مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - SHIITE-MYSTICAL MOVEMENTS AMONG ISMAILIS OF BADAKHSHAN AND THE SAFAVID INFLUENCES IN THE 15TH- 16TH CENTURIES

Abstract :

This study aims at investigating the interpretation of the Ismailis of Badakhshan, a branch of Nizari Ismailis, after the fall of Alamut Nizari State following the Mongol Invasion, by the 16th century. The main purpose of this study is to clarify the impact of various Shiite mystical movements, which were powerful between 13th and 15th centuries all over the Islamic World, on the formation of the Ismaili interpretation of Badakhshan in the 15th century. It tries to prove that Twelver Shiite elements in oral materials, which were introduced to Ismailism of Badakhshan, entered in the region through the Safavid influences rather than these Shiite- mystical movements. Although the issue of Ismailism of Badakhshan was studied from an antropological and folkloric viewpoint on a limited scale in the recent past, it was rel-atively less studied from a historical point of view. The principal reason for this situation is the scarcity of written historical sources. Indeed, the primary sources about Ismailism of Badakhshan are based on oral materials bearing both mythological and theological characteristics with no definite time and space. The present study is composed of the syntheses of observations during the field research studies and the study of oral texts in compliance with the methodology of history.