Shah 'Abbas and the Pilgrimage to Mashhad

Prof Charles Melville
In the early autumn of 1010/1601, Shah 'Abbas I,the powerful Safavid monarch left Isfahan to walk to Mashhad on a pilgrimage (ziyarat) to the shrine of Imam Reza, in fulfillment of a vow. The nature of this vow is not certain. The best known account of 'Abbas's march is given by Iskandar Beg Munshi, who says it took only 28 days, though he gives no dates. He mentions that the astrologer royal, Munajjim Yazdi, recorded the distance traveled each day, so that the total length of the journey could be computed, but he does not report the result. Yazdi, however, gives both the dates of the march and the distance traveled, totaling just over 199 farsakhs, and lists 36 places along the route. My main purpose in this paper, both literally and metaphorically, is to put Yazdi's account of this march on the map.
In the course of investigating Iskandar Beg's claims, it began to seem likely that the printed edition of the 'Alam-ara-yi 'Abbasi might not preserve the definitive version of his text. This proved indeed to be the case, when a different manuscript was found to give the figure of 41 days for the journey, and to supply a date for the Shah's arrival in Mashhad. Furthermore, yet another manuscript, purporting to be Iskandar Beg's work, provides such a different account of the pilgrimage as to reveal a totally separate composition. A secondary purpose of this paper is therefore to present the alternative versions of Iskandar Beg's account, which will be sufficient to emphasize the essential point, that a proper study of the complex manuscript tradition of the 'Alam-ara-yi 'Abbasi is long overdue, if we are to take advantage of the fullest and most authoritative version of this work of fundamental importance in Safavid historiography.
While the focus of what follows is on the details of 'Abbas's march to Mashhad in 1601, it is first necessary to put this into context, in an effort to understand his immediate motives and something of his longer-term purpose. Although this is the most eye-catching and famous pilgrimage Shah 'Abbas made to Mashhad, it is by no means an isolated case. His devotion to the shrine of Imam Reza is a persistent and deliberate element in his public policy, arising from a complex interplay of personal, dynastic, economic and political considerations. Space does not permit a full discussion of these issues here, and I will concentrate on only one aspect of the question, namely: to what extent was 'Abbas following earlier precedents, particularly those established by previous members of the dynasty?
Finally, how far, in turn, was his own example emulated by his successors? From this it will be possible to discern how innovative were 'Abbas's policies towards Mashhad, and how they signalized a period of transition in the ideological development of the Safavid regime.
Iskandar Beg says of 'Abbas's walk to Mashhad that no other prince had achieved such a feat since the advent of Islam, though he recalls the case of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, who walked from Constantinople to Jerusalem to celebrate the recovery of various territories from the Persians. Iskandar Beg disparages Heraclius's achievement, however, because of the slow and pleasurable nature of the trip, and adds that it took him two months to cover a distance normally crossed in 20 days.
The view that 'Abbas's achievement was unprecedented is thus justifiable, though as Lockhart observed, it would have been equally appropriate to refer to the practice of the Sasanian kings of walking from Ctesiphon to Takht-i Sulaiman, in order to complete the formalities of their coronation at that ancient sacred site. In a different context again, there is the example of the 25 reported pilgrimages on foot made by Imam Hasan from Madinah to Makkah. While it is possible that these cases provided a conscious model for Shah 'Abbas, they are not entirely analogous; they are more use in suggesting parallels for the combination of motives at work, namely personal piety, thanks for victories won, and the need for political legitimation.
A more direct and contemporary precedent for 'Abbas's behaviour is provided by the Mughal emperor, Akbar (reg. 1556-1605), who made numerous pilgrimages to the shrine of Mu'in al-Din Chisti at Ajmer between 969/1562 and 987/1579. On at least one occasion he walked the whole distance, to honour a vow made before the birth of his son, the future Jahangir , but it was his general habit to travel the last stage on foot.
The same is true of Mashhad, though most of them visited the city and performed their devotions in the shrine. Isma'il did so in 916/1510 before his march against the Uzbeks, against whom he invoked the Imam's aid. He was also there in 919/1513, the summer before the Chaldiran campaign, and ordered building work to be carried out. Shah Tahmasb, too, visited the shrine of Imam Reza on his first expedition against the Uzbeks, which was crowned by his victory at Jam shortly afterwards (934-5/1528). He was there again on at least two other occasions, in 940/1533 and 944/1537, performing his devotions.
Tahmasb's patronage of the shrine extended to covering the dome with panels of gold. Isma'il II did not have time to visit Mashhad during his brief reign, though he ordered Tahmasb's corpse to be transferred there from Qazvin, possibly following his father's wishes. Muhammad Khudabanda visited the shrine briefly on his return from Khurasan, after securing the submission of 'Ali-Quli Khan Shamlu in 991/1583.
There are, therefore, precedents for 'Abbas's patronage of Mashhad, although there is no explicit evidence that any previous Safavid monarch had gone there on foot. Mashhad was greatly affected by the political events of the period, most notably the protracted struggle with the Uzbeks, who frequently occupied the city in the early part of Tahmasb's reign. It is possible to view the latter's patronage of the shrine as largely due to his personal piety; at any rate, there is little evidence of a concerted policy to promote pilgrimage to Mashhad, once he had regained control of Khurasan, and Tahmasb does not seem to have visited the city in the last 40 years of his reign.
With Shah 'Abbas, this situation alters quite dramatically. His apparently more frequent presence in Mashhad may only be due to the greatly superior wealth of documentation available for his reign. It might also simply illustrate his greater mobility compared with his predecessors. In a sense, his visits to both Ardabil and Mashhad are one of a kind with those of previous Shahs. When fighting the Ottomans in Azerbaijan, he routinely paid his respects to the shrine of Safi al-Din, seeking support and moral encouragement against the enemy and offering thanks for victories won. The same applies to Khurasan, for the majority of Abbas's visits to Mashhad occurred in the course of military expeditions to Herat, Marv-i Shahijan, Balkh and Qandahar .
However, there are also occasions when the Shah,s visits had a more deliberate significance, and were not simply opportunistic, or due to his presence in the area on other business. Abbas made various journeys to Mashhad with the sole purpose of visiting the shrine of Imam Reza. Two of these are particularly notable. In Zu'l-Hijja 1011/May 1603, he crossed the desert via Yazd and Turshiz, to seek the Imam's approval for the projected campaign in Azerbaijan, at the other and of the empire. In Jumada II, 1016/September 1607, he went to offer thanks for the successful outcome of this long and arduous struggle against the Ottomans. He travelled along the pilgrim route through Sabzavar, accompany him . Both these visits occurred after the pilgrimage on foot in 1601/ which marks a new stage in 'Abbas's patronage of Mashhad.
The Shah had become a "master the symbolic" ,and the need for a "public display of contrition" explains his extraordinary pilgrimage on foot in 1601.
This may well be true, but it does not entirely explain the particular timing of that event. It is worth recalling briefly that this was not the first time 'Abbas had entered Mashhad on foot. He had first visited the shrine, as Shah, in Zu'l-Hijja 996/October 1588, on an expedition to Khurasan, shortly after which the city fell to the Uzbeks. Ten years later, in Zu'l-Hijja 1006/July 1598, the Uzbeks retreated on his approach, and 'Abbas entered Mashhad from the direction of Tus, dismounting and walking the moment the dome of the shrine came into sight. The khutba was read in the name of the Twelve Imams.
He again entered the city on foot in the winter of 1008/1599 and summer of 1009/1600, either side of his successful expedition against Marv-i Shahijan. Thus even before his main pilgrimage on foot in 1010/1601, and since the recapture of the city from the Uzbeks, 'Abbas had already walked into Mashhad on three occasions, at least for the last part of the way.
The immediate context for the journey in 1601 was another military expedition, this time directed against Balkh. As on the previous occasions, 'Abbas could seek the support of the eighth Imam and invoke his aid on the forthcoming campaign. What made this occasion different was that he chose to walk the whole distance.
As mentioned earlier, our sources do not explain the nature of the vow (nazr) that drove Shah 'Abbas to march all the way to Mashhad in 1601. In examining 'Abbas's motives, we must be careful not to ignore or discount the probability that he was activated by a genuine religious fervour. This is not the place to discuss the personal spirituality of 'Abbas for which a large body of information is dutifully preserved by the court chroniclers and European visitors to Iran. His devotion to Islam and to the Immaculate Imams seems genuine enough, and various miraculous dreams and experiences are recorded, though he was certainly by no means a bigot. It is worth noting also that Iskandar Beg claims 'Abbas's main reason (maqsad-i asli) for wanting to reconquer Mashhad was to enable him to perform pilgrimages to the shrine.
Abbas spent an important period of his life in Mashhad before becoming Shah and the city doubtless had a particular place in his affections.
THE PILGRIMAGE ON FOOT IN 1010/1601
The two main contemporary accounts of Shah 'Abbas's pilgrimage on foot could not be more different, though they complement each other Iskandar Beg gives us what might be called an appreciation of the march, while Munajjim Yazdi provides a bald but factual statement of the route and the distances covered. Of the two, Iskandar Beg's version has been the more influential on later sources and - no doubt due to its earlier availability in a printed edition - on secondary works. Yazdi, however, accompanied the Shah and was responsible for recording the length of the journey; his account is a useful corrective to Iskandar Beg's rather imprecise treatment of the episode.
According to Iskandar Beg, writing in or before 1025/1616' the Shah set off in the year of the Ox (began March 1601/Ramadan 1009) in fulfilment of a vow to walk from Isfahan to Mashhad. He left the Naqsh-i Jahan palace and spent the first night at Masjid-i Tuqchi, just outside the city wall. He then proceeded to Daulatabad, three farsakhs away, and invited members of the court to accompany him - no-one else needed to feel obliged to walk the whole way, though in the event, two or three of them did so. Iskandar Beg gives no further details of the walk, other then to say that the Shah marched with only short rests and arrived 28 days later; he gives no dates, although he mentions that 'Abbas spent Rajab, Sha'ban and Ramazan (1010)/26 December 1601 - 24 March 1602 in Mashhad, devoting himself to religious observances, thus giving a terminus ante quem for the journey. The implication is that the walk took place during Jumada II/December.
This account is adequate, so far as it goes, but 28 days seems an extraordinarily rapid time for such a journey. 'Abbas took this long to ride the shorter distance (ca 1000 km) from Mashhad to Isfahan (though by a less direct route) in 1016/1607. Iskandar Beg reports that two courtiers, namely Muhammad Zaman Sultan Bayandur Turkman "Kavuli" and Mihtar Salman the rikabdar-bashi
(master of the wardrobe), together with Mirza Hidayat-Allah the grandson of Najm-i Sani and three companions from Isfahan, took a rope (tanab) of 12,000 zira or a shar'i farsakh. They measured the route under the supervision of the court astronomer Maulana Jalal Yazdi, to establish how far was travelled each day and the total distance between Isfahan and Mashhad.
For their results, we must turn to Yazdi's own chronicle, written in (or going down to) 1020/1611. Yazdi also mentions that the Shah was fulfilling a vow. He says 'Abbas left on Thursday 15 Rabi I, 1010 (13 September 1601, NS), and gives a list of the distances between various places en route. The itinerary went through Natanz and Kashan, crossed the Kavir via Siyahkuh and joined the Khurasan road west of Deh Namak, then proceeded directly through Simnan, Damghan, Sabzavar and Nishapur to Mashhad. The Shah arrived on Sunday 22 Jumada I/18 November: 66 days after his departure.
From Deh Namak to Mashhad, the route is a well-worn one and various other estimates for the distances are available, though not until the mid 18th century. Among others, two particularly valuable accounts may be noted; Houtum-Schindler did the journey in 1293/1876 and gives the distances between stages in English miles. A detailed map of his route from Simnan to Mashhad is available.
Secondly, Afzal al-Mulk followed this route in 1320/1902, and his travelogue helps to identify the lesser-known localities mentioned by Yazdi, as well as giving distances in farsakhs. Their itineraries are given on Table 5 for comparison with Yazdi's. It will be seen that both give similar distances for the route from Deh Namak to Mashhad, and others that I have checked agree with them.
Throughout the itinerary, Yazdi's distances are consistently a little greater than those of later (and probably less precise) travellers. But, with the possible exception of the section between Natanz and Kashan, his figures are of the right order of magnitude and reflect the real distance travelled. The measurements were no doubt carefully carried out on the ground, and if they seem to be systematically a little high, this is because they faithfully follow every twist and turn and undulation of the Shah's march, rather than measuring a straight line between two points.
As for his dates, these have all the appearance of being precise, and indeed his whole chronicle reveals a very punctilious and accurate attention to chronology. Nevertheless, they too are not without problems. In the first place, 66 days seems rather a long time for the walk, although it yields the perfectly reasonable result that (taking Yazdi's own total for the distance covered) the Shah averaged just over 3 farsakhs/ 18 km (11miles) a day. There seems little doubt that 'Abbas could have gone farther than this, had he wished. All that we know of his briskness and drive, as well as Iskandar Beg's testimony about the nature of the walk, suggest that he would have pushed himself rather harder.
There are some indications that the march was indeed not uninterrupted. Unlike Iskandar Beg, Yazdi mentions a few incidents that happened during the walk. On 20 Rabi' I / 18 September, five days after his departure, the Shah's aunt Zainab Begum became seriously ill. The news probably caught up with 'Abbas a couple of days later, once he had reached Kashan, and he returned from there to Isfahan in the course of a single night. There seems little doubt that the Shah could have ridden this distance in about 12 hours, given the evidence of several similar exploits. His return can hardly have been so rapid, but evidently several days should be deducted from the total time spent on the walk, to accommodate the Shah's round trip to the capital.
The progress of the pilgrimage was further interrupted at Kashan (presumably after 'Abbas return) by the arrival of a Russian ambassador and by a delegation from the Christians of Lar, complaining about their ruler, Ibrahim Khan.
Otherwise, events elsewhere (in Fars, Lar and Bahrain), about which he was doubtless kept informed, do not seem to have impinged on the Shah's journey, which is recorded without further incident after Kashan, though while he was at Sabzavar, the missing son of 'Abd al-Mu'min Khan's wife was presented to him.
Yazdi confirms Shah 'Abbas's pious behaviour in Mashhad, where he spent the winter, and gives information on some of his building projects in the shrine. He left in the spring for Herat and Balkh.
The Khuld-i Barin, not a contemporary source, says that 'Abbas covered the journey, which normally took two months, in 41 days. This has an air of precision about it , and is essentially in agreement with the view advanced above: Yazdi implies a similar figure for the number of days actually spent on the march. On the other hand, the same source says that the Shah arrived in Mashhad on 14 Jumada II/10 December 1601, which basically confirms Iskandar Beg's account, and echoes.
Since the text of the Khuld-i Barin otherwise follows Iskandar Beg very closely, these variations raised the possibility that some manuscripts of the Tarikh-i alam-ara-yi Abbas contain the same information, and this indeed has proved to be the case. One apparently early, but undated, copy gives 41 days instead of 28, and says Abbas entered Mashhad on 14 Jumada II. Other departures from the printed text are few and trivial, though the pilgrimage is put in Ud-yil, corresponding to A.H. 1010 (sic), and the chronogrammatic poem quoted to mark the event is different, a point we will return to later.
The reasons for such variations, which might denote different recensions of the text, are not at the moment clear. They seem to be preferable, at least in so far as they provide a more realistic figure for the duration of the march. Iskandar Beg's and Yazdi's accounts thus complement each other to a large extent.