Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/664

 634 PERSIA [MODERN 1480-1499. generally recognized sovereign. Markham, in designating this prince the last of his house, states that he was de throned by the renowned founder of the Safawi dynasty. This event brings us to one of the most interesting periods of Persian history, any account of which must be defective without a prefatory sketch of Isma il Sufi. Shaikh The Sufi or Safawi Dynasty (1499-1 736). Shaikh Saifu Sufi. d-Din Izh&k 1 lineally descended from Miisa, the seventh imam was a resident at Ardabil, south-west of the Caspian, some time during the 14th century. It is said that his reputation for sanctity attracted the attention of Timur, who sought him out in his abode, and was so charmed by the visit that he released, at the holy man s request, a number of captives of Turkish origin, or, as some affirm, Georgians, taken in the wars with Baiyazid, who had been probably reserved for some more cruel end. The act ensured to the shaikh the constant devotion and gratitude of these men, a feeling which was loyally maintained by their descendants for the members of his family in success ive generations. Morier s description of the mausoleum erected to the memory of Shaikh Sufi in Ardabil enables the reader to form some idea of the extraordinary venera tion in which he was held. Among the offerings on the tomb, 2 which was covered with brocades and shawls, bunches of feathers, ostrich eggs, and other ornaments, was a golden ewer set with precious stones, said to have been presented by the Indian emperor Humaiyun. His son Sadru d-Din and grandson Kwajah All (who visited Mecca and died at Jerusalem) retained the high reputation of their pious predecessor. Junaid, a grandson of the last, and not a whit less prominent in the pages of history, married a sister of Uzun Hasan, and by her had a son named Shaikh Haidar, who married his cousin Martha, daughter of Uzun Hasan and Queen Despina. Three sons were the issue of this marriage, Sultan All, Ibrahim Mirza, and the youngest, Isma il, the date of whose birth is put down as 1480 for reasons which will appear here- Shaikh after. So great was the influence of Shaikh Haidar, and Haidar. so earnestly did he carry out the principles of conduct which had characterized his family for five generations, that his name has become, as it were, inseparable from the dynasty of his son Isma il ; and the term &quot; Haidar i &quot; (leonine) is applied by many persons to indicate generally the Safawis of Persia. As to the nature of hi? teaching, and the peculiar tenets professed, this is hardly the place for their discussion ; but it may be broadly stated that the outcome was a division of Muhammadanism vitally momentous to the world of Islam. The Persian mind was peculiarly adapted to receive the form of religion prepared for it by the philosophers of Ardabil. The doctrines presented were dreamy and mystic ; they rejected the infallibility of human wisdom, and threw suspicion on the order and arrangement of human ortho doxy. They breathed in harmony Avith the feelings of a people who, partly in the Athenian spirit and wholly with Athenian perversity, were ever ready &quot; to tell or to hear some new thing.&quot; There was free scope given for the indulgence of that poetical imagination which revels in revolution and chafes at prescriptive bondage. As Malcolm truly and happily remarks, &quot; the natives of Persia are enthusiastically devoted to poetry ; the meanest artisan of the principal cities of that kingdom can read or repeat some of the finest passages from their most admired 1 According to Langles, the annotator of Chardin, his real designa tion was Abu 1-Fath Izhak, the Shaikh Saifu 1-Hakk wu d-Diu or &quot; pure one of truth and religion.&quot; 2 Langles finds 1334 to be the year of his death. This is impos sible if he was contemporary with Timiir, who was born in 1336. Malcolm s opinion, derived from the Znbdntu t-taiodrikh, that the conqueror s visit was paid to Sadru d-Din, is, however, the more credible theory. writers ; and even the rude and unlettered soldier leaves his tent to listen with rapture to the strain of the minstrel who sings a mystic song of divine love, or recites the tale of a battle of his forefathers.&quot; And he adds, &quot;the very essence of Sufi-ism is poetry. . . the Masnavi. . . the works of the celebrated Jami. . . the book of moral lessons of the eloquent Sa di, and the lyric and mystic odes of Hafiz ... to them they (the Sufis) continually refer ; and the gravest writers who have defended their doctrine take their proofs from the pages of these and other poets Avhom they deem to have been inspired by their holy theme.&quot; Those authorities who maintain that Ya kub Shah left no son to succeed him consider valid the claim to the vacant throne of Shaikh Haidar Sufi. At any rate, he could not be otherwise than formidable to a usurper such as Rustam, both from relationship to the deceased monarch and position as one of the most noted of Sufi teachers. Purchas says that Ya kub himself, &quot;jealous of the multitude of Aidar s disciples and the greatness of his fame, caused him to be secretly murthered &quot; ; but Krusinski attributes the act to Rustam a few years later. Zeno, the anonymous merchant, and Angiolello affirm that the devotee was defeated and killed in battle, the first making his conqueror to be Alamut, the second a general of Alamut s, and the third an officer sent by Rustam named Sulaiman Bey. Malcolm, following the Zuhdatu t-taivdrikh, relates that Shaikh Haidar was vanquished and slain by the governor of Shirwan. The subsequent statement that his son, Sultan Ali, was seized, in company with tAvo younger brothers, by Ya kub, &quot;one of the descendants of their grandfather Uzun Hasan, Avho, jealous of the mimerous disciples that resorted to Ardabil, confined them to the hill fort of Istakhr in Fars,&quot; seems to indicate a second interpretation of the passage just extracted from Purchas, and that there is confusion of persons and incident somewhere. One of the sons here alluded to Avas Isma il, AA hom Malcolm makes to have been only seven years of age Avhen he fled to Gilan in 1492. Zeno states that he AA-as then thirteen, Avhich is much more probable, 3 and the several data available for reference are in favour of this supposition. The life of the young Sufi from this period to his assump- Isma il tion of royalty in 1499 Avas full of stirring adventure ; and his career as Isma il I. was a brilliant one for the annals of Persia. According to Zeno, AA r ho seems to have carefully recorded the events of the time, he left his temporary home on an island of Lake Van before he Avas eighteen, and, passing into Karabagh, 4 betAA r een the Arras and Kur, turned in a south-easterly direction into Gilan. Here he Avas enabled, through the assistance of a friend of his father, to raise a small force, with Avhich to take pos session .of Baku on the Caspian, and thence to march upon Shumakhi in ShirAA 7 an, a tOAvn abandoned to him Avithout a struggle. Hearing, hoAA-ever, that Alamut was advancing to meet him, he AA r as compelled to seek neAv levies from among the Jengian Christians and others. In this he vas quite successful. Finding himself at the head of an army of 16,000 men, he thoroughly routed his opponents, and, having cleared the way before him, marched straight upon Tabriz, which at once surrendered. He was soon after proclaimed shah of Persia (1499), under the designation which marked the family school of thought. Alamut had taken refuge at Diarbekir ; but his brother Murad, at the head of an army strengthened by Turkish auxiliaries, was still in the field Avith the object of con testing the paternal croAvn. Isma il lost no time in moving against him, and Avon a new victory on the plains of Tabriz. Murad fled AA-ith a small remnant of his soldiers to Diar- 3 So thinks the editor and annotator of the Italian Travels in Persia., Mr Charles Grey. 4 Possibly Kara-dagh, as being the more direct road.