Pobreza y perseverancia: La misión jesuita de Isfahán y Shamakhi en el Irán Safaví tardío

This essay considers the presence and activities of the Jesuits in early modern Iran, a topic that, to date, has received little attention in English-language scholarship. It examines their motives for wanting to establish a permanent mission in Safavid territory in the mid-seventeenth century—a desire to bring Iran’s Gregorian Armenians under papal jurisdiction and, in part, their search for an overland route to India and China free from Portuguese influence—and discusses these in the context of Iranian concerns and interests. The study’s particular focus is the role of French and Polish Jesuits in the establishment of a mission in Isfahan and the subsequent creation of an outpost in Shamakhi, located in the Safavid-held part of the Caucasus, on the trade route between Iran and Russia. It concludes by evaluating their (meager) accomplishments despite perseverance in the face of poverty and loneliness.Este trabajo estudia la presencia y las actividades jesuitas en Irán a comienzos de la época moderna, tema que hasta ahora ha recibido poca atención por parte de la investigación anglosajona. Se examinan algunos de los motivos que tuvieron los jesuitas por establecer una misión permanente en territorio Safaví a mediados del siglo XVII: el deseo de integrar a los Armenios Gregorianos de Irán bajo el dominio papal y buscar una ruta terrestre hacia India y China libre de influencia portuguesa. Estos motivos son discutidos en este trabajo teniendo en cuenta, sobre todo, los intereses y preocupaciones iraníes. Este estudio está dedicado, sobre todo, a estudiar el papel que jugaron los jesuitas franceses y polacos en el establecimiento de una misión en Isfahán, así como la posterior creación de un puesto en Shamakhi, situado en la parte Safaví del Cáucaso, en la ruta comercial entre Irán y Rusia. Este trabajo concluye con una evaluación de los exiguos logros obtenidos en esas misiones, a pesar de la perseverancia de sus actores, teniendo en cuenta la pobreza y soledad que encontraron

Visions of Persia: Mapping the Travels of Adam Olearius. Harvard University Press, 2003, xv-238 p., bibliography, index.

This fascinating study of the work of Adam Olearius, the secretary of the Holstein embassy that visited Iran in 1636-37, is primarily concerned with the author as a man of letters and the tradition in which he operated, as well as with the dialogue between text and image in his well-known Vermehrte newe Beschreibung der Moscowitischen und Persischen Reyse. As such it only deals tangentially with Iran or the extent of the work’s veracity and reliability as a source. Olearius is the quintessent..

Tārīḫ-e mohājerat-e aqvām dar Ḫalīj-e Fārs. Molūk-e Hormoz. Šīrāz, Dāneš-nāme-ye Fārs, 1380/2001, 499 p., no index.

This book won a prize of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic guidance as one of the best studies on Iran published in 2001, and for a good reason: it is an excellent analysis of the history of the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf between the 5th century AH and Shah ‘Abbas’s conquest of Hormuz in 1622. The author, a native of Lar, brings a particular sensibility to the Garmsir to his study, in addition to basing his study on a plethora of Persian and Arabic sources, some of them unpublished..

« ‘Its Mortar Mixed with the Sweetnes of Life’: Architecture and Ceremonial at the Shrine of Safi al-Din Ishaq Ardabili during the Reign of shah Tahmasb I ». The Muslim World, 90, (2000), pp. 323-351.

The author of this sophisticated essay seeks to trace the development of the shrine of Ṣafī al-Dīn, the spiritual founder of the Safavid dynasty, as the Safavids themselves turned from a Sufi silsila to a royal dynasty. Using sources such as the Ṣafvat al-ṣafā and the « Sarih al-milk », she reconstructs the evolution of the architecture and ceremonial of a Sufi shrine that, during the reign of Šāh Ṭahmāsb I, came to symbolize Safavid regal authority

« ‘Kampf den kezerischen Qizilbash !’ Die Revolte des Haggi Da’ud (1718-1728) », in : Raoul Motika and Michael Ursinus, eds., Caucasia between the Ottoman Empire and Iran, 1555-1914. Wiesbaden, 2000, pp. 133-145.

This interesting study analyses the little-known revolt of Hajji Davud, the rebel Lezghi leader who in 1721 took Shamakhi, the capital of Shirvan, from the Safavids, in a prelude to his conquest of the entire province. Hajji Davud’s rebellion has been variously interpreted. Some have seen it as a religious uprising, presaging later Muslim jihad movements against the expansionist tsarist state. Iranian and pre-revolutionary Russian historians have tended to dismiss it as ordinary plunder raids..

Moša⁽ša⁽iyān. Māhiyat-e fekrī-ejtemā⁽ī va farāyand-e taḥavollāt-e tārīḫī. Tehrān, Āġā, 1382/2003, 394 p., bibliography, index.

This study, begun as a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Tarbiyat-e Modarres University in Tehran in 1379/2000, fully deserves the prize it won for being one of the year’s best studies on Iranian history. Not only does it advance our knowledge of the intriguing dynasty of the Moša⁽ša⁽ immeasurably by drawing on a number of manuscript sources, such as the Tārīḫ-e Moša⁽ša⁽iyān, and, for the ideological underpinnings, Sayyed Moḥammad b. Fallāḥ’s Kalām al-Mahdī. It also represents a sophisti..

« Sister Shi‘a States? Safavid Iran and the Deccan in the 16th Century ». Deccan Studies, 2/2 (2004), pp. 44-72.

This thoughtful and well documented article revisits the link between Safavid Iran and its “satellite” Shi’i states in the Deccan, Ahmadnagar (the Nizamshahi kingdom), Golconda (Hyderabad, the Qutbshahi kingdom), and Bijapur (the ‘Adilshahi dynasty), a topic on which little has been written since M. A. Nayeem and H. K. Sarkar dealt with it three decades ago. The author contests the traditional view, according to which the emergence of these states in the 16th century and their adoption of Twe..

« The Shadow Sultan: Succession and Imposture in the Mughal Empire, 1628-1640 ». Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 47/1 (2004), pp. 80-121.

The authors trace the cloak-and-dagger-like career of the mysterious Sultan Dawar Bakhsh, or Bulaqi (Bulaghi), who pretended to be the son of Sultan Jahangir, and as such claimed the Mughal throne. According to some sources, he had perished in 1628 as part of the execution of multiple princes, but others claim that he survived and managed to escape the turmoil surrounding the succession of Jahangir. Whatever the truth of the story, in later years a person calling himself Bulaghi and claiming ..

« Hallmarks of Humanism : Hygiene and Love of Homeland in Qajar Iran ». American historical Review, 105, (2000), pp. 1171-1203.

The leaders of late Qajar Iran, this sprawling, rather undisciplined article contends, embraced humanism and patriotic thinking in their quest for modernity. Humanism encompassed and served as a rallying cry for a host of themes and exhortations, ranging from hygiene and scientific learning to physical fitness, order and progress. Indeed, nationalism itself, ḥobb-e vaṭan, became inbricated in humanism, not simply as a territorial entity and an ideal but rather as a source of civilization and ..

« The Telegraph and Frontier Politics : Modernization and the Demarcation of Iran’s borders ». Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 16, 2 (1998), pp. 59-72.

This interesting article examines the impact of the telegraph on Qajar society beyond the obvious one of facilitating communication. It follows the tortuous negotiations between the British and the Iranians over the terms and conditions of establishing and using a telegraph link, and shows how it pointed up sensitive issues of territorial control and sovereignty. In fact, the author argues, part of the modernizing impulse of the construction of the telegraph was that its introduction made Nāṣ..