A Messiah Untamed: Notes on the Philology of Shah Ismāʿīl’s Dīvān

Abstract

The article aims to refute a long-standing thesis first put forth by Vladimir Minorsky about how the various copies of the dīvān of Shah Ismāʿīl might reflect shifts and changes in the religious and political landscape of early modern Iran. Contrary to the luminary Russian Orientalist’s claims, it demonstrates and contextualizes the observation that there were several textual traditions and that most of the copies continued to reflect messianism and “extremist” notions of religiosity well into late Ṣafavid times, appealing to a broad audience which was likely made up of Sufi adepts and nomadic Qizilbash, as well as a more refined echelon of courtly connoisseurs, residing in the borderland between the Ottoman lands and Iran. At the same time, it suggests that the main theme of Shah Ismāʿīl’s messianic poetry was sainthood and that in this sense Ṣafavid messianism was not a unique aberration but comparable and connected to such similar ideologies as are known from the Timurid, Ottoman or Mughal context.