Before concluding this chapter, it is necessary to say The Ḥurúfí Sect something about the strange heretical sect of the Ḥurúfís (“Literalists”) invented and propagated by a certain Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád in the reign of Tímúr; a sect worthy of attention not only on account of its extraordinary doctrines and considerable literature (including not a little poetry, especially in Turkish), but on account of events of some historical importance, persecutions on the one hand and assassinations on the other, to which it gave rise. The sect does not seem to have maintained its position long in Persia, but it passed over into Turkey and there found a suitable medium for its development in the order of the Bektáshí dervishes, who are at the present day its chief if not its only representatives.
Concerning this sect and its founder the Persian historians
of the period are unaccountably silent, and the only reference
to it which I have met with occurs in the Mujmal of Faṣíḥí
of Khwáf under the year 829/1426, and in a fuller form in
the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar,
*
which places the event described a year
later. On the 23rd Rabí' ii, 829 (March 4, 1426), or on the
same day of the month of the following year (Feb. 21, 1427),
a certain Aḥmad-i-Lur, described as “a disciple (muríd) of
Mawláná Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád,” on the usual pretence
of presenting a petition to Sháh-rukh, Tímúr's son and successor,
stabbed him in the stomach as he was leaving the
mosque at Herát, without, however, inflicting a mortal
wound. The would-be assassin was killed on the spot by
one of the King's servants named 'Alí Sulṭán Qúchín; a
fortunate thing for him, as he was undoubtedly saved
thereby from torture, but subsequently a matter of regret to
Mírzá Baysunqur and the nobles charged with the investigation
of the matter, who were thus deprived of a valuable
clue. However, they found in the dead man's pocket the
key of a certain house, the tenants of which being examined
cast suspicion on a certain Mawláná Ma'rúf, a notable calligraphist,
scholar and wit, who had formerly been in the
service of Sulṭán Aḥmad-i-Jalá'ir at Baghdád, and afterwards
in that of Mírzá Iskandar of Shíráz, whence Sháh-rukh
had brought him to Herát. Here he had associated with
many men of letters, dervishes and others, and apparently
amongst them with Aḥmad-i-Lur. Báysunqur Mírzá, who
had a private grudge against him, wished to put him to
death, but, after he had been brought beneath the gallows
several times, he was finally imprisoned in a dungeon of the
Castle of Ikhtiyáru'd-Dín. Others, more unfortunate, were
put to death and their bodies burned. Amongst these was
Khwája 'Aḍudu'd-Dín, the grandson of Faḍlu'lláh of Astar-
One of the few notices of Faḍlu'lláh “al-Ḥurúfí” which Account of Faḍlu'lláh the Ḥurúfí in Ibn Ḥajar's Inbá I have met with occurs in the Inbá of Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalání (died 852/1448-9) * and runs as follows:
“Faḍlu'lláh, the son of Abú Muḥammad of Tabríz, was one of those innovators who subject themselves to ascetic discipline. Imbued with heretical doctrine, he finally evolved the sect known as the Ḥurúfís, pretending that the Letters [Ḥurúf] of the alphabet were metamorphoses of men, together with many other idle and baseless fancies. He invited the Amír Tímúr the Lame [Tamerlane] to adopt his heresies, but he sought to slay him. This came to the knowledge of his [Tímúr's] son [Míránsháh] with whom he [Faḍlu'lláh] had sought refuge, and he struck off his head with his own hand. When this was made known to Tímúr, he demanded his head and body and burned them both in this year 804/1401-2.”
The doctrines of Faḍlu'lláh were originally set forth in
a most extraordinary book, written partly in Arabic, partly
The Jáwidán
-i-Kabír
in Persian, and partly in a dialect of Persian,
entitled Jáwidán-i-Kabír (“the Great Eternal”),
of which manuscripts exist in the library of
St Sofia at Constantinople, at Leyden, in the British Museum
(Or. 5957), in the Cambridge University Library (EE. 1. 27),
and in my own collection. The first European description
of this curious book was, I believe, the brief notice of the
Leyden MS. contained in vol. iv (p. 298) of the old Leyden
Catalogue of 1866, the author of which observes “alternum
exemplar non vidi obvium.” A much fuller account of
the work was published by M. Clément Huart in the Journal
Asiatique for 1889
*
under the title Notice d'un manuscrit
pehlevi-musulman, and was based on the Constantinople MS.,
which was apparently labelled not by its proper title but as
“Questions connected with the Qur'án.” M. Huart did not
concern himself with the contents so much as with the
language of this manuscript, which he did not at that time
recognize as the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, or as the chief text-book
of the Ḥurúfís, or as the work of Faḍlu'lláh of Astarábád.
In my Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the Library
of the University of Cambridge, published in 1896, I devoted
a long notice (pp. 69-86) to our excellent copy of the
Jáwidán-i-Kabír, which was “bought at Constantinople,
Oct. 1681, price ten Lion dollars.” A feature of special
interest in this manuscript is an appendix containing accounts,
written in a dialect of Persian explained to some
extent by interlinear glosses in red, of a series of dreams
seen presumably by Faḍlu'lláh himself. Many of these are
dated, the earliest in 765/1363-4, “at a time before the
explanation of visions and interpretation of dreams was
vouchsafed”; the latest in 796/1393-4. They thus cover
a period of thirty years, and contain references to a number
Persons and
places mentioned
in connection
with Faḍlu'lláh's
visions
of places and persons. Amongst the former are
Astarábád, Baghdád, Bákú, Burújird, Dámghán,
Egypt, Fírúz-kúh, 'Iráq, Iṣfahán (especially a
building there called 'Imárat-i-Ṭúkhjí or Ṭúqchí),
Khwárazm, Mesopotamia (Jazíra), Qazwín, Samarqand,
Tabríz, and the two celebrated strongholds of the Assassins,
Rúdbár (near Astarábád) and the Fortress of Gird-i-Kúh.
Amongst the latter are Amír Tímúr (Tamerlane), “King”
Uways,
*
Túqtámish Khán,
*
Pír Páshá, Sayyid 'Imádu'd-
The accounts of these dreams, even with the aid of the interlinear glosses which explain most of the words in dialect, are very elliptical and difficult to understand, being apparently mere memoranda sufficient to recall the vision to the memory of the writer. They seem to form no part of the Jáwidán-i-Kabír, and do not, I think, occur in most copies of it.
On Oct. 23, 1896, soon after the publication of my Catalogue, my friend the late Mr E. J. W. Gibb called my attention in a letter to the fact that in several Turkish biographies of poets (such as those of Laṭífí and 'Áshiq Chelebi) the Turkish poet Nesímí mentioned in the last paragraph but one is described as “the Ḥurúfí,” and his connection with Faḍlu'lláh is established by some of his own verses, e.g.:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“If thou would'st gain knowledge of wisdom's lore, come hither, O sage;
Hearken to the speech of Nesímí and behold the Grace of God”
[Faḍlu'lláh]!