the Shiah. Paradoxically, the a-rational doctrine of the Occultation allowed the Shii ulema more freedom to exercise their rational powers in the pragmatic world of affairs than the Sunni ulema. Because the Hidden Imam was no longer available, they had to rely on their own intellectual powers. In the Shiah, therefore, the “gates of ijtihad” were never declared closed, as in the Sunnah.35 At first, it is true, Shiis did feel mentally hobbled when their Imam vanished, but by the thirteenth century, an eminent and learned Shii cleric was known precisely as a mujtahid, one who was deemed capable of the rational activity of ijtihad.
Shii rationalism was, however, different from our current secularized rationalism in the West. Shiis were often critical thinkers. The eleventh-century scholars Muhammad al-Mufid and Muhammad al-Tusi, for example, were worried about the authenticity of some of the hadith reports about the Prophet and his companions. They felt that it was not sufficient simply to quote one of these unreliable traditions in support of their doctrines but that clerics should use reason and logic instead; yet the rational arguments they produced would not convince a modern skeptic. Tusi, for example, “proved” the doctrine of the Imamate on the grounds that, since God is good and desires our salvation, it is reasonable to believe that he will provide us with an infallible guide. Men and women can work out for themselves the necessity for social justice, but a divine sanction makes this imperative more urgent. Even Tusi, however, found himself at a loss when it came to finding a rationale for the Occultation.36 But this was not disturbing to Shiis. Mythos and logos, reason and revelation, were not in opposition but simply different from one another and complementary. Where we in the modern West have discounted mythology and mysticism as a source of truth and rely on reason alone, a thinker such as Tusi saw both ways of thinking as valid and necessary. He sought to show that doctrines which made perfect sense while he was engaged in mystical meditation were also reasonable, in an Islamic context. The introspective techniques of contemplation provided insights that were true in their own sphere, but they could not be proved logically, like a mathematical equation that was the product of logos.
By the end of the fifteenth century, as we have seen, most Shiis were Arabs and the Shiah was especially strong in Iraq, particularly in the two shrine cities of Najaf and Kerbala, dedicated respectively to Imam Ali and Imam Husain. Most Iranians were Sunni, though the Iranian city of Qum had always been a Shii center, and there were significant numbers of Shiis in Rayy, Kashan, and Khurasan. So there were Iranians who welcomed the arrival of nineteen-year-old Shah Ismail, head of the Safavid order of Sufis, who conquered Tabriz in 1501, subdued the rest of Iran within the next decade, and announced that Shiism would become the official religion of the new Safavid empire. Ismail claimed descent from the Seventh Imam, which, he believed, gave him a legitimacy not enjoyed by other Muslim rulers.37
But this was obviously a break with Shii tradition. Most Shiis, known as “Twelvers” (because of their veneration of the twelve Imams), believed that no government could be legitimate in the absence of the Hidden Imam.38 How, then, could there be a “state Shiism”? This did not trouble Ismail, who knew very little about Twelver orthodoxy. The Safavid order, a mystical fraternity which had been founded in the wake of the Mongol invasions, had originally been Sufi but had absorbed many of the “extreme” (ghuluww) ideas of the old Shiah. Ismail believed that Imam Ali had been divine, and that the Shii messiah would return very soon to inaugurate the Golden Age. He may even have told his disciples that he was the Hidden Imam, returned from concealment. The Safavid order was a marginal, populist, revolutionary group, far removed from the sophisticated circles of Shii esotericism.39 Ismail had no qualms about setting up a Shii state, and, instead of trying to find a civilized modus vivendi with the Sunni majority, as Shiis had done since the time of Jafar as-Sadiq, he was fanatically opposed to the Sunnah. There was a new sectarian intolerance in both the Ottoman and the Safavid empires that was not dissimilar to the feuds between Catholics and Protestants that were developing in Europe at about this time. In recent centuries, there had been a détente between Sunnis and Shiis. But during the early sixteenth century, the Ottomans were determined to marginalize the Shiah in their domains, and, when Ismail emerged in Iran, he was equally determined to wipe out the Sunnah there.40
It did not take the Safavids long, however, to discover that the messianic, “extremist” ideology that had served them well in opposition was no longer suitable once they had become the establishment. Shah Abbas I (1588–1629) was determined to eliminate the old ghuluww theology, dismissed “extremists” from his bureaucracy, and imported Arab Shii ulema to promote Twelver orthodoxy. He built madrasahs for them in Isfahan, his new capital, and Hilla, endowed property (awqaf) on their behalf, and gave them generous gifts. This patronage was essential in the early days, since the ulema were new immigrants entirely dependent upon the shahs. But it inevitably changed the nature of the Shiah. Shii scholars had always been a minority group. They had never had madrasahs of their own but had studied and debated in one another’s homes. Now the Shiah was becoming establishment. Isfahan became the official scholastic center of the Shiah.41 Shiis had always held aloof from government before, but now the ulema had taken over the educational and legal system in Iran as well as the more specifically religious duties of government. The administrative bureaucracy was composed of Iranians who were still loyal to the Sunnah, so they were given the more secular tasks. A de facto split between the secular and religious spheres had developed in the government of Iran.42
The ulema, however, continued to be wary of the Safavid state; they still refused official government posts and preferred to be ranked as subjects. Their position was, therefore, quite unlike that of the Ottoman ulema, but was potentially more powerful. The generosity and patronage of the shahs had made the ulema financially independent. Where the Ottomans and their successors could always control their ulema by threatening to withdraw their subsidies or confiscate their property, the Shii ulema could not be cowed in this way.43 As Shiism spread among the Iranian people, they would also benefit from the fact that they, and not the shahs, were the only authentic spokesmen of the Hidden Imam. The early Safavids were strong enough to keep the ulema in check, however, and the clergy would not come fully into their own until the Iranian people as a whole were fully converted to Shiism in the eighteenth century.
But power corrupts. As the ulema became more at home in the Safavid empire, they also became more authoritarian and even bigoted. Some of the more attractive traits of the Shiah were submerged. This new hard line was epitomized by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1700), who was one of the most powerful and influential ulema of all time. For centuries, Shiis had encouraged an innovative approach to scripture. Majlisi, however, was deeply hostile to both mystical spirituality and philosophical speculation, both of which had been the mainstay of the old esoteric Shiah. He began a relentless persecution of the remaining Sufis in Iran and tried to suppress the teaching of both the philosophic rationalism known as Falsafah and mystical philosophy in Isfahan. He thus introduced a profound distrust of both mysticism and philosophy that persists in Iranian Shiism to the present day. Instead of engaging in an esoteric study of the Koran, Shii scholars were encouraged to concentrate on fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence.
Majlisi also transformed the meaning of the ritual processions in honor of the martyrdom of Husain.44 These had become more elaborate: now camels draped in green were ridden by weeping women and children, who represented the Imam’s family; soldiers shot rifles in the air, and coffins representing the Imam and his martyred companions were followed by the governor, the notables, and crowds of men who sobbed and wounded themselves
