Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court:

The case of Qåz[Ð Nørullåh Shøshtarð

Sajjad Rizvi
University of Exeter, UK

Nørullåh Shøshtarð’s death in 1610, while undergoing punishment at Jahångðr’s orders at

Agra, has been interpreted in various ways. Without seeking to arrive at a definitive solution,
the present article aims at bringing together as much evidence on the event and on its
background as could be collected. Even if a final judgement evades us, it is hoped that the material
presented here would help us to have a sense of the political and intellectual environment in which

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the event occurred.

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Keywords: Nørullåh Shøshtarð, Akbar, Jahångðr, Shi‘ism, Sunnðs, Akhbårðs, Taqiya
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Much of the literature on the time of Akbar is characterised by praise for his latitu-
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dinarian approach to different religious confessions: let a thousand flowers bloom in
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the gardens of Hindustan, so to speak! In particular, this religious policy has been
linked to the notion of sul°-i kull or universal peace (or perhaps peace towards all
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confessions), that an earlier generation argued was the ethical instrumentalisation

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of the quasi-pantheistic doctrine of wa°dat al-wujød formulated by Ibn ‘Arabð;1

however, more recently Azfar Moin has argued that the notion began with Akbar
and was central to his self-realisation as a ‘millennial sovereign’, underpinned by
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the ideological formulation of Abø’l-Faz[l in the Akbarnåma.2 Besides, incidents

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such as the murder of the Shð‘ð scholar Mullå A°mad do seem to raise questions
about the actual efficacy of sul°-i kull.3 Broadly speaking, this policy of placing
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1
  M. Athar Ali, Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture, New Delhi, 2006,
pp. 158–72, who also denies, contra S.A.A. Rizvi, any Shiʿi influence on Akbar on this issue. What can
be deduced is Akbar’s attempt to place himself above the confessional differences among his nobil-
ity. See also Shireen Moosvi, ‘The Road to Sulh-i Kul: Akbar’s Alienation from Theological Islam’,
in Religion in Indian History, ed. Irfan Habib, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 167–76. Another recent work
argues that the Mughal emperors fostered an atmosphere of confessional harmony which included
an assumption that Shiʿi notables would not be too public about their beliefs—see Afzal Husain,
‘Accommodation and Integration: Shiʿas in the Mughal nobility’, Proceedings of the Indian History
Congress, 69th session, 2008, pp. 211–24.
2
  Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship & Sainthood in Islam, New York, 2012, pp.
141–59. He argues that attempts to locate the concept in Sufism or even in Bhakti devotionalism—such
as Savitri Chandra, ‘Akbar’s concept of sulh-i kul, Tulsi’s concept of Maryada and Dadu’s concept
of Nipakh: A comparative study’, Social Scientist, 20 (October 1992), pp. 31–37—are unconvincing.
3
  Sayyid A°mad Tha»»avð, a prominent Shiʿi scholar who was the first redactor of the
Tårðkh-i Alfð, was murdered by Mðrzå Fawlåd Barlås (executed after being publicly paraded, along with

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SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/Melbourne
DOI: 10.1177/2348448917693740
54 / Sajjad Rizvi

the Mughal Emperor above the petty confessionalism of elements of the court,
was then further developed under Jahångðr. One of the main arguments seems to
be that the plurality of confessions at court (including prominent Iranian notables
who were Shiʿi) required a policy of tolerance of religions.4 But the question then
arises: how can we understand the role of Shiʿism at court in this period? How do
we make sense of the punishment awarded to the Iranian theologian Sayyid Nørullåh
Shøshtarð in 1610 on the orders of Jahångðr? Was India not wholly immune to the
‘sectarian’ turn of the early modern period as exemplified in the Ottoman–Safavid
conflict, an imperial conflagration that replaced the earlier Timurid tendency of
‘confessional ambiguity’ or even tashayyuʿ-yi°asan?5
In order to address these questions, I shall first examine a debate between two
Iranian émigré thinkers at the Mughal court in Agra, contextualising it within the
intellectual history of polemical literature in the Persianate world as well as the
attempts to discern the distinctions between Safavid Iran and Mughal India. I will

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return to the particular question of the punishment and death of Shūshtarī.

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While it is certainly evident that religious difference does not necessitate vio-
lence, nor do contemporary phenomena of sectarian violence provide evidence
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for the political manifestation of ‘age-old hatreds’, it is also clear that sectarian
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bias, discrimination and at times violence, both objective and subjective, were
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not inventions of the colonial state.6 Perhaps the fundamental question is, if the
Mughal polity was open to religious pluralism, does it mean that all sects could
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openly profess their beliefs without any fear of reprisal: more specifically in the
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case of Shiʿas, does it mean that the time for dissimulation (taqðya), of hiding one’s
true beliefs for fear of persecution, was over? This was at the heart of the debate
between Sayyid Nørullåh Shøshtarð and Mðr Yøsuf Astaråbådð in Agra.7 Sayyid
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Nørullåh himself argued that because Akbar was a just ruler, there was no need
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his accomplice) in 1588 in Lahore; later his tomb was secretly desecrated—see Abø’l-Faz[l, Akbarnåma,
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ed. Maulavð ʿAbd al-Ra°ðm, Calcutta,1877, III, p. 527, and Badåønð, Muntakhabu’l Tawårðkh, ed. Alð
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Ahmad and Lees, II, Calcutta, 1869, pp. 364–65 (where the grave desecration is reported).
4
  I follow here the general view; for a contrary assertion, see Afzal Husain, The Nobility under Akbar
and Jahangir, New Delhi, 1999, p. 190.
5
  On confessional ambiguity or ‘philo-imamism’ or ‘good Shiʿism’, see Mohammad Masad, The
Medieval Islamic Apocalyptic Tradition: Divination, Prophecy, and the End of Time in the 13th Century
Eastern Mediterranean, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, 2008, esp. pp. 156–66;
Cornell Fleischer, ‘Shadow of Shadows: Prophecy in Politics in 1530s’ İstanbul’, in Identity and Identity
Formation in the Ottoman World: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz, ed. B. Tezcan
and K. K. Barbir, Madison, 2007, pp. 51–62. In an earlier generation, a number of authors wrote about
syncretic beliefs centred on spiritual attachement to the Imams: Marijan Molé, ‘Le Kubrawiya entre
Sunnisme et Shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l’hégire’, Revue des Études islamiques 29
(1961), pp. 61–142; Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien, Paris, Gallimard, 1971, I, pp. 1–38.
6
  See Christopher Bayly, ‘The pre-history of “communalism”? Religious conflict in India,
1700–1860’, Modern Asian Studies 19 (1985), pp. 177–203.
7
  On this correspondence, see S.A.A Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnåasharð Shias in
India, Delhi, 1989, I, pp. 357–62. There is a recent critical edition of the text: Asʾila-yi Yūsufīya: jidāl-i

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 55

for taqðya.8 Of course, those critical of Akbar such as Badåønð actually did allege
a streak of anti-Sunnism if not philo-Shiʿism in the policy of Akbar, as he was led
astray by the likes of Abū’l Faz[l.9 Badåønð even decried the short-lived experiment
of debates in the ʿIbådatkhåna as ‘attacks on the very basis of the faith’, by which,
of course, he meant Sunni Islam.10
Sayyid Nørullåh was a significant figure, who has figured prominently in many
biographical studies, both Iranian and Indian.11 One of the earliest accounts of his
life is by his son Sayyid ʿAlåʾ al-Mulk who found patronage in Bengal with Prince
Shujåʿ (and which may account for his silence on how his father died). Nørullåh
came from the southern borderlands of the Ottoman–Safavid conflict in Tustar/
Shøshtar, where he was born in 956/1549. His father Sayyid Sharðf al-Dðn had
been a student of Shaykh Ibråhðm al-Qa»ðfð, the independent minded jurist origi-
nally from Eastern Arabia, active at the Safavid court.12 He himself studied with
ʿAbd al-Wa°ðd Shøshtarð who was linked to the philosophers of Shiraz. He moved

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to Mashhad to continue his studies, arriving there in 1572; however, the turmoil

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following the death of Shah ­ahmåsb in 1576 led to his decision to move to India.
He was already an accomplished scholar before he left for India in 993/1585. He
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gained the patronage of Akbar and was appointed the judge (qåzð) of Lahore where
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he would have been expected to decide according to the Sunni legal rites—Rizvi
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is adamant that the evidence suggests that Akbar knew he was Shiʿi.13 This might
have been partly because after the campaigns in Punjab, engaging with Kabul and
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the pacification of Sind, Akbar had sent the ʿulamåʿ of Lahore into these regions
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and there was a need to replenish personnel in this major city; he may also have
needed more compliant and loyal ʿulamåʿ following the revolt of the Shi‘i qåz[ð of
Jaunpur Mullå Mu°ammad Yazdð; and who was better to fill that role than another
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andīshagī-yi tafakkur-i shīʿa-yi uṣūlī bā akhbārī. Mukātibāt-i Mīr Yūsuf ʿAlī Astarābādī va shahīd Qāz[ī
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Nūrullāh Shūshtarī, ed. Rasūl Jaʿfarīyān, Tehran, 1388Sh/2009.

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8
  Bayāż of ʿInāyat Khān Rāsikh, MS Aligarh Habib Ganj Collection 50/335 (Fārsī), fol. 94r–95r,
cited in Husain, ‘Shiʿas in the Mughal nobility’, op. cit., p. 217.
9
  Badāūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh, ed. Maulavī Aḥmad ʿAlī, Calcutta, 1869, III, 137.
10
  Badāūnī, Muntakhab al-tavārīkh, II, p. 255; S.A.A. Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of
the Muslims in Akbar’s Reign, New Delhi, 1975, pp. 124–26.
11
  Modern studies include: ‘Muqaddima’ to Shūshtarī, Maṣāʾib al-nawāṣibfī-l-radd ʿalā Nawāqiḍ
al-rawāfiḍ, ed. Qays al-ʿAṭṭār, Qum, 1426 H/2005, I, pp. 12–28; Sayyid Sibṭ al-Ḥasan Hansvī, Taẕkira-
yimajīd: Shahīd-i sālis, Karachi, 1962; Saiyid Athar Abbas Rezvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements
in Northern India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Agra/Lucknow, 1965, and idem, A
Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnā ʿasharī Shīʾīs in India, op. cit., I, pp. 342–88.
12
  An ijāza dated 944/1537 authorising him to engage in the teaching of the legal manual Irshād
al-adhhān of ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī is reproduced in Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, Beirut,
1990, CV, pp. 116–23.
13
  S.A.A. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the IsnāʿasharīShīʾīs in India, op. cit., p. 349; see also
Hansvī, Taẕkira-yi majīd, pp. 37–38. This seems certain, because the fact was then known to Badåønð
III, pp. 137–39, who, despite this, commends his character and integrity.

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56 / Sajjad Rizvi

‘foreigner’.14 In a letter which must have been penned probably in the 1590s to
Shaykh Bahåʾ al-Dðn al-ʿĀmilð (d. 1621), the Shaykh al-Islåm of Isfahan and a
friend of his father’s, Nørullåh wrote:

Through divine grace and blessings, I obtained a lofty position and the honour
of the companionship of the emperor … [whose] patronage and favours increase
daily. In these circumstances, I came to the conclusion that in India, taqiya was
a great calamity. It would expel our children from the Imåmðya faith and make
them embrace the false Ashʿarð or Måtørðdi faiths. Reinforced by the kindness
and the bounty of the Sultan, I threw away the scarf of taqiya from my shoul-
ders and, taking with me an army of arguments, I plunged myself into jihåd
against the Sunni ʿulamāʿ of this country. First of all I wrote Mas[āʾib al-nawås[ib
which refutes the Nawåqid[ al-rawåfid[. My arguments in that book smeared
the beard of the author of the Nawåqid[ with filth. Then I wrote al-S[awårim

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al-muhriqa.15

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In such a correspondence with a major figure of the Safavid court—a space
that was rife with polemics and in which the Shiʿa did not need to worry about the
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consequence of enunciating their version of sacred history and theology—it was
perhaps self-serving for Sayyid Nørullåh to claim such a courageous position of
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defending the faith. And it also assumes that the court would have a strong religious
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hue (as one assumed it did in Iran and at the Ottoman and Uzbek courts). One also
sees how his own portrayal of his life as a heroic figure amounted to fashioning
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himself as a major scholar and a leading divine of his age furthering the Safavid
Shiʿi cause—despite being in India.
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Sayyid Nørullåh was known for the polemics that he wrote, most of which were
penned in India. It is odd that some biographers refer to Majålis al-muʾminðn as a
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polemical work—it was more a vindication of Shiʿi Islam through an appropriation

of previous Sufis and a whole range of cultural, religious and intellectual figures
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as Shiʿi. The text was an attempt to demonstrate the primordiality and contribution
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of the Shiʿa to Islamic history and civilisation, and is only indirectly polemical. It
was completed in Lahore in Dhø-l-Qaʿda 1010/May 1602. One needs to locate the
polemics within a wider context of Shiʿi responses to Sunni accusations.16 These
took the form of (at least) four cycles of texts. The first was the RisålaʿUthmånðya
of al-Jå°iz[ (d. 255/869), which was written around the year 240/854, to which a

14
  S.A.A. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnå‘asharð Shð’ðs in India, p. 155; cf. Abø’l Fazl,
Akbarnåma, III: pp. 282–89; Badåønð, III, Calcutta, 1869, pp. 137–39.
15
  Bayāz[ of ʿInāyat Khān Rāsikh, MS Aligarh Habib Ganj Collection 50/335 (Fārsī), fol. 94r–95r,
translated by Rizvi in A Socio-Intellectual History, I, pp. 357–58.
16
  There is still a dearth of serious academic literature on polemics. Two good starting points that
are relevant for such study are: Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Puritanism, Sectarian
Polemics and Jihād, Canberra,1982, and Rasūl Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat u farhang-i rūzgār-i ṣafavī, Tehran,
1388Sh/2009, I, pp. 111–24.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 57

number of classical authors penned responses such as the Refutation (Naqd[) of the
famous theologian al-¡asan b. Møså al-Nawbakhtð (d. c. 310/922) and especially
Binåʾ al-maqåla al-Få»imðya of Sayyid Jamål al-Dðn Ibn Āwøs (d. 673/1274).17
The second cycle of texts began with Minhåj al-karåma of ʿAllåma al-¡illð
(d. 725/1325), written probably in 710/1311 for the Il-Khan Uljaytu, which was
refuted by the Minhåj al-sunna of Ibn Taymðya (d. 728/1328) a few years later, not
the only anti-Shiʿi polemic he wrote.18 The third cycle, and a little known one, started
with al-Risåla al-muʿårid[afð-l-raddʿalå l-rawåfid[ (Refutation of the Rejectors) of
Yøsuf b. Makhzūm al-Aʿwar al-Wāsiṭī in the ninth/fifteenth century which led to
a refutation in al-Ḥilla in 839/1435 by Najm al-Dðn Khid[r al-¡abalrødð entitled
al-Tawåd[ð° al-anwår bi-l-°ujaj al-wårida li-dafʿshubhat al-Aʿwar (the clarifying
lights through scriptural proofs warding off the objections of the One-Eyed).19
The fourth, which is crucial for Sayyid Nørullåh, began with Ib»ålnahj al-bå»il
(Invalidity of the path of falsehood) written around 909/1503 by Faḍlallāh b.

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Ruzbihån al-Khunjð (d. 927/1521), a prominent Timurid historian and theologian

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in refutation of Nahj al-°aqqwa-kashf al-s[idq of ʿAllåma al-¡illð.20 It was this text
to which Nørullåh responded with I°qåq al-°aqq completed at Lahore in 1605.21
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The Ottoman–Safavid conflict formed a critical backdrop with its literary
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production excoriating the other as well as the fatwas produced in the Ottoman
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realms against the Shiʿa.22 Apart from fatwas, Jaʿfarðyån cites around nine Ottoman
texts in the early Safavid period that anathemised the Shiʿa in a number of ways,
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either directly attacking Shi‘ite beliefs and practices or focusing on the Qizilbåsh
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and their supposed allies in Ottoman controlled Anatolia or the recounting of the
Abø-Muslim-nåmas that were popular in Khuråsån.23 A further work of central
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17
  Al-Ḥasan al-Nawbakhtī was a member of a famous family of theologians and court officials on
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whom see ʿAbbās Iqbāl Āshtiyānī, Khāndān-i Nawbakht, Tehran, 1345Sh/1966. He was the author
of a famous work on heresiography Firaq al-shīʿa (ed. Helmut Ritter, Istanbul, 1931, tr. ʿA. Kādhim,
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London, 2007) and also a commentary on Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione, ed./tr. Marwan
Rashed, Berlin, 2015. The original text of the latter author is Ibn Ṭāwūs, Bināʾ al-maqāla al-Fāṭimīya,
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ed. Sayyid ʿAdnān al-Ghurayfī, Qum, 1991.

18
  For a discussion, see Tariq al-Jamil, ‘Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī’, in Ibn Taymiyya
and His Times, ed. S. Ahmed & Y. Rappaport, Karachi, 2010, pp. 229–46, but see also the polemical
Yahya Michot, ‘Ibn Taymiyya’s Critique of Shī ʿī Imamology’, Muslim World 104 (2014), pp. 109–49.
19
  On this cycle and attestations of some manuscripts in Najaf and Mashhad, see SayyidʿAbd al-
ʿAzīz Ṭabāṭabāʾī, ‘Mawqif al-shīʿa min hujūm al-khuṣūm’, Turāthunā, 6 (1407/1986), pp. 32–96. This
is generally a very scholarly consideration of the manuscripts in polemics and considers much that fed
into the ʿAbaqāt al-anwār of Mīr Ḥāmid Ḥusayn Mūsawī Kintūrī (d. 1880).
20
  The most recent Shiʿi work in this cycle is Dalāʾil al-Ṣidq of Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Muẓaffar (d.
1375/1955) which was first published in 1953 and more recently re-issued in an excellent six-volume
edition by the shrine in Najaf in 2011.
21
  Another possible cycle worth mentioning was initiated by Ibn Ḥajar al-Haythamī (d. 973/1565)
and his al-Ṣawāʾiq al-muḥriqa to which Sayyid Nūrullāh responded with al-Ṣawārim al-mu°riqa.
22
  Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat u farhang-i rūzgār, I, 44–51.
23
  Ibid., I, pp. 73–77.

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58 / Sajjad Rizvi

importance for South Asia was the fatwa of the ʿulamåʿ of Central Asia in response
to the questions posed from Mashhad after its Safavid takeover. During the siege
of Mashhad by ʿof Cenåh Khån Uzbek, the Shiʿi ʿulamåʿ of Mashhad requested a
fatwa to protect their lives and properties in the event of an Uzbek takeover. The
response of the Central Asian Sunni ¡anafð jurists was not exactly comforting: while
they accepted that the lives and properties of all those who profess to believe in
God and the Prophet were sacrosanct, yet they warned that if those people violated
the norms of behaviour towards the way of the Sunnis and excoriated them then
the original freedom was curtailed. This influenced the polemics of Shaykh A°mad
Sirhindð and demonstrated that the polemics in India were affected not just by the
Ottoman–Safavid conflict but also by developments in Central Asia (and arguably
the Uzbek-Safavid conflict which to an extent sharpened the Turånī-Ðrånð division
at the Mughal court).24
While he is credited with more than a hundred works, it was Nørullåh’s three

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voluminous polemics that became famous. The first was Mas[åʾib al-nawås[ib

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written in India in Rajab 995/1587 in seventeen days in response to a work of the
Sunni Iranian exile at the Ottoman court Mðr Makhdøm Sharðfð (d. 995/1587).25
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Sharðfð had dedicated his work in 987/1580 to Sultan Muråd III. The second was
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al-S[awårim al-mu°riqa in response to Ibn ¡ajar al-Haythamð’s scriptural refuta-
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tion of Shiʿi Islam entitled al-S[awåriq al-mu°riqa; like the other polemics it was
popular in India and written by Nørullåh after his Mas[åʾib and Majålis.26 And the
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third, completed late in 1605 at Lahore was I°qåq al-°aqq.

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What changed later in the reign of Akbar for Sayyid Nørullåh was the loss of
the support of his influential friends dying one by one: Fat°ullåh Shðråzð in 1589,
the Gilånðs, and Abø’l-Faz[l in 1602.27 From a position of prominence at court and
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as chief judge of Lahore, a major Mughal city, he seemed to have been slowly
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sidelined.28 By the time he completed I°qåq al-°aqq in 1605, he was already

complaining of the loss of patronage. Two years before that he had lamented to
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Shaykh Bahåʾ al-Dðn al-ʿĀmilð:

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24
  Ibid., I, pp. 53–72.
25
  Sayyid Nūrullāh Shūshtarī, Maṣāʾib al-nawāṣib fī-l-radd ʿalā Nawāqiḍ al-rawāfiḍ, ed. Qays
al-ʿAṭṭār, Qum, 1426/2005, II, p. 275. For a detailed discussion, see Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat u farhang-i
rūzgār, I, pp. 85–99. On Sharīfī, see Rosemary Stanfield Johnston, ‘Sunni survival in Safavid Iran’,
Iranian Studies 27 (1994), pp. 123–33; Shohreh Golsorkhi, ‘Ismail II and Mirza Makhdum Sharifi’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies 26 (1994), pp. 477–88.
26
  The text was edited by Sayyid Hāshim Urmavī and published in the 1950s—a recent printing is
Tehran, 1385 Sh/2006.
27
  On the Gðlånðs in India, see Sayyid ‘Abbås Åzmøda, Gðlåniyån dar dayår-i Hind, Rasht, 1394
Sh/2015.
28
  One cannot be too prescriptive about the Mughal court’s presence in a ‘capital city’ but Lahore
throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was probably as much the capital as was
Agra or Fatehpur Sikri—see John F. Richards, The New Cambridge History of India 1.5: The Mughal
Empire, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 49–52.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 59

For some time luck has deprived me of its favours. The mean and wretched
India has caused me unbearable pain and shock. Not only has the Sultan ended
his patronage and benevolence towards me, but he has closed the doors of my
departure to Khuråsån and Iraq.29

Sayyid Nørullåh’s final supporter at court—by this time of Jahångðr—¡akðmʿAlð

Gðlånð died in 1018/1609.30
So let us turn to Nørullåh’s correspondence with Mðr Yøsuf ‘Alð (recently
published).31 What do we know of his interlocutor? The editor, relying on some
extant works and the meagre mention in the biographical record, says that Mðr Yøsuf
ʿAlð was a sayyid of Astaråbåd (a prominent city in Khurasan whose sayyids played
a major cultural and intellectual role from the time of Shåh Ṭahmāsb onwards).32 He
moved to Mashhad in 969/1561–62 and then on to India in or about 971/1563–64
(because in one of his autographs dated 1011/1602–3 he mentions having spent forty

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years in India). He was clearly somewhat homesick as is suggested in his works—

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but he probably moved to India in search of patronage as many others did. He may
well have been related to Mðr Fakhr al-Dðn Sammåkð, Mðr Abø-l-Qåsim Findiriskð
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and Mðr Muʾmin Astaråbadð (all of the same sayyid family) who had strong links
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with India. The other main work he seems to have penned is a hagiography of the
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Imåms titled Fawaḥāt al-quds.33Āqå Buzurg in his bibliographical work al-Dharð

ʿailåtas[ānīf al-shðʿa cites him as an ‘Akhbårð’ who corresponded with Sayyid
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Nørullåh in 1019/1610, the year of his death.34 This ideological difference is sig-
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nificant but I think misleading. There is nothing as such in the correspondence that
would indicate such a leaning on his part—and it would be too early historically
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speaking; besides we have yet to delve deeply into the question of what actually
constituted (and constitutes now) Akhbårism in India.
fo

The text itself is primarily about the nature of the knowledge of the Prophet and
the Imåms in which Mðr Yøsuf takes a maximalist position (later known as one of
ot

walåyat akwðnðya, of the cosmic authority of the Imåms as perfect manifestations

N

29
  Bayāz of ʿInāyat Khān Rāsikh, MS Aligarh Habib Ganj Collection 50/335 (Fārsī), fol. 97r–97r,
translated by Rizvi in A Socio-Intellectual History, I, 370.
30
  Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, I, 377. It may, however, be noted that according to Fårðd
Bhakkarð, Zakhðratu’l Khawånðn, ed., Syed Moinul Haq, II, Karachi, 1970, p. 373, Nørullåh was then
Qåzð-i ‘Askar, or Qåzð of the Army, and so his presence at Agra seems natural; and he could also not
have been without some official status.
31
  For the publication details of As’ila-i Yøsufiya, ed. Rasøl Ja‘fariyån, see Note 7.
32
  On the intellectual importance of the sayyids of Astarābād, see Rula Abisaab, ‘Peasant uprisings in
Astarabad: the Siyāh Pūshān, the Sayyids, and the Safavid state’, Iranian Studies 49 (2016), pp. 477–82;
Rasūl Jaʿfarīyān, Tārīkh-i tashayyuʿ dar Jurjān va Astarābād, Mashhad, 1383 Sh/2004.
33
  Afandī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʿ, V, p. 401.
34
  Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī, al-Dharī ʿai`1lātaṣānīf al-shīʿa, Najaf, 1938, I, p. 94.

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60 / Sajjad Rizvi

of the divine names including knowledge).35 As such it could be considered within

the context of debates on religious exaggeration (ghuløw) in this period. Sayyid
Nørullåh in his response adopts a common strategy of questioning the validity of
the sources upon which Astaråbådi relies such as the khu»båt al-bayån attributed
to ʿAlð.36 This purported text had gained currency in the Timørid period and was
widely disseminated in the Safavid-Mughal period but has been widely critiqued
for its ‘false attribution’.37 If anything both Nørullåh and Mðr Yøsuf seem to be
taken with Sufi figures and concepts and with forms of reasoning through law and
theology. There is no real evidence for a difference of opinion in matters of legal
method, which begs the question of why the editor placed that at the heart of the title.
There are 12 epistles and 11 responses (since the final epistle is somewhat
formulaic in praise, it did not perhaps require an answer). Some of the more inter-
esting debates include the sixth on whether the text of the Qurʾån was corrupted

se
(the position of ta°rðf) and whether the true revelation remains with the Imåms
alone.38 The text is extensive and gives us an insight into the debates in Persianate
Shiʿi Islam of the time.
lu
Nevertheless the key epistle is the 10th on the question of taqīya.39 Not surpris-
a
ingly it is one of the longest responses that Sayyid Nørullåh gives. Mðr Yøsuf’s
ci
question begins with his unhappiness at the response to the ninth epistle in which
er

Sayyid Nørullåh expressed some impatience with the circuitous and careful nature
m

of the correspondence, no doubt inspired by the fear of someone intercepting the

epistles. One has to be careful with what one professes:
om

I am careful not to write what causes harm either to myself or to one who reads
rc

it. Your writings have caused harm to yourself and to those who have read
them…If one forsakes taqðya, one may come to harm. You must, of course,
fo
ot

35
  On this notion, see Sajjad Rizvi, ‘Seeking the Face of God: the Safawid ḥikmat tradition’s concep-
tualization of walāya takwīnīya’, in The Study of Shiʿi Islam, ed. F. Daftary & G. Miskinzoda, London,
N

Tauris, 2014, pp. 391–410.

36
  Although a ḥadīth-centred approach in Shiʿi thought before the Safavid period was not unusual,
it is safer to say that the Akhbārī movement began with Muḥammad Amīn Astarābadī (d. 1626) and
his circles, spreading from Shiraz into the Deccan and Eastern Arabia on which I concur with Robert
Gleave, Scripturalist Islam: the History and Doctrines of the Akhbāri Shīʿī School, Leiden, 2007. On the
text and the controversy over the khuṭbat al-bayān, see Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Spirituality
of Shiʿi Islam, London: 2011, pp. 103–32, inter alia.
37
  On the text and the controversy over the khut]bat al-bayān, see Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi, The
Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam, London, 2011, pp. 103–32, inter alia. For a rather harsh modern condemna-
tion, see Sayyid Jaʿfar Murtaz[ā al-ʿĀmilī, Bayān al-aʾimma wa-khuṭbat al-bayān fī-l-mīzān, Beirut,
2003, pp. 39–126.
38
  On this question of the corruption of the Qurʾanic text, see Revelation and Falsification: the Kitāb
al-qirāʾāt of Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī, eds Etan Kohlberg and Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi,
Leiden, 2009, and Rainer Brunner, Die Schia und die Koranfälschung, Stuttgart, 2001.
39
  Asʾila-yi Yūsufīya, pp. 120–45.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 61

know that taqðya is obligatory, and forsaking what is obligatory is a sin. You
must also know that all the Infallibles performed taqðya, and even the Prophet
performed taqðya.40

He then gave an example from Imåm Rid[å who was asked about whether the
Prophet did and how he stopped doing taqðya after the revelation of Q. 5:67—‘God
will protect you from the people’. He then goes on to attack Sayyid Nørullåh for
endangering people in Kashmir:

Someone wrote a work that caused harm that one sees clearly in Kashmir. You
sent your work to one of the Shiʿa there and A°mad Bçg the governor of Kashmir
found out and sought to harm him; however some people intervened and by
taking a false oath saved him. Thus is it more important that such a work come
to the attention of one’s friends and foes or that one is safeguarded from death?
The truth, which is apparent, is that sending a copy of such a work to someone

se
unaware is blameworthy. Have you forgotten what happened to Mullå A°mad
of Thatta and came to pass? And what happened to many other elders before

of such works [polemics] is pointless.41

a lu
who wrote such works? No opponent comes to the truth this way; the writing
ci
He then makes it clear that he means Mas[åʾib al-nawås[ib, which was unnecessary:
er
m

Even if your intention was to refute the words of Makhdøm [Sharðfð], this was
unnecessary because the truth of the matter is apparent to the Shiʿa and in no
om

terms should it have come to the attention of others.42

rc

Sayyid Nørullåh prefaces his response by making it clear that Mðr Yøsuf will
not appreciate it. Sometimes one needs to respond to polemics and disputation,
fo

not only because it is impolite not to respond (which suggests that the opponent
is unworthy of response) and also because it reflects an arrogance and stubborn-
ot

ness—and can further support the obstinacy of the opponent.43 He then cites some
of the great Shiʿi scholars of the past who engaged in polemics such as Khwåja
N

Nas[ðr al-Din Tøsð (d. 1274). Sometimes one has to point out what is irrational.
Sometimes the best response is to write a refutation or engage in a disputation and
it was the standard practice of the Shiʿi ʿulamåʿ. Similarly it cannot be devoid of
wisdom because even the Imåms sometimes forsook taqīya.44

As for what you have said about no one being able to speak in a way that is
acceptable to everyone, then this is not established since there is much by way

40
  Ibid., p. 123.
41
  Ibid., pp. 123–24.
42
  Ibid., p. 124.
43
  Ibid., p. 125.
44
  Ibid., p. 127.

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of prose and poetry that is widely accepted, whether they are in accord with a
sound nature and mind or not.45

It is impossible to write something that all will accept—just as the Shiʿa

would never accept the Nawåqiḍ and the Sunnis consider the Tajrðd of Tøsð to be
inauspicious!46 Sayyid Nørullåh then addresses the personal nature of the critique:

As for what you have written about my works being the cause of harm, then its
response is that I only write for the pleasure of God and do not identify myself
to the opponents but I say that it is the writing of a student of the ʿulamåʿ of Iraq
and Iran. So what harm can come to me from that? And whether someone may
read it and it causes them harm, how can that be specific to me?47

This is a somewhat odd claim since his works are signed. He goes on to mention

se
polemics that are very harsh and known in India and yet they do not harm anyone.

lu
You are incorrect in your belief that taqðya is obligatory in all times and the
Imåmð ʿulamåʿ should not have written polemical works …. As far as taqðya is
a
concerned, I believe that, as there is a just ruler in India, there is no justifica-
ci
tion for performing taqðya. In any case it is not obligatory for men like me who
er

believe that being killed supporting the true religion glorifies the faith. God
m

(s[å°ib-i sharʿ) has allowed such persons not to perform taqðya. Only those who
are not steadfast in their faith, do not care to strengthen it, and are not strong in
om

intelligent discourse should have recourse to it …. Taqðya is obligatory at some

times and for some people.48
rc

He then explains the Kashmir incident where he sent the rough draft of Mas[åʾib
fo

to Mullå Mu°ammad Amðn who was desperate for it given the polemical context
during the governorship of A°mad Bçg Kåbulð.49
ot

Sayyid Nørullåh goes on to refutes the point about the futility of polemics:
N

If what you say were acceptable, then for the last thousand years each work
of the Shiʿi ʿulamåʿ written in refutation of the opponents would be pointless
since the truth is always apparent to the people who uphold truth. Then surely
there would be no need for works such as Kashf al-°aqq of Jamål al-Dðn [Ibn]
al-Mu»ahhar [al-¡illð] and his work al-Alfayn and Nahj al-karåma or al-­aråʾif

45
  Ibid., pp. 135–36.
46
  Ibid., p. 139.
47
  Ibid., p. 136.
48
  Ibid., pp. 137–38. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, I, p. 360, and Hansvī, Taẕkira-yimajīd,
pp. 47–55 on Sayyid Nūrullāh foregoing taqīya.
49
  Asʾila-yiYūsufīya, pp. 138–39.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 63

of Ibn ­åwøs and the like, which are innumerable.50 Similarly there is no doubt
that there is a God who is the Necessary Being which is more evident than any
other issue in theology and yet theologians always write epistles and works to
establish that. Surely according to your claim all these works are pointless?
It is also not sufficient to refute Mðr Makhdøm alone but all the claims in that as
well as the [Sunni] commentaries on al-Mawåqif, al-Maqås[id and al-Tajrðd.51

It is an interesting feature of his response that he is not overly concerned with

matters of the occult and prognostication. Before that he puts in a dig at India:

In India, melons are sour. Whenever one comes to India, one sees the fresh melon
before him even though it has no taste, praying would that it were pleasurable.
But when one puts it in one’s mouth, one curses it.52

se
He ends with conciliatory words that his response is not to accuse but to offer
friendly advice. Believers should think well of each other and not be like the follower

lu
of Imam ¡asan who accused him of betrayal when he made a truce with Muʿåwiya.
He ends with a hemistisch: ‘We are who we were—and love is everlasting’.53
a
In the course of the letter, the real issue is Sayyid Nørullåh’s denial that the
ci
Imåms know the states of all people at all times—he cites the famous suspicion of
er

infidelity against ʿĀʾisha the wife of the Prophet as he also rejects the evidence of
the khut]båt al-bayån which is not even a °adðth.54 There is a clear theological gap
m

between the two thinkers—that extends to how one might express the difference in
om

the public sphere. What emerges from this exchange is a self-fashioning of Sayyid
Nørullåh as a combative and assertive scholar who will not compromise on matters
rc

of faith either for the lure of patronage or to avoid the gallows.

One modern biographical account has been penned by an Indian scholar of
fo

Nadwat al-ʿulamāʿ Sayyid ʿAbd al-¡ayy al-¡asanð (d. 1922) entitled ‘Nørullåh al-
Tustarð’.55 He holds that Sayyid Nørullåh remained in taqðya and claimed to judge
ot

according to the four Sunni schools. Al-¡asanð accuses him of secretly writing
against the Ashariyya in I°qåq and Majålis (the latter is a strange addition here).
N

Some ʿulamåʿ got hold of the latter and showed to Jahångðr. He got angry at the
taqðya and had him flogged to death. Al-¡asanð then cites Sayyid Nørullåh’s own
affirmation of his Shiʿism at the end of I°qåq to betray his hypocrisy as well as
his attack on India condemning Agra as a place of infidelity, ignorance and deceit.
Thus for this biographer he stands condemned in his own words.

50
  These are some of the famous classical Shiʿi polemics on the imamate.
51
  Referring to the famous Sunni commentaries on theological compendia of the middle ages.
52
  Asʾila-yi Yūsufīya, pp. 142–43.
53
  Ibid., pp. 144–45.
54
  Ibid., p. 133.
55
  SayyidʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī, Nuzhatal-khawāṭir wa-bahjat al-masāmiʿwa-l-manāẓir, Rai
Bareilly, 1992, V: pp. 459–62.

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One account that has recently come to light is ʿAbd al-Sattår Låhawrð’s record
of Jahångðr’s conversations, the Majålis-i Jahångīrī. 7 Jumåda I 1019/28 July
1610 on Saturday eve, majlis 31. Here Jahångðr is recorded as saying to the Khån-i
‘Aẓam, Aziz Koka,

‘O Khån-i A‘z]am! From the fact that Qåzð Nørullåh became embroiled in his
own act people have been imagining us to be a bigoted and coarse Sunnð (Sunnð-i
muta‘s[s[ib o ghalðz]). May God preserve all from the disease of bigotry, especially
us, the manifestation of the Divine! Just as the Creator treats all His creatures,
and does not deny His compassion and protection to anyone, so too with us,
without reference to paying regard to any one’s religion and community, we
have the duty to render compassion to all people of God. It is for us to ensure
that everyone receive the recompense for his action, and to allow no one to step
out beyond the circle of justice and equity.

se
lu
These statements are immediately followed by Jahångðr’s recollection of how
when Mu°ammad Amðn Kashmðrð who was a Shi‘i turned Sunni, Jahångðr refused
a
to give him money, now that his Irani patrons no longer supported him, thus sug-
ci
gesting that he was unconcerned about whether a subject was Sunni or Shi‘a.
er

What is most striking in Jahångðr’s reference to Nørullåh’s execution is its

apologetic nature. There is recognition that something happened which had cre-
m

ated a false impression of Jahångðr being a bigot, but it was actually Nørullåh, the
om

recipient of the punishment, who had placed himself beyond the circle of justice
and equity. It is significant that despite being thus troubled by the impression cre-
ated by Nørullåh’s execution, Jahångðr omits to refer to it at all in his Memoirs,
rc

compared to his description of how he punished the Sunni ‘bigot’, Shaykh A°mad
fo

Sirhindð and forced him through imprisonment to mend his ways.56

But what had Nørullåh in fact done to so annoy Jahångðr? Taqð Aw°adð-yi
ot

Balyånð, who visited Agra in 1611–12, reports that Nørullåh was well known for
his Shiʿism, and in response to a question from Jahångðr who ‘had made peace
N

between Sunni and Shiʿi and kept them both in their own place’, said that he was
a Shåfiʿð. Jahångðr became angry at this untruth and ordered him to be flogged five
times, as a result of which he died. The only reason why Jahångðr would become
so angry on such a major punishment is possibly that by this act of taqðya Nørullåh
was implying that Jahångðr was an unjust king. Balyånð seems to cast doubt upon
this reason by saying, ‘but in truth, he was a man whose speech and actions were
on the whole in conformity and he spoke the truth, except when he was composing
satirical verse’.57 Another early account is by Mðrzå Mu°ammad S[ådiq Is[fahånð who

  Tuzuk-i Jahångðrð, ed., Syed Ahmad, Ghazpur/Aligarh, 1863-64, pp. 272–3, 308.
56

57
  Aw°adð-yi Balyånð, Tazkira-yi ‘Arafåt al- ‘åshiqðnwa- ‘aras[åt al- ‘årifðn, ed. Mu°sðn Nas[råbådð,
Tehran, 1388Sh/2009, Vi, 4006; cf. S.A.A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements, Agra, 1965, p. 317.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 65

was a ‘news-writer’ (wåqiʿa-navīs) under Shåhjahån and whose S[ub°-i S[ådiq and
Shåhid-i Sådiq owe much to the Majålis al-muʾminðn. He also opts for a subdued
taqðya narrative.58 The nineteenth century account of the Sunni Sufi Ra°månʿAlð
in his Taẕkira-yiʿulamåʿ-yi Hind only praises him as an author of excellent works
such as Majālis al-muʾminðn.59 It mentions the patronage he received from Akbar
but just says that he died in 1610 without mentioning how. Thus we can see in
all these reports an attempt to exonerate Jahångðr and, instead, blame the victim.
Curiously enough, one near contemporary historian Farðd Bhakkarð (writing in
1650), otherwise so interested in a very neutral fashion in whether particular nobels
were Shð‘ð- inclined or not, has chosen to be extremely laconic over Sayyid Nørul-
låh’s death. ‘Qåzð Nørullåh was Qåzð of the Army’, he tells us. He was a leading
figure in the Imåmiya faith. On some account, arousing ‘Jahångðr’s anger (ghaz[ab-i
Jahångðrð), he was executed’.60 There is no suggestion that taqðya, or any religious
issue, was at all involved in the matter. Yet we must remember that the execution

se
of an officer for any administrative or other lapse was a very rare occurrence in

lu
Mughal government, and so Farðd’s silence remains a mystery.
It seems odd for Jahāngīr to have acted so harshly whether taqðya was or was not
a
involved. Much has been written about his openness to the Shiʿa and to the faction
ci
of his wife Nørjahån (whom he married in 1611). Perhaps Sayyid Nørullåh’s was an
er

isolated case.61 In the Tuzuk-i Jahångðrð, the Emperor lamented the bigotry practised
in Safavid Iran and by Uzbeks and Ottomans and praised his father’s compassion:
m
om

The professors of various faiths had room in the broad expanse of his (Akbar’s)
incomparable sway. This was difference from the practice in other realms, for
in Persia there is room for Shiʿas only and in Turkey, India and Turan there is
rc

room for Sunnis only. As in the wide expanse of the divine compassion there is
room for all classes and the followers of all creeds so on the principle that the
fo

shadow must have the same properties as the light, in his dominions, which on
all sides were limited only by the salt sea, there was room for the professors of
ot

opposite religions and for beliefs good and bad and the road to altercation was
N

closed. Sunni and Shiʿa met in one mosque, and Franks and Jews in one church
and observed their own forms of worship.62

58
  Cited in S.A.A. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the IsnāʿasharīShīʾīs in India, 986, II,
p. 4.
59
  RaḥmānʿAlī, Taẕkira-yiʿulamāʿ-yi Hind, ed. Yūsuf Bēg Bābāpūr, Qum, 1391 Sh/2012, 304.
60
  Shaikh Farðd Bhakkarð, Zakhðratu’l Khawånðn, op. cit., II, p. 373.
61
  Husain, ‘Shiʿas in the Mughal nobility’, pp. 220–21; Sajida Alvi, ‘Religion and state during
the reign of Nūr al-Dīn Jahāngīr’, in her Perspectives on Mughal India. Rulers, Historians, ʿUlamāʿ and
Sufis, Karachi, 2012, 197–218; Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, II, pp. 6–10 on the Nūrjahān circle.
62
  Tuzuk-i Jahāngīrī or the Memoirs of Jahangir, trs. Alexander Rogers and Henry Beveridge,
London, 1914, I, pp. 37–38. (= Tuzuk-i Jahångðrð, ed. Syed Ahmad, Ghazipur/Aligarh, 1863–64, p. 16.)

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66 / Sajjad Rizvi

While the Tuzuk does not mention the punishment of Sayyid Nørullåh, the
wording of the passage quoted above mirrors closely the justification in the
Majålis-i Jåhångðrð and suggests perhaps an indirect reflection.
Despite the absence of any mention in the works of Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī, later
Naqshbandð texts such as Rawżåt al-qayyømðya of Kamål al-Dðn Mu°ammad I°sån
(d. 1149/1736) claimed that it was only after the release of Sirhindð from prison
(wrongly placed a year before Sayyid Nørullåh’s death), and his hearing from his
disciples of the influence of the latter through the vizier Ås[af Khån (who actually
became vizier many, many years after Sayyid Nørullåh’s death!) that Sirhindī
agitated for action against Nørullåh.63 Thus the execution is presented as a Naqsh-
bandi achievement in defence of Sunni Islam, but this can be shown to be a myth.
It seems so many of the sources including modern secondary ones (such as
the entry in the Encylopaedia of Islam) suggest that taqðya was at the heart of the
issue. Hansvð and Rizvi present it as a case of the bigotry of Jahångðr—the former

se
cites Shaykh Farðd Bhakkarð who in his Zakhðrat al-Khawånðn, for the argument
that Jahångðr punished him for taqðya,64 but, as we have seen, Farðd does not refer
a lu
to taqiya at all. Husted imagines that Jahangir’s failed adventures in alcoholism
got the better of him when he punished Qåzð Nørullåh.65 Misled by miscreants, in
ci
an alcoholic rage, he had Sayyid Nørullåh condemned. But of all this too there is
er

just no evidence.
One other explanation may be that as an eighteenth-century editor of the
m

Jahångðrnåma put it: ‘the new sovereign possibly wished to draw a line under the
om

rule of his father and all those associated needed to be sidelined’.66 Did he wish
to demonstrate his own commitment to the paramountcy of the faith, designating
himself as the Light of the Faith (Nøruddðn)?67 Perhaps this was a secondary reason
rc

for a dissident like Sayyid Nørullåh’s being chosen for punishment that resulted
fo

in his death.
If one takes the correspondence with Mðr Yøsuf Astaråbådi along with a con-
ot

sideration of the polemics that Sayyid Nørullåh penned himself and his opposition
to taqðya that he expressed so strongly, then it seems most likely that he did not
N

perform taqðya in front of Jahångðr. It may well be as he indicated in the response

to Mðr Yøsuf that people like him ought to embrace martyrdom. What is clear is

63
  Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, I, pp. 381–82, citing the manuscript in the Asiatic Society of
Bengal. Actually, Sirhindi was imprisoned long after Nørullå° death (see Tuzuk-i Jahångðrð, ed., Syed
Ahmad, pp. 272–73).
64
  Hansvð, Tazkira-ya majðd 60; Rizvi, A Socio-Intellecutal History, I, pp. 376–86.
65
  Wayne Husted, Shahðd-i S]ålis] Qåzð Nørullåh Shushtarð, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Wisconsin, 1992, pp. 56–64.
66
  Muḥammad Hādī, ‘Preface to the Jahāngīrnāma’, in The Jahāngīrnāma: Memoirs of Jahāngīr,
tr. W.M. Thackston, Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 11. There is, however, little evidence that Jahångðr
pursued any hostility to prominent members of Abø’l Fazl’s circle. ‘Abdu-r Rahðm Khånkhånån, for
example, retained his premier position in Jahångðr’s court.
67
  Tuzuk-i Jahångðrð, ed. Syed Ahmad, p. 5.

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 Shð‘Ð polemics at the Mughal court / 67

that some complaint was made at court that could not be deflected by any interests
(since the faction of Nørjahån and Ås[af Khån had yet to achieve their ascendency).
Jahångðr found himself in an awkward position where he was probably pressured
to condemn him—his religious policy was still probably raw. But the Absolute
Divine Manifestation must be above whim or bigotry and so it must have been
the bigotry of the accused himself that led to the execution. In a classic trope of
sectarian literature, the Shiʿi scholar stood accused, condemned and punished by
his own words and actions. In the political theology of the time, only the Emperor
could be responsible for the condemnation of religious dissent—but also consist-
ent with the aura of the sovereign put forward since at least Akbar, he could not
be seen to be complicit in the petty squabbles of his subjects. As such therefore
Jahångðr’s actions demonstrate the fallibility of Mughal infallible and messianic
kingship, where so much depended on the King’s personal decisions.

se
a lu
ci
er
m
om
rc
fo
ot
N

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