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The Ismailis in the Middle Ages
This page intentionally left blank
The Ismailis in the Middle Ages
A History of Survival,
A Search for Salvation
}O
SHAFIQUE N. VIRANI

1 2007
 1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
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Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Virani, Shafique N.
The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: a history of survival, a search for
salvation / Shafique N. Virani.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-531173-0
1. Ismailites—History. I. Title.
BP195.I8V57 2007
297.8'2209—dc22 2006019105

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
 Dedicated to the memories of

Muhammad b. Zayn al-^Abidin ‘Fida\i’

Khurasani ‘Hajji Akhund’

and

^Ali Muhammad Jan Muhammad Chunara

 Harken ye
Who quest for union
Who boasts
That he seeks

Heed my words
For I am
The Book of God
That speaks!
h
Imam ^Abd al-Salam
 Acknowledgments
O Our Lord!
Let thanks for your bounties
Be the litany of our tongues
And shelter us from the nethermost hell
Of ingratitude and thanklessness
h
From a seventeenth-century Ismaili prayer

Many people have given generously of their time, their resources and their wisdom to
assist me in the writing of this book. In the initial stages, when the foundations were being
laid, Roy Mottahedeh shared his wisdom about how to approach history, Robert Wis-
novsky spoke at length with me about philosophical considerations, Wheeler Thackston
motivated me with his learned opinions about literature, and Ahmad Mahdavi-Damghani
assisted me with numerous intricacies in medieval texts. I must thank Ali Asani, in
particular, for his constant support, his precious advice on the writing process, and for
reading the initial drafts with such a keen eye.
During the course of my research, I spent a memorable year at the Institute of
Ismaili Studies, London. I would like to thank Azim Nanji, the director, for facilitating
my stay and making my residence so pleasant. I am indebted to the librarians at the
Institute without whose help much of my research would have remained unfinished.
Duncan Haldane was never too busy to help in locating obscure resources, Alnoor
Merchant’s wide knowledge of the Institute’s collection was essential in procuring
manuscript works, and whenever I was tired of poring over the manuscripts I would
discover that a cup of hot tea and a plate of cookies had been prepared for me by Khadija
Lalani, who always made the library a wonderful environment in which to work. The
librarians at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and at Zayed University in the
UAE, particularly those working with interlibrary loans, were wonderful. I would like to
thank Bonnie Burns of Harvard University, and Andrew Nicholson, Gerald Romme and

vii
viii W ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Magda Biesiada of the University of Toronto, who inducted me into the world of geo-
graphic information systems. Without their help, I would not have been able to design the
maps included in this book.
This book has benefited from the sage advice and valuable information provided
by many leading scholars in the field, including Aziz Esmail and Jalal Badakhchani.
Farhad Daftary, Hermann Landolt, Wilferd Madelung, and Paul Walker took time from
their busy schedules and read the penultimate draft of the book, providing me with
the benefit of their immense erudition and incisive judgment. Through the years, I have
always admired their superior scholarship, and am indebted to them for their guidance
and observations. I must, in particular, single out Faquir M. Hunzai and Mrs. Rashida
Hunzai who, from the very outset, bent over backward to assist me. Despite the demands
of their own work, they were always eager to help with their characteristic selflessness.
With his vast knowledge and expertise, Hunzai was able to decipher some of the most
obscure and puzzling passages in the manuscripts I was dealing with and Mrs. Hunzai’s
vigilance saved me from many infelicities of expression. Both of them welcomed me
with immense love and warmth, and I can never fully express my gratitude to them. In
addition, my friends Hussein Rashid, Syed Akbar Hyder, and Sunil Sharma were sources
of immense support and advice.
I am particularly indebted to my parents, my sister and my brother, who have always
stood by me, unwavering in their encouragement and support. Never a day goes by when
I don’t remember how lucky I am to have them.
I’m grateful to the Journal of the American Oriental Society, which permitted me to
use parts of my article ‘‘The Eagle Returns: Evidence of Continued Isma^ili Activity at
Alamut and in the South Caspian Region following the Mongol Conquests,’’ JAOS 123
(2003): 351–370, in chapter 2 of this book.
Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge the Government of Iran Ministry of Culture, the Iran
Heritage Foundation, the Institute of Ismaili Studies, the Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation
Award of the Middle East Studies Association, the Foundation for Iranian Studies, the
Harvard University Ilse Lichtenstadter Memorial Publication Prize, and the Whiting
Foundation for their support, financial or otherwise, which made the publication of this
book possible.
 Contents

NOTE ON THE TEXT xi

Map of the Near East xvi
Map of the Iranian Lands xviii
INTRODUCTION 3
Emerging from Obscurity 9
Signposts for the Way 13
O N E W RECOVERING A LOST HISTORY 19
History Is Written by the Victors 22
Asking the People of the House 25
T W O W THE EAGLE RETURNS 29
A Corrective to ^Ata-Malik Juwayni’s Narrative 30
In the Shadow of the Ilkhanids 33
The Trials of the Kushayji Family 34
The Appearance of Khudawand Muhammad 35
Continued Ismaili Activity 37
Testimony from Latin, Khurasani, and South Asian
Sources 39
Conclusion 43
T H R E E W VEILING THE SUN 47
Imamate of Shams al-Din Muhammad 49
Nizari Quhistani (d. 720/1320) 60
F O U R W SUMMONING TO THE TRUTH 71
The Da^wa 72
Imam Qasimshah 77
Qasim Tushtari (or Turshizi) 87
x W CONTENTS

F I V E W POSSESSORS OF THE COMMAND 91

The Command and the Commander 91
The Imams Islamshah b. Qasimshah and Muhammad
b. Islamshah 94
S I X W QIBLA OF THE WORLD 109
Transference of the Seat of Imamate to Anjudan 112
Imamate of Mustansir bi’llah (d. 885/1480) 116
Imamate of ^Abd al-Salam (d. ca. 899/1493) 119
Imamate of Gharib Mirza (d. 904/1498) 121
S E V E N W THE WAY OF THE SEEKER 133
Veiling and Unveiling: The Workings of Taqiyya 136
The Workings of the Da^wa 148
E I G H T W SALVATION AND IMAMATE 165
‘‘You have done this, and yet you have not done it’’ 165
Seekers of Union 168
Conclusion 182
AFTERWORD 183
GLOSSARY 187
ABBREVIATIONS 195
NOTES 197
BIBLIOGRAPHY 265
INDEX 291
 Note on the Text

Charles Lamb (d. 1834), the English author most famous for his collection Essays of Elia,
writes in that anthology, ‘‘I can read anything which I call a book.’’ However, he laments
that there are many things that appear in the shape of books, but are no such thing, for
they are quite unreadable. Among these he included scientific treatises, almanacs and
the writings of Hume and Robertson. These he dubbed biblia a-biblia, ‘‘books that are
not books.’’ They were volumes ‘‘no gentleman’s library should be without,’’ yet tomes
hardly anyone would actually wish to read.1
I wanted The Ismailis in the Middle Ages to be a book that people would enjoy
reading as much as I enjoyed writing. At the same time, an academic book must maintain
certain standards of scholarship that are absolutely sacrosanct. No such volume, partic-
ularly in a largely untouched field, can do without exhaustive documentation. Yet the
general reader is unlikely ever to venture into the forbidding wilderness of documentary
notes that authors of such books so painstakingly prepare. Specialist readers, however,
cannot forgo consulting such apparatus, the very stock of their craft. Creative solutions in
other areas, however, can greatly enhance the reading experience of the lay reader, without
compromising scholarly fidelity.

NAMES AND TITLES

h
The title of Juwayni’s famous work on the Mongol conquests, Ta\rikh-i Jahangushay,
while simple enough for the specialist, is nothing but an unpronounceable combination
of letters for many casual readers. I have therefore opted to provide English designations
for most works, in the case of Juwayni’s opus, the one it was conferred by its able trans-
lator, John Andrew Boyle, who dubbed it History of the World Conqueror. Such titles
will have greater relevance to the average reader. Meanwhile, for the benefit of specialists
and curious generalists, the original titles are referenced in parentheses on their first (and
occasionally subsequent) appearance. Along the same lines, I have also provided English

xi
xii W NOTE ON THE TEXT

equivalents for a number of technical terms. However, as many of these have no real
equivalent in English, this has not always been possible. For the purposes of English gram-
mar, occasionally the original word provided in parentheses will be in the plural, though it
is singular in the source, or vice versa. The faint of heart turn pale when they have to read
names such as Abu ^Amr Minhaj al-Din ^Uthman b. Siraj al-Din Juzjani, and so I have spared
them by trying to maintain the simplest form of such names wherever possible, hence
Juzjani, while preserving the full forms in the index for those who are interested.
Computer software has made great strides in being able to accommodate languages in
non-Roman scripts. Nevertheless, there are still many areas that need further development.
The bibliographical software used for this book assumes that authors are identified by given
name and surname. Traditional Eastern culture, however, knows no such convention, as
authors may be identified according to any part of their name, not necessarily the last. The
curious may therefore have to search a bit to find references to such sources in the bibli-
ography, and may notice unconventional citations of figures in the notes, who may be better
known by other names.

TRANSLITERATION
h
We are told in the Bible of humankind’s arrogance in attempting to reach God by
building the Tower of Babel. The Creator’s punishment was swift and unequivocal.
Henceforth, the peoples of the earth would speak a medley of mutually unintelligible
tongues. This retribution falls particularly heavy on the shoulders of scholars of world
religions, histories, and cultures, who bear the burden not only of making sense of the
Babelian cacophony of their sources, but of trying to convey this intelligibly to their readers.
Any work that draws upon sources written in languages and scripts as diverse as Arabic,
Persian, Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, Punjabi, Siraiki, and Khojki faces the perplexing
question of what system of transliteration to adopt. No one solution can hope to satisfy
everybody and it is difficult to decide whether to include a bewildering array of diacritics
thereby sacrificing readability, or to oversimplify matters and thus sacrifice accuracy.
While the heaps of ‘‘dots and lines’’ (ahem, macrons) are a bugbear to many readers,
these symbols of transliteration are actually of tremendous value, as they help us to know
how a word is spelled and pronounced in its original language; otherwise, how would one
distinguish between the names Nasir-i Khusraw (in which Nasir is pronounced with a long
‘‘a’’ and a short ‘‘i’’) and Nasir al-Din Tusi (in which Nasir is pronounced with a short ‘‘a’’
and a long ‘‘i’’)? Even with a fully transliterated text, though, many readers may remain
blissfully unaware of such distinctions. The best compromise, I thought, was to correctly
transliterate all foreign words, but to remove the macrons and subscript dots in the main
text, while maintaining them in the notes, index, glossary, this note on the text, quotations
and wherever such words or phrases would benefit from being fully transcribed, such as
when incorporated within parentheses. In this manner, generalist readers are spared the
confusion of muddling through symbols they may not fully understand, adventurous gen-
eralists (and I hope there are many such people) can learn the correct pronunciations of
 NOTE ON THE TEXT W xiii

foreign words by referring to the glossary, and specialists can access the fully transliterated
forms of non-English expressions quite easily. Other authors have opted for similar solu-
tions, and in this I follow in their footsteps.
I have adopted a version of the Arabic transliteration system of the American Language
Association (ALA) and Library of Congress (LC) for all Arabic script languages, with the
usual additional characters for Persian, Urdu, etc., and the ALA-LC’s Gujarati transliteration
system for all South Asian languages not written in Arabic script, as these roughly fall into the
paradigm of standard Devanagari. The following are the main modifications: For Arabic
script languages, the ta marbuta ( ) is not represented by an h, the alif maqsura is represented
by a rather than á, iyy and uww are preferred to iy and uw, and the prime symbol (‘‘) is never
used. For Devanagari, and (and their equivalents in related scripts) are transcribed as
‘‘cha’’ and ‘‘chha’’ respectively, rather than as ‘‘ca’’ and ‘‘cha,’’ both and (and their
equivalents in related scripts) are transcribed as ‘‘sha,’’ word final ‘‘a’’ is not retained unless
the word ends in a conjunct syllable, and a distinction is not always made between short and
long ‘‘i’’ and ‘‘u’’ sounds, particularly when transcribing from the Khojki script. Other minor
modifications will be readily recognized by the specialist. The system adopted here does not
solve all difficulties. For example, the Devanagari letter and the Arabic letter are both
transcribed as ‘‘t ’’even though their phonetic values are quite different. The Devanagari and
_
Arabic characters (in order of appearance) are as follows: .
However, the context in which the letter appears should make it clear which sound is
intended. A problem that is not easily resolved without resorting to an extremely con-
voluted system is that phonemes such as the Sindhi implosives (whether in Arabic script
or Khojki) are not distinguished. Another unavoidable idiosyncrasy that results from
transcribing several languages is that words and phrases that are precisely the same vary
in pronunciation and spelling from one language to the next and are thus transcribed
differently in English. For example, what would be wali and Sadr al-Din when tran-
scribed from Arabic script (i.e., Arabic, Persian, Urdu or standard Sindhi) may become
vali and Sadaradin or even Sadharadhin when transcribed from Gujarati, Hindi or Khojki
script.
Foreign words that occur commonly in the text of the book, such as da^wa and
taqiyya, are not italicized. Moreover, the anglicized forms of foreign names and terms are
preferred when these are well known: hence Tamerlane rather than Timur-i Lang or,
reproducing the elaborate vowel systems of Turkish and Mongolian, Temür. Similarly,
the name of the city of western Afghanistan is spelled Herat rather than Harat, but the
name of a resident of that city remains, for example, Khayrkhwah Harati. Persian com-
pound words, such as the name of the well-known opus The Fire Temple of the litterateur
Ādhar, are written without a hyphen, hence Ātishkada rather than Ātish-kada. Along
similar lines, Persianate compound names are written as one word, hence Islamshah rather
than Islam Shah or Islam-shah. It is common for Arabic loanwords in Persian to have
more than one accepted spelling; for example both hujja and hujjat are to be found. In
such cases I have adopted what appeared more common and used that spelling in
transliteration throughout, in this case hujjat. Occasionally, in transcribing from lan-
guages using Devanagari and related scripts, postpositions are written separately from the
word that precedes them, though they are attached in the original text.
xiv W NOTE ON THE TEXT

CALENDAR SYSTEMS
h
Not only are a plethora of languages represented in this book, but a number of calendar
systems as well. Most common is the Islamic lunar calendar, commonly abbreviated with
the Latin AH (¼ Anno Hegirae). This will generally be followed by the corresponding date
in the Gregorian Christian calendar, now often abbreviated CE (¼ Christian or Common
Era). In addition to both of these, in bibliographical references the reader will occasionally
come across the Islamic solar calendar, adopted in modern Iran in 1925, abbreviated in this
book as HS (¼ Hijri solar or Hijri Shamsi), and the Vikrama Samvat era, commonly used in
South Asia and abbreviated here as VS. For conversion from lunar to solar dates the
algorithms developed by John Walker and available at the following website were used:
http://www.calendarhome.com/converter/. Approximations of other dates were calculated
simply by subtracting 621 years from the Christian Era in the case of the Islamic solar
calendar, and by adding either fifty-six or fifty-seven years in the case of the Vikrama
Samvat era. Date conversions already provided in the sources are given as they were cal-
culated by the composers of those sources. The abbreviations for the calendar will only be
provided where ambiguity may arise. In most cases, the dates of only two calendar systems
are shown, the first being the lunar Islamic and the second being the Gregorian. For sim-
plicity’s sake, where a date has only been provided for purposes of contextualization, it is
given in the Gregorian system.

MAPS
h
This book is filled with the names of places, some famous, others not so familiar, and
a few that have disappeared without a trace with the passage of time. Tremendous efforts
have been made to determine most of the locations mentioned and to document their
coordinates on the maps that have been included. To this end, the archives of the U.S.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
Online, countless gazetteers and maps, and even reminiscences in travelogues have been
sifted for information. On occasion, the data in different sources was contradictory. In
such cases I have endeavored to select the most likely coordinates.

ABBREVIATIONS AND OTHER

CONVENTIONS
h
Some of the common abbreviations that have been adopted include b. for ibn and
bint, meaning ‘‘son of’’ and ‘‘daughter of’’ respectively, ca. for circa, meaning an ap-
proximate date, d. for died, fl. for flourished, r. for reigned, f. or ff. for folio(s), v. or vv. for
 NOTE ON THE TEXT W xv

verse(s), c. or cc. for canto(s), n or nn for note(s) vol., for volume, ed. for edition, edited
by or editor, trans. for translation, translated by or translator, q.v. for quod vide (to cross-
reference within the glossary), sv for sub voce or ‘‘see under,’’ nd for no date, and np for
no page number(s) available. The abbreviation # refers to the Ginan number in an an-
thology. Many of the Khojki Ginan books referred to are exceedingly rare and different
editions do not generally maintain the same page numbers, while the Ginan numbers often
(though not always) remain the same. This method has been adopted so as to assist
scholars who may have different editions of the text. A list of abbreviations used in the
notes and bibliography of works cited may be found at the beginning of that section.
It is common, in English, to capitalize pronouns referring to God. As Arabic, Persian
and most of the other source languages for this book do not have a system of capital
letters, this practice is foreign to them and is not consistently followed here, except in
quotations of authors writing in Western languages who have used that system. At times,
despite the fact that there is an existing translation of a particular text, I have furnished my
own translation, often providing a reference to the earlier translation in the notes. In all
cases, I am indebted to the earlier translators whose work has facilitated my task greatly.
During the course of writing this book, I have tried, wherever possible, to maintain
consistency of the sources cited. However, frequent relocations in North America, Europe
and the Middle East have meant that I have had to depend on the resources of a large
number of libraries. Therefore the reader will occasionally find different editions of the
same work being referred to. This will not even be noticed by the general reader, but can
be a hindrance for specialists, who will, I hope, be understanding.
With regard to the manner of writing, I am inspired by the words of James Bissett
Pratt, most famous for his work, The Religious Consciousness. He observed, ‘‘It would be
possible to write a learned book on Buddhism which should recite the various facts with
scholarly exactness, yet leave the reader at the end wondering how intelligent and spir-
itual men and women of our day could really be Buddhists.’’ He contended that to give the
true feelings of a religion, ‘‘One must catch its emotional undertone, enter sympatheti-
cally into its sentiment, feel one’s way into its symbols, its cult, its art, and then seek to
impart these not merely by scientific exposition but in all sorts of indirect ways.’’2 In these
pages, too, I have sought to bring to life the subject at hand, so that in the citations of
religious poetry the readers can feel the palpitations of piety and earnestness, in the
quotations from polemical sources, the vim and venom of the attackers, and in the personal
reminiscences of academics, the trials, tribulations and adventures of the scholarly en-
deavor. In this manner, I hope that the volume in your hands will not remain, in the words
of Lamb, a book that is not a book, a thing in book’s clothing. The Ismailis in the Middle
Ages is about a subject that held ever greater fascination for me the more I researched and
wrote about it. I hope that in the pages that follow I will be able to convey something of
this captivation to my readers.
xvi
xvii
xviii
xix
This page intentionally left blank
The Ismailis in the Middle Ages
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction
None of that people should be spared,
not even the babe in its cradle.
h
Edict of Genghis Khan as recorded in
History of the World Conqueror

The savagery of the Mongol invasions has perhaps no parallel in the history of
humankind. Genghis Khan perpetrated more massacres, destroyed more states,
reduced to rubble more monuments, razed more cities, and ruined more fields than
any previous conqueror. The number of his victims ran into the millions. ‘‘My
greatest joy,’’ he is remembered for saying, ‘‘is to shed my enemies’ blood, wring
tears from their womenfolk, and take their daughters for bedding.’’1 ‘‘I,’’ he
vaunted, ‘‘am the scourge of God!’’2
E. G. Browne described the invasions as

a catastrophe which, though probably quite unforeseen, even on the

very eve of its incidence, changed the face of the world, set in motion
forces which are still effective, and inflicted more suffering on the human
race than any other event in the world’s history of which records are
preserved to us. . . . In its suddenness, its devastating destruction, its ap-
palling ferocity, its passionless and purposeless cruelty, its irresistible
though short-lived violence, this outburst of savage nomads hitherto
hardly known by name even to their neighbours, resembles rather some
brute cataclysm of the blind forces of nature than a phenomenon of
human history. The details of massacre, outrage, spoliation, and de-
struction wrought by these hateful hordes of barbarians, who, in the space
of a few years, swept the world from Japan to Germany, would, as

3
4 W THE ISMAILIS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

d’Ohsson observes, be incredible were they not confirmed from so many

different quarters.3

The naked horror of the thirteenth-century Mongol irruption into the heart of
the Muslim world caused devastation of disastrous proportions. Baghdad, the
capital itself, was sacked, and its caliph was murdered. ^Ata-Malik Juwayni’s
eyewitness account, however, does not describe this as the pinnacle of Mongol
conquest. Rather, for this Sunni historian, the Mongol invasions culminated in
the remotest reaches of the Alburz mountains with the obliteration of the mini-state
of the Shi^i Ismailis, centered at the fortress of Alamut. In one of his imperial
edicts, Genghis Khan had ordained that the Ismailis were to be annihilated: ‘‘None
of that people should be spared,’’ he decreed, ‘‘not even the babe in its cradle.’’4
These chilling words heralded one of history’s most lurid examples of mass
extermination.5 It is to this singular event that Juwayni dedicated the conclud-
ing one-third of his History of the World Conqueror.6 The prominence given to
this particular triumph reflects the enormous role played by the Ismailis in Mus-
lim consciousness, belying their minority status. Contemporary Persian historians
believed that the utter devastation of Alamut tolled their death knell. They cele-
brated the collapse of this center, home to a powerful voice of Shi^i Islam, which
had intellectually and politically challenged the reigning authorities.
The beginnings of Shi^i Islam are connected with events surrounding the death
of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet’s family did not approve of Abu Bakr’s
assumption of the leadership of the Muslim community, and even withheld
allegiance for a period of six months.7 Many Muslims believed that the Prophet
had, by divine decree, explicitly designated his cousin and son-in-law ^Ali b. Abi
Talib as his successor. The group acknowledged ^Ali as its leader, or Imam, and thus
became known as the shi ^at ^Ali, the party of ^Ali. It is widely narrated that at a place
known as Ghadir Khumm the Prophet had declared, ‘‘^Ali is the lord (mawla)
of those whose lord I am.’’ Shi^i authors have always been keen to point out the
ubiquity of this narration not only in their own books, but in those of the Sunnis.8
^Ali’s supporters thus tended to view the caliphs who were not members of the
Prophet’s immediate family (ahl al-bayt) as illegitimate usurpers.9
Quarrels came to a head in the reign of the third caliph, ^Uthman (d. 35/656),
who distributed the governorships of all the major provinces as well as the im-
portant garrison towns to members of his own family, the powerful Banu
Umayya.10 Discontent with Umayyad hegemony gave rise to opposition move-
ments in Kufa, Basra, and Egypt. It also instilled renewed vigor in the supporters of
the Prophet’s family. The malcontents soon broke out in open rebellion. ^Ali,
despite his own reservations about the legitimacy of ^Uthman’s leadership, had
placed his sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn at the caliph’s service to protect him
against the mob.11 However, the ensuing chaos culminated in ^Uthman’s murder.
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Transcriber's Notes:
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the arrangements)
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"arraignment" (The arraignment, conviction)
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(within the mouldering)
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