Formation of a Religious Landscape: Shi'i Higher Learning in Safavid Iran.

• Author: Robinson, Francis
• Position: Book review

Formation of a Religious Landscape: Shi'i Higher Learning in Safavid Iran. By MARYAM MOAZZEN. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 151. Leiden: BRILL, 2018. Pp. xiii + 290, illus. $149, [euro]129.

The conversion of Iran to Shi'ism in the early modern period is one of the great developments in Iranian and Islamic history. It was under Safavid rule that Twelver Shi'ism began this journey toward being Iran's predominant religion, a position that was not achieved until the nineteenth century. Among the factors in bringing about this end was the work of Shi'i ulama and Shi'i educational institutions. Much research has been done in recent years on aspects of Safavid society, history, and culture. Moreover, considerable attention has been paid to Shi'i intellectual history and the socio-political role of the ulama. But we do not know how Safavid madrasas worked, what their ulama taught, and how they may have advanced higher Shi'i learning. It is the object of this book to fill this gap "by explaining the ways in which religious knowledge was produced, authenticated and transmitted in the second half of Safavid rule from the reign of Shah 'Abbas I (1585-1629) to the end of Shah Sultan Husayn's era (1694-1722)" (p. x).

Moazzen begins by reminding us of the Safavid concern to introduce Shi'ism to Iran and by surveying the recent literature on mosque-madrasas in the Islamic world in general. Referring to the work of Jonathan Berkey, Michael Chamberlain, and Daphna Ephrat, she reminds us that madrasas did not necessarily exist to systematize and professionalize Islamic learning as George Makdisi asserted, but might also have been sites to help an elite to legitimize its power, or to win the support of ulama, or perhaps to further a particular family agenda. With this warning ringing in our ears, Moazzen moves to considering the role of madrasa-building by the Safavid shahs and by wealthy individuals in consolidating Shi'ism in Iran. In her first chapter she surveys the building of mosques and madrasas in Isfahan and argues that they were central to the conversion of Iranians to Shi'ism, transmitting religious knowledge, promoting Shi'i values, and supporting personal piety. Although she does not claim "that the madrasa was the most important reason for the final triumph of Shi'ism over Sunnism in Iran, [she argues] that it certainly was one of the primary instruments for the firm establishment of Shi'ism... and one that has been largely overlooked"...