Editor’s Note
Editor’s Acknowledgments
Introduction, by Hani Khafipour
Part I. The Religious Landscape
1. Converts, Apostates, and Polytheists
I. Confessions of an Armenian Convert: The I‘tirafnama of Abkar
(‘Ali Akbar) Armani, by Rudi Matthee
II. Conversion, Apostasy, and Relations Between Muslims and
Non-Muslims: Fatwas of the Ottoman Shaykh al-Islams, by Nikolay
Antov
III. The Night Debates at Jahangir’s Court’Abd al-Sattar’s
Majalis-i Jahangiri, by Corinne Lefèvre
2. Heretics, Polytheists, and the Path of the Righteous
I. The Shi’a Path of the Righteous: The Strength of Akhbarism in
Safavid Iran, by Maryam Moazzen
II. Ottoman Religious Rulings Concerning The Safavids: Ebussuud
Efendi’s Fatwas, by Abdurrahman Atçıl
III. A Mughal Debate About Jain Asceticism, by Audrey Truschke
3. The Zealot, the Sufi, and the Quest for Spiritual
Transcendence
I. Opposition to Sufism in Safavid Iran: A Debate Between Mulla
Muhammad-Tahir Qummi and Mulla Muhammad-Taqi Majlisi, by Ata
Anzali
II. The Worldview of a Sufi in the Ottoman Realm: Hakiki and His
Book of Guidance, by F. Betul Yavuz
III. Sufism and the Divine Law: Ahmad Sirhindi’s Ruminations, by
Arthur F. Buehler
Part II. Political Culture
4. Conceptions of Sovereignty: The Poet, the Scholar, and the
Court Sufi
I. The Safavid Claim to Sovereignty According to a Court
Bureaucrat, by Hani Khafipour
II. Kingship and Legitimacy in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman
Empire, by Huseyin Yılmaz
III. The Millennial and Saintly Sovereignty of Emperor Shah Jahan
According to a Court Sufi, by A. Azfar Moin
5. The King’s Deathbed: Coronation, Execution, and
Fratricide
I. In the Shadow of Shah ‘Abbas: The Succession of Shah Safi (r.
1629–1642), by Sholeh A. Quinn
II. The Ottoman Conception of Sovereignty and Succession: Mustafa
Ali’s Essence of History (Kunh al-Akhbar), by Zahit Atçıl
III. The Way of Tradition and the Path of Innovation: Aurangzeb and
Dara Shukuh’s Struggle for the Mughal Throne, by Jane Mikkelson
6. A Tale of Three Cities: Diplomacy and Conquest
I. Imperial Geopolitics and the Otiose Quest for Qandahar, by Hani
Khafipour
II. The Ottoman Conquest of Buda(pest): Sultan Suleiman’s Imperial
Letter of Victory, by Zahit Atçıl
III. The Mughal Conquest of Chittor: Study of Akbar’s Letter of
Victory, Taymiya R. Zaman
Part III. Philosophical Inquiries
7. Philosophy as a Way of Life
I. The Many Faces of Philosophy in the Safavid Age, by Sajjad
Rizvi
II. Philosophia Ottomanica: Jalal al-Din Davani on Establishing the
Existence of the Necessary Being, by Ahab Bdaiwi
III. Philosophy and Legal Theory: The Musallam al-thubut of
Muhibballah al-Bihari and Its Commentary by ‘Abd al-’Ali Bahr
al-’Ulum, by Asad Q. Ahmad
8. Lettrists, Alchemists, and Astrologers: The Occult
Sciences
I. The Occult Sciences in Safavid Iran, by Matthew
Melvin-Koushki
II. A Commentary on The Secret of Ta-Ha by the Pseudo-Eşrefoǧlu
Rumi, by Tuna Artun
III. The Occult Sciences at the Mughal Court During the Sixteenth
Century, by Eva Orthmann
Part IV. Literature and the Arts
9. Three Poets and the Three Literary Climes
I. Selections from the Poetry of Muhtasham Kashani, by Paul
Losensky
II. The Poet ‘Azmizade Haleti and the Transformation of Ottoman
Literature in the Seventeenth Century, by Berat Acil
III. Mughal Sanskrit Literature: The Book of War and the Treasury
of Compassion, by Audrey Truschke
10. Royal Patronage: A College, Poets, and the Making of an
Imperial Secretary
I. The Leading Religious College in Early Modern Iran: Madrasa-yi
Sultani and Its Endowment, by Maryam Moazzen
II. Imperial Patronage of Literature in the Ottoman World,
1400–1600, by Murat Umut Inan
III. A Letter of Advice from a Mughal Gentleman to His Son, by
Rajeev Kinra
11. Painters, Calligraphers, and Collectors
I. Reading a Painting: Sultan-Muhammad’s The Court of Gayumars, by
Sheila Blair
II. The Making of a Legendary Calligrapher: Textual Portraits of
Sheikh Hamdullah, by Esra Akın-Kıvanç
III. Deccani Seals and Scribal Notations: Sources for the Study of
Indo-Persian Book Arts and Collecting (c. 1400–1680), by Keelan
Overton and Jake Benson
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
Hani Khafipour received his doctorate at the University of Chicago. A historian of medieval and early modern Iran, he teaches in the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Southern California.
The Empires of the Near East and India provides, really for the
first time, a body of early modern primary sources from the
Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal contexts in translation. A variety of
types of text are provided, from poetry to judicial rulings, and
the translations are readable while maintaining the flavor of the
original Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman Turkish. This will prove a
valuable resource for those of us who teach any or all of these
imperial histories.
*Michael Talbot, University of Greenwich*
This is the first accessible, high quality, English language
sourcebook on medieval and post-classical Islamic empires.
Thirty-three original commentaries and translations enrich our
understanding of life under the most powerful global empires of the
day: The Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. The book tells the story
of diverse peoples: poets and painters, kings and conquerors,
scientists and Sufis, and more. For students of world literature
and history, this is an indispensable resource.
*Emran El-Badawi, University of Houston*
The Empires of the Near East and India is a treasure trove of
carefully selected, freshly translated, and accurately
contextualized primary sources from the Ottoman, Safavid, and
Mughal worlds. Covering a rich array of themes that range from
political culture and religiosities to scientific writing and
artistic production, this one-of-a-kind collection will become
standard reading for students of early modern (Muslim) empires.
*A. Tunç Şen, Columbia University*
This volume is a laudable effort to compile a handy and well-edited
volume with expert contributions on a wide range of topics of
interest to historians studying and teaching the pasts of these
three empires, their global histories and their encounters with
other political and social protagonists of the early modern
period.
*H-Soz-Kult*
This is an invaluable book for anyone studying, teaching, and/or
researching the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires and will
definitely find its way onto many university reading lists as a
core text.
*H-History and Theory*
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