Ferenc Csirkés, Turkic Martyrologies in Safavid Iran
Centre for the Study of Islam, Exeter. Monday Majlis Online on the 11th of December, 2023.
Abstract
This talk delves into a greatly neglected subject: the religious culture of the Turkophone element in late Ṣafavid Iran. The focal point of the discussion is the Jinān al-muʾminīn, a lesser-known account from the late-seventeenth century, detailing the martyrdom of Ḥusayn, a key event in the history of Shiism, and events and figures associated with it. The work is the otherwise unknown Turkic rendition of Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kaṣhifī’s (c. 1426-1504) Persian martyrology, the Rawżat al-shuhadā, one of the most popular representatives of the genre in the period. Aside from analysing the content and style of the Jinān and comparing it to both the Persian original and other Turkic renditions produced during the Ṣafavid period, I will also scrutinise its manuscript copies. I will contend that the work is best understood against the backdrop of Shiite scholarly circles in ascendance at the Ṣafavid court attempting to control religious ritual both across the realm in general and in the Turkophone Qizilbash community in particular.

Bio
Ferenc Csirkés holds a PhD in Near Easetern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, and he is currently an Assistant Professor in the History of the Pre-modern Islamicate World at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include the literary and cultural history of medieval and early modern Iran, Central Asia, and the Ottoman Empire. He is now completing a book manuscript with the working title Sons of Japheth and Ali: Turkic Language and Ideology in the Medieval and Early Modern Persianate World, which focuses on the politics of language in Safavid Iran, discussing such topics as vernacularization, confessionalization, and state building. Prior to his position at Birmingham, he researched and taught at Simon Fraser University in Canada, Sabancı University in Turkey, the University of Tübingen in Germany, and Central European University in Hungary.

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