt-i 'dliydt) of Iraq. It specifically admon- ished Ottoman officials from Baghdad not to seize the property of Iranians who were visiting those places.47 In fact, Nadir's treaty with the Ottomans appears to have been the first Iranian-Ottoman agreement that explicitly secured the rights of Iranian pilgrims in Ottoman territory. The guarantee of protection for Iranians visiting the tombs of the Shi'i Imams, hardly budding converts to Sun- nism, recalled Nadir's own devotion to the holy shrines. This agreement sig- naled the end of conflict between the Ottomans and Nadir and cleared the way for them to establish formal relations.

The agreement achieved a basic goal that the Ja'fari madhhab concept had been

47. Mahdi Khan, Tdrikh, 418.

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designed to promote: the formal recognition of a Sunni framework for interna- tional relations which would also maintain essential facets of Shi'ism as defined by Nadir. Moreover, subsequent Iranian-Ottoman accords, such as the 1238/1823 Treaty of Erzurum, relied heavily on the framework established by the 1159/1746 agreement-an enduring legacy of Nadir's tenure on the throne.48 Unfortunately for Nadir, this success in foreign affairs coincided with the com- plete disintegration of his regime at home; he was assassinated by his own troops only a few months after making peace with the Ottomans.

Nadir's death signaled the definitive abandonment of the Ja'fari madhhab concept. His grandson Shahrukh, who emerged as his successor after 1163/1750, cast himself explicitly as a staunch defender of orthodox Twelver Shi'ism.49

In the domestic sphere, despite the constant rebellions in various parts of Iran in the latter years of Nadir's reign which culminated in his assassination, resistance to Nadir's religious innovations appears to have remained a less important factor in domestic unrest than anger over his displacement of the Safavids. Contempo- rary accounts clearly distinguished between the effects of Nadir's deposition of the Safavids and the impact of his Ja'fari madhhab concept.

An early example is the account of Arutin Efendi, an Ottoman Armenian musi- cian who traveled extensively through Iran in 1151-53/1738-40. His work is important because he talked with many minor Iranian officials, offering a win- dow, however cloudy, on the perceptions and opinions of some of Nadir's sub- jects. Arutin Efendi harshly criticized Nadir's assumption of the throne and dwelt on Nadir's complicity in the murder of Shah Tahmasp II, which he re- garded as a criminal act.50 He did not even mention the Ja'fari madhhab, but offered a revealing anecdote concerning Nadir's approach to religion. According to Arutin Efendi, Nadir Shah, soon after his coronation at Mughan, sent out her- alds on four successive days. On the first day, the herald proclaimed that the shah was Sunni (charyari), on the second day, that he was tribal Shi'i (qizilbash), on the third, that he was Armenian (i.e., Christian), and on the fourth, that he was Jewish. When asked his motives for such actions, Nadir said that he was trying to prevent intercommunal strife by holding out the chance that each community could claim him as its own. Nadir warned that all the communities should treat each other with friendship, otherwise he would "cut their heads off like meat."51 Such a story, however fanciful, suggests that Nadir' s principal religious goal may have been perceived, at least by some of his subjects, not to have been the suppression of Shi'ism but the unequivocal impo

48. For the text of the Treaty of Erzurum, which in fact explicitly stated that its basis was the 1159/1746 treaty, see J. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, 3 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 1:219-21. 49. See, for example, Shahrukh's coins, which resumed the Safavid practice of in-

cluding the names of the Twelve Imams (Rabino, Coins, 55-6). 50. Tanburi Arutin Efendi, Tahmas Kulu Han'in Tevarihi, ed. Esat Uras (Ankara: Turk

Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1942), 43-6. 51. Ibid., 44.

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sition of religious tolerance among them.

One of the most important Persian chroniclers of Nadir's reign, Muhammad Kazim Marvi, did not even mention the Ja'fari madhhab concept until he de- scribed the 1156/1743 council of Najaf (see above), seven years after Nadir's coronation. Muhammad Kazim simply noted that even after Nadir forbade the open performance of ta'ziyah or any commemoration of the battle of Karbala, faithful Shi'is continued to hold these ceremonies in private-virtually the only reference to the effects of Nadir's religious changes.52 In contrast, a large part of the work attempted to show how Nadir's reign was doomed because of his re- sponsibility for the deposition and eventual execution of Tahmasp II and his sons.53 Marvi criticized Nadir less for his attempt to transform the outward manifestations of Shi'ism than for his perceived complicity in attempting to ex- tinguish the Safavid line.

A similar approach can be discerned in one of the latest contemporary accounts of Nadir, the Sefaretname-i Kesriyeli Ahmet PaEa, the narrative of an Ottoman embassy sent to congratulate Nadir on the successful conclusion of the 1159/1746 peace treaty which instead witnessed the turmoil that engulfed Iran at the time of Nadir's death.54 Its author, Kirimli Rahim Efendi, a noted Ottoman poet and the official scribe of the embassy, interviewed several of Nadir's senior commanders who had fled to Ottoman territory.55 His account reveals that an inability to establish political legitimacy dogged Nadir to his death more than problems and questions surrounding his religious policies.

Rahim Efendi summarizes these commanders' principal criticism of Nadir:

Aside from the fact that Nadir Shah, in origin, was not of the dynasties of kings or sultans and that it was therefore impossible for the people of Iran to obey him, it can be concluded that they would not be loyal to his sons ei- ther. He was seized with the evil idea that no one should remain to oppose his sons after him. Since [Nadir's] army was composed of Uzbeks, Afghans, Afshars, and Qajars, and because he had no need for Iranians in the army, he got rid of the Iranians in the army, each under a different pretext, and he fined prosperous peasants into poverty, neglecting the noble saying, "a government endures despite [the ruler's] unbelief, but it does not continue in spite of [the ruler's] oppression."56

52. Muhammad Kazim Marvi, Thrikh-i 'alam-drd-yi Nddirf, ed. Muhammad Amin Riyahi, 3 vols.(Tehran: Naqsh-i Jahan, 1364 Sh./1985), 982. 53. For an analysis of Marvi's view of Nadir's relationship to the Safavids, see

Ernest Tucker, "Explaining Nadir Shah: Kingship and Royal Legitimacy in Muham- mad Kazim Marvi's Tarikh-i 'alam-a-ra--yi Nddiri," Iranian Studies 26, nos. 1-2 (1993): 95-115. 54. Kirimli Rahim Efendi, Sefaretname-i Kesriyeli Ahmet Paza, MS Topkapi Sarayi

Kutuphanesi Hazinesi 1635. 55. For a recent Persian translation and discussion of this work, see Muhammad

Amin Riyahi, Safdratnamahha-yi Iran (Tehran: Tus, 1368 Sh./1989), 205-42. 56. Rahim Efendi, Sefaretname, 44r-44v.

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He suggested that Nadir's biggest problem was his lack of legitimacy and op- pressive rule, not the taint of impiety that his religious proposals might have implied. The relative indifference with which these diverse sources treated Nadir's religious ideas, in contrast to their severe criticism of his treatment of the last Safavids, suggests that the Ja'fari proposal itself may have been per- ceived within Nadir's realm as less threatening than and quite distinct from his deposition and elimination of the preceding dynasty.

Interestingly, the chronicles of Safavid loyalists of the late 12th/18th and early 13th/19th century condemned Nadir as a tyrant, but did not upbraid him as strongly for the Ja'fari madhhab idea as might be expected. For example, Khalil Mar'ashi Safavi, one of the most ardent Safavid loyalists of the post-Nadir pe- riod, although bitterly critical of Nadir for executing prominent Shi'i clerics in the latter part of his reign, described his ban on public Shi'i ceremonies after the Mughan coronation as a relatively benign imposition.57

The Fawa 'id al-Safavlyah, a pro-Safavid chronicle written around 1211/1796, confined its discussion of Nadir's religiosity to a single anecdote. It seems that when Nadir came to Najaf (presumably in 1156/1743), his companions told him that wine which was brought to Najaf would turn to vinegar, but he did not be- lieve them. When he commanded some Armenians to bring wine into Najaf, all of it turned to vinegar when it entered the city. Thus, Nadir decided to gild the dome of the shrine of 'Ali in Najaf.58 While this tale did not exactly celebrate Nadir, it also did not depict him as a destroyer of Shi'ism.

As far as Nadir's reputation among later Shi'i clergy goes, a 13th/19th century Shi'i biographical dictionary, the Rawdakt al-jannat, mentioned Nadir's attempt to have a fifth pillar erected in the Ka'bah as the last in a long series of efforts by Shi'i rulers to gain acceptance in the Sunni world. It noted that Nadir was willing to give up sabb, but that Sunni rulers did not accept his offer and, there- fore, "the Imamites [Twelver Shi'is] did not change their practices."59 The work criticized Sunni refusal of Nadir's proposal instead of the proposal itself.

VI. Conclusions

The Ja'fari madhhab concept can be easily regarded as ephemeral. Hamid Algar shows how it flew in the face of long-established Shi'i traditions. He notes that to abandon public Shi'i rituals such as sabb meant giving up practices that had

57. Mirza Khalil Mar'ashi Safavi, Majma' al-tawarikh, ed. 'Abbas Iqbal (Tehran: Tahuri, 1362 Sh./1984), 84. 58. Abu'l-Hasan Qazvini, Fawad'id al-Safaviyah, ed. Maryam Mir-Ahmadi (Tehran:

Mu'assasah-yi Mutala'at va Tahqiqat-i Farhangi, 1367 Sh./1988), 153-4. 59. Muhammad Baqir b. Zayn al-'Abidin al-Khwansari, Rawdat al-janndt (Tehran:

Nasir-i Khusraw, 1340 Sh./1961), 1:190.

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become integral parts of Shi'ism by the twelfth/eighteenth century.60

However, Nadir did not worry about how consistently the Ja'fari madhhab fol- lowed existing Shi'i practice. Instead, he sought a basis for reconciliation with the greater Sunni world which at the same time discarded public religious cere- monies closely associated with the Safavids. In compensation for the hindrances imposed by the Ja'fari proposal, Nadir took some pains to defend those facets of Shi'ism which did not impede his quest for legitimacy. He called, ultimately, for selective dissimulation in order to present the Ja'fari madhhab concept to his Shi'i subjects as a minor sacrifice for the greater glory of his empire and the peace of the Muslim ummah which also preserved essential facets of Shi'ism, albeit in an altered form.

Although he did not succeed in establishing the Ja'fari madhhab at home or abroad, it is significant that the spirit of his proposal was embodied in the treaty that he signed with Ottomans in 11]59/1746 and that, according to contemporary sources, anger over his religious innovations was less a factor in popular discon- tent with his reign than his oppressive administration and his deposition of the Safavids. Nadir's failure to attract the support of either the Ottomans or his sub- jects for his proposal, though, testifies to the immense power of Twelver Shi'i orthodoxy in Iran as it had developed by the end of the Safavid period.

With his focus on Ja'far al-Sadiq, Nadir evoked the Muslim community of the 2nd/8th century-an era in which enmity between Sunnis and Shi'is had not yet been fully exploited to legitimize conflict between Islamic empires. At the same time, in its breathtaking innovation, Nadir's Ja'fari madhhab idea also looked forward to later proposals for bringing the Muslim world together, anticipating subsequent attempts to forge a unified Islamic bloc based as much on recognition of common political interests as on reconciliation of religious differences.

Ernest Tucker, History Department, U.S. Naval Academy

60. Algar, "Shi'ism and Iran," 298.