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The Caliph and the Imam. The Making of Sunnism

and Shiism Toby Matthiesen

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THE CALIPH AND THE IMAM

THE CALIPH AND THE IMAM

The Making of Sunnism and Shiism

TOBY MATTHIESEN

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Toby Matthiesen 2023

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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978–0–19–068946–9

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190689469.001.0001

Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

Acknowledgements

Any book that covers as big a ground as this one, tracing the development of Sunnism and Shiism across centuries and regions, accrues many debts. First and foremost, I owe a debt of gratitude to the many people who shared their knowledge and experiences with me during fieldwork. Then, I owe a debt to the many scholars who have contributed to the different disciplines and subfields that I draw on for this book, from religious and Islamic studies to Middle East and South Asian Studies, history, anthropology, sociology, and political science. The extensive notes and bibliography at the end of the book acknowledge that large body of scholarship, and the aim of the book is to bring sometimes disconnected literatures into closer conversation with each other.

I furthermore thank the numerous people and institutions that have supported me throughout the research and writing of this book. At the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, and the wider University of Oxford, where I held a five-year Senior Research Fellowship and where the idea for this book first emerged, I thank Walter Armbrust, Stephanie Cronin, Faisal Devji, Roger Goodman, Louise Fawcett, Edmund Herzig, Homa Katouzian, Margaret MacMillan, Adam Roberts, Philip Robins, Ahmad al-Shahi, Avi Shlaim, Michael Willis, as well as Eugene Rogan, who encouraged me to write about as big a topic as this. Amongst Oxford’s outstanding community of younger scholars, I had stimulating and fun conversations with Kathrin Bachleitner, Maziyar Ghiabi, Andrew Hammond, Susann Kassem, Raphaël Lefèvre, Ceren Lord, Rory McCarthy, Emanuel Schäublin, Manal Shehabi, and Anne Wolf. For research support, I thank Caroline Davis and all the staff of the Middle East Centre and St Antony’s College, Mastan Ebtehaj and Maria Luisa Langella of the Middle East Centre Library, Debbie Usher of the Middle East Centre Archive, Lydia Wright of the Oriental Institute Library, and the staff at the Bodleian Library (as well as of the British Library and the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London).

My agent Felicity Bryan envisioned that this book would fill an important gap in the literature. She sadly could no longer see it go to print. It was

George Lucas in New York who then pushed it forward and was a reassuring presence throughout the writing process. I am indebted to him and to my editor Tim Bent of Oxford University Press US, who saw the potential of the book and whose many comments improved it considerably. At Oxford University Press UK, I thank Cathryn Steele, who took the lead in the final stages of production, as well as Luciana O’Flaherty, the copyeditor Martin Noble, the publicist Anna Gell, and the whole production and marketing team. I am also grateful to Catherine Clarke, Michele Topham, and everyone at Felicity Bryan Associates. My meticulous research assistant Dominic Gerhartz helped especially with the references and finalising the manuscript for production.

Matteo Legrenzi brought me to Ca’ Foscari University in Venice for a Marie-Curie Global Fellowship. He has been a great supporter and a true gentleman. At Ca’ Foscari, I thank Laura Burighel, Silvia Zabeo, and the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 888063 on Sunni–Shii Relations in the Middle East (SSRIME). At Stanford University, I thank Lisa Blaydes and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies for hosting me as a Visiting Fellow in 2022, and Larry Diamond, Farah El-Sharif, Haidar Hadi, Matthew Lynch, and Hesham Sallam for their collegiality and support. At the University of Bristol, I thank Martyn Powell, Benedetta Lomi, David Leech, Jon Balserak, Rupert Gethin, Gavin D’Costa, and Rita Langer for welcoming me so warmly.

Over the years, several universities, institutes, and research networks invited me to speak, work through my ideas, and receive useful feedback: Aarhus University, Australian National University, the Middle East Study Group at Birkbeck University (London), Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, European University Institute in Florence, German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, George Mason University, IREMAM Aix-en-Provence, Rice University in Houston, University of Bern,American University Beirut, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, UCLA, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme—École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) at George Washington University, and the SEPAD Project at Lancaster University. At the Central European University in Budapest, I profited from comments by Osman Dincer and Harith Hasan al-Qarawee, and at Aligarh Muslim University in India from comments by Professors Irfan Habib and Syed Ali Nadeem

Rezavi. I am grateful to Toby Dodge, Ali Ansari, Daniel Neep, and the participants of a workshop for a Festschrift in honour of Charles Tripp at the LSE.

Several colleagues have read parts of the manuscript related to their area of expertise, and some have provided extensive feedback. I thank Usaama al-Azami, Rahaf Aldoughli, Andrew Arsan, Mohammad Ataie, Metin Atmaca, Ayse Baltacıoglu-Brammer, Gabriele vom Bruck, Houchang Chehabi, Juan Cole, Stephanie Cronin, Louise Finn, Denis Hermann, Helen Lackner, Charles Melville, Eugene Rogan, Adrian Ruprecht, Christian Sahner, Cyrus Schayegh, Rainer Schwinges, and Charles Tripp. The Fellows of the TOI: Bringing in the Other Islamists—comparing Arab Shia and Sunni Islamism(s) in a sectarianized Middle East project led by Morten Valbjørn and Jeroen Gunning at Aarhus University provided feedback on several draft chapters. I thank Morten, Jeroen, as well as Courtney Freer, Fanar Haddad, Raphaël Lefèvre, Ben Robin D’Cruz, and Younes Saramifar for their valuable comments. I further want to acknowledge conversations with Rainer Brunner, Faisal Devji, Toby Dodge, Richard Drayton, Werner Ende, Mark Farha, Nelida Fuccaro, Simon Fuchs, Gregory Gause, Hamza al-Hasan, Samuel Helfont, Fouad Ibrahim, Raihan Ismail, Abbas Kadhim, Shruti Kapila, Laurence Louër, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Ussama Makdisi, Renad Mansour, MaryAnn Middelkoop, David Motadel, Anees al-Qudayhi, Reinhard Schulze, Guido Steinberg, Sami Zubaida, and Max Weiss. Nassima Neggaz and Naysan Adlparvar kindly shared their publications with me. For support over the years, I thank Ulrike Freitag, Kai Hafez, Laleh Khalili, Marc Lynch, James Piscatori, Madawi al-Rasheed, Morten Valbjørn, and Charles Tripp.

I am especially indebted to the many people that helped me during fieldwork, opened their homes to me, and guided me along the way. In Beirut, I thank Khaled Abdallah as well as Rabih Dandachli, Bassel Salloukh, and Sa‘dun Hammada. In Lucknow, I thank Ali Khan Mahmudabad and his father Suleiman, the Raja of Mahmudabad. They hosted me during Muharram 2019, my last research trip before Covid-19, and were so generous with their time, knowledge, and hospitality. I am grateful to them and everyone in Mahmudabad, Lucknow, Hyderabad, and elsewhere who helped me navigate my way around India, especially Ovais Sultan Khan in Delhi and Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi and Ruquaia Hussain at Aligarh University. In Iraq, I thank Hayder al-Khoei and S. Salih al-Hakim and the staff of the alKalima Centre for Dialogue and S. Jawad al-Khoei of the Al-Khoei Institute, as well as Alaa al-Bahadli, and in London Yousif al-Khoei and the Khoei

Foundation. Many more people helped me in Najaf and Karbala, especially the staff of the Abu Fadl al-Abbas shrine. In Albania, I thank Hajji Dede Edmond Brahimaj and Arben Sulejmani for introducing me to the history and culture of the Bektashis. And I am indebted to the many people who helped me during earlier language study and research trips, in the Gulf especially to Abd al-Nabi al-Akri, Jasim Hussayn, Habib Al Jumaa, Mahdi Salman, and Jafar al-Shayeb.

On a personal level, I thank Maria for more things than I can possibly list here. Her love gave me the strength to weather the pandemic and finish this book. That its publication coincides with the birth of our first daughter is an indescribable joy. This book is dedicated to them both. I thank Claudia Honegger for her encouragement, and for kindling my interest in the longue durée. And I thank Edna and José Anibal and everyone at the Sitio for being such gracious hosts during the final stages of writing, and Robi and Joana for welcoming me in the Bay Area.

So, this book would not have been possible without the support of a great number of people. Yet, they are in no way responsible for any mistakes or shortcomings others may find in this book, or for its approach and conclusions.

List of Plates

1. Illustration from the Ta’rikh-i Alfi manuscript depicting the historical destruction of the Tomb of Hussain at Karbala on the orders of Caliph al-Mutawakkil, India, c. 1590–1595.

Source: British Museum.

2. Scholars in the Library of the ‘House of Wisdom’ in Baghdad, from Maqamat al-Hariri by Yahya al-Wasiti, Baghdad, 1237.

Source: French National Library.

3. Hulagu Khan Destroys the Fort at Alamut, from Chinghiz-nama manuscript by Basawan, 1596.

Source: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

4. Conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols 1258, from Jami‘ al-tawarikh by Rashid Al-Din Hamadani, Tabriz, first quarter of fourteenth century.

Source: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

5. Conversion of Ghazan to Islam, from Jami‘ al-tawarikh by Rashid Al-Din Hamadani, Tabriz, first quarter of fourteenth century.

Source: Le Royaume Armenien de Cilicie by Claude Mutafian.

6. The declaration of Shiism as the state religion of Iran by Shah Ismail—Safavid dynasty, by unknown artist, Safavid Era.

Source: Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire by Andrew Newman.

7. Portrait of Shah Ismail I of Persia (1487–1524), by Cristofano dell’Altissimo, sixteenth century.

Source: Uffizi Gallery.

8. Battle of Chaldiran, by Agha (Mohammed) Sadeq, Isfahan, c. 1801.

Source: Chehel Sotoun palace, photograph by Stefan Auth.

9. Portrait of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, by unknown Venetian artist (possibly, Tiziano Vecellio), Venice, c. 1530s.

Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna.

10. Part of the panoramic view of Istanbul: Kasimpasa shipyard is visible on the right, by Melchior Lorck, Istanbul, 1559.

Source: The Gennadius Library—The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

11. Suleimaniye Mosque, by Bruno Peroussse, Istanbul.

Source: Alamy.

12. Jannat al-Baqia before demolition, by unknown photographer, Medina, c. 1910s.

Source: Al-Nabi Museum.

13. Lucknow—Bara Imambara, by unknown photographer, Lucknow, c. 1920.

Source: Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection.

14. Imambara, Fort of Rampur, by unknown photographer, Uttar Pradesh, c. 1911.

Source: The British Library, Oriental and India Office Collection.

15. Darul Uloom Deoband, by Jonathan O’Rourke, Uttar Pradesh, 2009.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

16. Postcard of entrance to Najaf shrine with clerics and officials, by Eldorado, Baghdad, c. 1920–30.

Source: The British Museum.

17. View of the mosque of Imam Hussain, from Sketches between Persian Gulf and Black Sea by Robert H. Clive, Karbala, 1852.

Source: The British Museum.

18. Dawlat Hall, by Kamal-ol-molk, Tehran, 1892.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

19. Faisal party at Versailles Conference. Left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri as-Said, Prince Faisal (front), Captain Pisani (rear), T. E. Lawrence, Faisal’s slave (name unknown), Captain Hassan Khadri, by an unknown photographer,Versailles, 1919.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

20. Graffiti Wall with Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati, by unknown photographer, 1981, Iran, University of Chicago Middle Eastern Posters Collection.

21. Every Day is Ashura and Every Soil is Karbala, by an unknown artist, c. 1981.

Source: University of Chicago Middle Eastern Posters Collection.

22. Stamp issued by the Islamic Republic of Iran commemorating the uprising in Iraq and its crackdown in 1991, ‘The Catastrophe of Iraq Ba‘thi Regime Invasion of the Holy Shrines’, by Islamic Republic of Iran, c. 1991.

Source: Shutterstock.

List of Maps

1. Map of wider Islamic world indicating Sunni and Shii populations xvi

2. Map of Middle East, Central, and South Asia indicating Sunni and Shii populations xvii

3. Early Muslim conquests and caliphates, -750 30

4. Mamluks and Mongols (Ilkhanate), c. 1400 ad 75

5. Major Muslim empires (Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals and Shaybanid Uzbeks)

6. Muslim rule in India, 1500-1800 142

7. Expansion of British influence on the Indian subcontinent in the 18th and 19th century 192

8. The post-Ottoman Middle East with British and French mandates, 1920s 242

Note on Spelling and Transliterations

This book largely employs the transliteration guide of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) without, however, providing full transliteration. Transliteration has not been employed for personal names, place names, and organisations following accepted English spelling. Since the book discusses different periods and regions in which Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and other languages predominate, it was not always possible to adopt the locally most prominent spelling. For the sake of consistency and coherence, and to make the narrative easier for the reader, Arabic spelling has been adopted for terms and names that would otherwise have to be spelled several times in different ways (like Ali al-Rida, or Imam Rida, instead of Reza).The same goes for Ottoman names that have largely been rendered according to Arabic transliteration. Prominent figures are spelled according to their most prominent transliteration, or the system dominant in their country. So: Mohammad Reza Shah, Saddam Hussein, etc.

Given the longue durée approach of the book, another difficulty has been to remain true to geographical denominators as they were used in the different time periods, without, however, confusing the reader by employing several terms for the same geographical area. This has led to a somewhat anachronistic use of terms like Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the like, which should not indicate that these terms had the same meaning in earlier centuries as they would after the establishing of the relative nation states. They often did, however, carry a certain meaning and roughly delineated similar geographical areas, unlike other terms (the term Pakistan, for example, is therefore not mentioned before the twentieth century). The specialist reader who may see this as a problem is asked to forgive any shortcomings resulting from it to facilitate readability and accessibility for a general audience.

BOSNIAHERZEGOVINA BULGARIA

GEORGIA

WESTERN

MAURITANIA

SENEGAL GAMBIA

GUINEA BISSAU

SIERRA LEONE

ETHIOPIA CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC CAMEROON BURUNDI UGANDA KENYA

2. Map of Middle East, Central, and South Asia indicating Sunni and Shii populations

1. Illustration from the Ta’rikh-i Alfi manuscript depicting the historical destruction of the Tomb of Hussain at Karbala on the orders of Caliph al-Mutawakkil, India, c. 1590–1595.

Source: British Museum.

2. Scholars in the Library of the ‘House of Wisdom’ in Baghdad, from Maqamat al-Har iri by Yahya al-Wasiti, Baghdad, 1237.

Source: French National Library.

Source: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

3. Hulagu Khan Destroys the Fort at Alamut, from Chinghiz-nama manuscript by Basawan, 1596.

4.

of fourteenth century.

Source: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols 1258, from Jami‘ al-tawarikh by Rashid Al-Din Hamadani, Tabriz, first quarter

Source: Le Royaume Armenien de Cilicie by Claude Mutafian.

5. Conversion of Ghazan to Islam, from Jami‘ al-tawarikh by Rashid Al- Din Hamadani, Tabriz, first quarter of fourteenth century.

Source

6. The declaration of Shiism as the state relig ion of Iran by Shah Ismail—Safavid dynasty, by unknown artist, Safavid Era.
: Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire by Andrew Newman.

Source: Uffizi Gallery.

7. Portrait of Shah Ismail I of Persia (1487–1524), by Cristofano dell’Altissimo, sixteenth centur y.
8. Battle of Chaldiran, by Agha (Mohammed) Sadeq, Isfahan, c. 1801.
Source: Chehel Sotoun palace, photograph by Stefan Auth.

9. Portrait of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, by unknown Venetian ar tist (possibly, Tiziano Vecellio), Venice, c. 1530s.

Source: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna.

10. Part of the panoramic view of Istanbul: Kasimpasa shipyard is visible on the r ight, by Melchior Lorck, Istanbul, 1559.

Source: The Gennadius Library—The Amer ican School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Source: Alamy.

12.

before demolition, by unknown photographer, Medina, c. 1910s.

Source: Al-Nabi Museum.

11. Suleimaniye Mosque, by Bruno Peroussse, Istanbul.
Jannat al-Baqia

Source: Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection.

Source: The British Library, Oriental and India Office Collection.

13. Lucknow—Bara Imambara, by unknown photographer, Lucknow, c. 1920.
14. Imambara, Fort of Rampur, by unknown photographer, Uttar Pradesh, c. 1911.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

15. Darul Uloom Deoband, by Jonathan O’Rourke, Uttar Pradesh, 2009.

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