User:HistoryofIran/Nasir Khusraw

Nasir Khusraw
Imaginary depiction of Nasir Khusraw on a postage stamp issued by Tajikistan in 2003
Title	Proof (ḥujja) of Khurasan
Personal
Born	1004 Qubadiyan, Khurasan, Ghaznavid Empire
Died	1072–1078 Yumgan, Badakhshan
Religion	Isma'ili Shi'a Islam
Notable work(s)	Safarnama Diwan
Senior posting
Teacher	Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi
Influenced by Al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani
Influenced Isma'ilis of Badakhshan

Nasir Khusraw (Persian: ناصرخسرو; 1004 – between 1072–1078) was a Persian poet, Isma'ili philosopher, traveler, and missionary (da'i) for the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate.

Born in Qubadiyan to a family of government bureaucrats and landowners, Nasir first served as a official under the Ghaznavids and after 1040 under the Seljuks. Around the age of 41, Nasir underwent a tremendous and sudden change in his spirituality, which drastically altered the direction of his life. He subsequently resigned from his office and converted to Isma'ilism. In March 1046, he went on a nearly seven year journey, with the ultimate goal of performing a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Despite being one of the most prominent Isma'ili philosophers and theologians of the Fatimids and the writer of many philosophical works intended for only the inner circle of the Isma'ili community, Nasir is best known to the general public as a poet and writer who ardently supported Persian as an artistic and scientific language. All of Nasir's philosophical Isma'ili works are in Persian, a rarity in the Isma'ili literature of the Fatimids, which primarily used Arabic.

Nasir was a key figure in the spread of Isma'ilism in Central Asia. He is with great reverence called "Pir" or "Shah Sayyid Nasir" by the Isma'ili community of Badakhshan (split between Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and their branches in northern Pakistan, who all consider him to be their founder.

Name

Nasir Khusraw's full name was Abu Mu'in Hamid al-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw ibn Harith al-Qubadiyani al-Marvazi, which he would generally refer himself by in his prose philosophical works. In his book Safarnama, he mostly calls himself "Nasir", and in his poetry he mostly uses the pen-name "Hujjat", a title meaning "proof", which he had received by the Isma'ili missionary organisation in Cairo. In his poetry he also sometimes use the names of "Nasir" and "Khusraw", the latter being a Persian name, which according to historian Dr C. Alice Hunsberger "would certainly have been a point of great pride to this defender of Persian culture and language." His name is also transliterated as Nasir-i Khusraw and Naser-e Khosrow.

Background

Todays Qubadiyan (Qubodiyon), now a town in Tajikistan

Nasir is the subject of many tales, including a fake autobiography that bears his name and has been passed around between Isma'ilis and non-Isma'ilis for many centuries. The writings of Nasir that are still in existence offer insightful information about his life and philosophy. Yet, it appears that the majority of these manuscripts were censored to remove any references to Isma'ilism by antagonistic Sunni scribes. A native Persian speaker, Nasir was from a family of government bureaucrats and landowners. He most likely adhered to the Twelver Shi'ism form of Islam before his conversion to Isma'ilism. He was born in 1004 in Qubadiyan, a neighborhood of the city of Balkh, which was part of the Marw province in the Khurasan region. The area was then controlled by the Ghaznavids, a culturally Persianised dynasty of Turkic slave origin.

Life

Career under the Ghaznavids and Seljuks

Map of Khurasan and Transoxiana

Nasir supposedly started his career as a scribe before moving to the city of Marw to work as a financial administrator. He was allowed entry to the court at Balkh until in 1040, when Khurasan was conquered by the Seljuks. He retained his office under the Seljuks, whose co-founder Chaghri Beg ruled Khurasan. Around the age of 41, Nasir underwent a tremendous and sudden change in his spirituality, which drastically altered the direction of his life. According to Nasir, the incident had the characteristics of a dream. He subsequently resigned from his office and converted to Isma'ilism.

Travels

In December 1045, Nasir made the decision to embark on a prolonged journey with the ultimate goal of performing a pilgrimage to Mecca. In March 1046, along with his brother Abu Sa'id and an Indian attendant, he started his journey, which would first end after nearly seven years. From Khurasan, he travelled west, passing through northern and western Iran, Armenia, and Asia Minor. He then descended to Syria, Palestine, and then Arabia, where he performed his pilgrimage. On August 1047, he went to Cairo in Egypt, which served as the capital of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate.

The Fatimid Caliphate was the first and last significant Shi'i dominion until the emergence of the Safavid dynasty of Iran in 1501, who declared Twelver Shi'ism as its official religion. The majority of other governmental power bases were overwhelmingly Sunni, including the Ghaznavid and Seljuk rulers, who demonstrated their support for the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad by making determined efforts to put an end to Isma'ili activity, especially that of Isma'ili missionaries operating under the Fatimid caliph. At Cairo, Nasir was taught Isma'ili teachings, law, and administration by prominent scholars. He met al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-Din al-Shirazi (died 1087), an Isma'ili scholar from Shiraz in southwestern Iran, who had also recently arrived to Cairo. He became Nasir's teacher, instructing him in enigmatic Isma'ili concepts and philosophy.

Exile in Yumgan

The landscape of the Badakhshan region, where Nasir Khusraw spent his last years in exile

Nasir was buried in a small mausoleum on a small hill in the present-day village of Hadrat-i Sayyid (also called Hadrat-i Sa'id), on the eastern side of the Koksha Valley in present-day Afghanistan. According to an engraved inscription on the structure, it was renovated in 1697.

Works

Travelogue

The seven-year journey that Nasir took from his home in Khurasan to Egypt and back is documented in his travelogue, the Safarnama. It has been surmised that he composed the book at a later time based on the notes he made along the journey. Not many inhabitants of the Muslim world read the Safarnama, as it was composed in Persian, in a society where Arabic remained the common language of the intellectual elite. However, the books celebration of the political triumph of the Isma'ilis was possibly the biggest reason for its unpopularity. In Egypt, the Sunnis once more assumed control of the country after the Fatimid Caliphate collapsed in 1171. Following that, the Isma'ilis once more turned to the habit of hiding their beliefs as a result of being exposed to persecution. Nasir's Safarnama and other promotions of the Fatimids were thus intentionally omitted.

Poetry

Copy of the diwan (collection of poems) of Nasir Khusraw, created in 1621 at Hyderabad

The majority of Nasir's poems have been compiled into his diwan (collection of poems), which consists of more than 15,000 lines. The majority of the poems are qasida-style odes that express exalted feelings and ideas in a formal and grand manner. In his poems, Nasir refrains from discussing about subjects evidently related to Isma'ilism.

Philosophy

Nasir composed several prose writings on Isma'ili doctrine while serving as the head of the Isma'ili da'wa in Khurasan, all which were composed in Persian. Some of these works have been at least somewhat translated into languages spoken in the Western world, and the following six have been edited; Gushayish wa rahayish ("Unfettering and Setting Free"), Jami al-hikmatayn ("Uniting the Two Wisdoms"), Khwan al-ikhwan ("The Feast of the Brethren"), Shish fasl ("Six Chapters", i.e., the prose Rawshana'i-nama), Wajh-i din ("The Face of Religion") and Zad al-musafirin ("The Pilgrims’ Provisions").

Legacy and assessment

Despite being one of the most prominent Isma'ili philosophers and theologians of the Fatimid era and the writer of many philosophical works intended for only the inner circle of the Isma'ili community, Nasir is best known to the general public as a poet and writer who ardently supported Persian as an artistic and scientific language. All of Nasir's philosophical Isma'ili works are in Persian, a rarity in the Isma'ili literature of the Fatimids, which primarily used Arabic.

Nasir was a key figure in the spread of Isma'ilism in Central Asia. He is with great reverence called "Pir" or "Shah Sayyid Nasir" by the Isma'ili community of Badakhshan (split between Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and their branches in northern Pakistan, who all consider him to be their founder. Devotees that visit Nasir Khusraw's mausoleum also refer him by other names than "Nasir Khusraw", such as shāh (king), shāh-i buzurgvār (great king), mawlā (guardian), shīd-i Yumgān (sun of Yumgan), and uqāb-i Yumgān (eagle of Yumgan). The latter refers to one of Nasir Khusraw's poems, written to offer moral advice; The narrative, which is based on an ancient fable, describes an eagle circling in the sky "full of selfish pride" before being brought to the ground by an arrow with eagle feathers sewn into its fletch. The final lines of the poem convey a lesson, which has become a well-known saying amongst speakers of the Persian language; az māst ki bar māst ("what comes from us returns to us"), meaning that people possess the very characteristic that will determine both their success and failure.

Sources

• Bosworth, C. E. (1988). "Balḵ ii. From the Arab conquest to the Mongols.". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume III/6: Baḵtīārī tribe II–Banān. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 587–596. ISBN 978-0-71009-118-5.
• Bosworth, C. E. (1990). "Čaḡrī Beg Dāwūd". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume IV/6: Burial II–Calendars II. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 617–618. ISBN 978-0-71009-129-1.
• Bosworth, C. E. (2001). "Ghaznavids". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume X/6: Germany VI–Gindaros. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 578–583. ISBN 978-0-933273-55-9.
• Dabashi, Hamid (2012). Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674049451.
• Daftary, Farhad (2004). Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-8577-1386-5.
• Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismāʿı̄lı̄s: Their History and Doctrines (Second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-61636-2.
• Daftary, Farhad (2017). Ismaili History and Intellectual Traditions. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-28810-2.
• Gould, Rebecca Ruth (2022). The Persian Prison Poem. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1474484015.
• Hunsberger, Dr C. Alice (2003). "Nasir Khusraw: A Portrait of The Persian Poet, Traveller and Philosopher" (PDF). The Institute of Ismaili Studies: 1–14.
• Mahamid, H. (2017). "Persecutions against Ismaʿili Missionaries in Central Asia: The Case of Nāser Khosrow". Journal of Persianate Studies. 10 (1). Brill: 57–72. doi:10.1163/18747167-12341307.
• Qutbuddin, Tahera (2020). "al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
• Schadl, Marcus (2009). "The Shrine of Nasir Khusraw: Imprisoned Deep in the Valley of Yumgan". Muqarnas Online. 26 (1). Brill: 63–93. doi:10.1163/22118993_02601004.
• de Smet, Daniel (2021). "Nāṣir-i Khusraw". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
• Utas, Bo (2021). Persian Prose: A History of Persian Literature, Vol V. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1845119065.

Further reading

• Peacock, A. C. S. (2015). The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-3826-0.