Sufism and Political Authority in Qajar Iran: A Few Notes on the Political Writings of Mirzâ Aqâsi (Denis Hermann, 13 December 2022)

Date: December 13, 2022
Time: 17:00
Place: New Hall 002, North Campus
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Registration required for campus entrance: nafibabamerkezi@boun.edu.tr

I propose to analyze one political treaty by Mîrzâ Aqâsî (d. 1849) to show the links between Sufism and political authority in the context of Occultation in the Qajar period. To this end, I will introduce the engagement of Sufi actors in the development of a theological-political literature since the middle of the 18th century, and the singular place that Sufism acquired during the reign of Muhammad Shâh (r. 1834-1848), Aqâsî having been the head of the royal administration since 1835. Finally, I will discuss Aqâsî’s original argumentation focusing on his first theological-political treatise, the Chahâr-i fasl-i sultânî va shîam-i farûkhî written in 1246/1830 when he was tutor of the children of ‘Abbâs Mîrzâ in Tabriz, including Muhammad Mîrzâ.

Aqâsî’s treatise has a number of novel features with regard to the corpus of theological-political literature of the Qajar period. Among them two of the most central ones are: 1) the specific role attributed to the notion of education and to the role of the mystics (‘urafâ) in the ordering of the kosmos; 2) the hierarchization of the rulers (sultân) with regard to their spiritual initiation, and their capacity to act as spiritual guide to their subjects.
 

Denis Hermann is historian and research scholar at CNRS and was former director of the Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (IFRI) in Tehran. His research is mainly concerned with Qajar Iran, Twelver Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911. His most recent publications are Le shaykhisme à la période qajare: Histoire sociale et doctrinale d'une Ecole chiite (Turnhout, 2017); Shi'i Islam and Sufism. Classical Views and Modern Perspectives (ed. with Mathieu Terrier; London, 2020).