When Haji Bektash Still Bore the Name of Sultan Sahak: Notes on the Ahl-i Haqq of the Guran district (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2014
Ahmad al-Ahsaʾi (1753–1826), the spiritual father of the mystical strand of Twelver Shiism, known as the Shaykhiyya, became an important religious figure in Iraq and Iran. But the Shaykhiyya also spread in his birthplace in Eastern Arabia and among migrants from al-Ahsa in Kuwait and Basra. The quietist and apolitical teachings of al-Ahsaʾi suited the Shia in Eastern Arabia, who periodically suffered from political insecurity and religious persecution. Several scholars from al-Ahsa studied with al-Ahsaʾi and with his successor as leader of the Shaykhiyya, Kazim al-Rashti. Thereafter, they returned to al-Ahsa or moved to Kuwait and Basra and set up hawzas to spread Shaykhi teachings. In the early twentieth century, the Shaykhis of al-Ahsa developed closer ties with the al-Uskuʾi, a family of marajiʿ of the Tabrizi School of the Shaykhiyya. The al-Uskuʾi also resided in al-Ahsa and Kuwait throughout the twentieth century. The Shaykhis of Basra, on the other hand, became followers of the rival Kermani School. In both Basra and Kuwait, migrants from al-Ahsa retained strong group identities because their common geographical origin was coupled with the Shaykhiyya.
Islam's margins: Ahl-e Haqq, angels and peacocks, and the marginal scholars who loved them
Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (ed.), Sufi Non-Conformism: Antinomian Trends in the Persianate Cultural Traditions. Leiden University Press, 2024, pp. 245-266., 2024
This chapter is a tribute to my late friend Peter Lamborn Wilson, aka Hakim Bey (d. 2022), and to the late Vladimir A. Ivanow (d. 1970), two marginal scholars who spent years in self-chosen exile in Iran and shared a fascination with Ismāʿīlism and the small heterodox communities that might be influenced by it, and who in different ways contributed to my motivation to carry out field research among the Ahl-i Haqq of Gūrān, reputedly the most antinomian community that could be found in Iran. I have often had reason to revisit Ivanow’s writings, especially his book The Truth-Worshippers of Kurdistan, while over the years I have kept corresponding with Wilson about the place of Satan and the Peacock Angel in the cosmology and anthropology of the Ahl-i Haqq and the Yezidis. I shall focus on two aspects of the Ahl-i Haqq religion: the place in their pantheon of seven angelic beings (haft tan) who appear in human incarnations in each cycle of history, and the social and ritual role of holy lineages (khānadān) in Ahl-i Haqq communities. Both suggest similarities or perhaps historical connections with other communities such as Yazidis and Alevis, as well as a possible connection with pre-Islamic Iranian religions. Some authors have claimed that the Ahl-i Haqq religion is, beneath a thin Islamic veneer, essentially a survival of Zoroastrianism or a “popular” variant of Iranian religion. I shall argue that there is a much more pervasive influence of early Islam in Ahl-i Haqq religion (as well as Yezidism and Alevism) than these scholars are willing to admit.
THE INTEGRATION OF SHARĪ‘AH, TARĪQAH, AND HAQĪQAH: A STUDY OF SAYYID HAYDAR ĀMULĪ’S THOUGHT
Jurnal Ulumuna, 2016
Muslims' understanding of Islamic teaching is diverse. Jurists, for the instance, emphasize the aspect of the outer of the Sharī"ah while Sufis focus on the aspect of that inner. In history, the tension between them is apparently seen. The first even accuses the second group as a deviant, a heretic, and an unbeliever. Regarding this phenomenon, the study will explore underlying terms in Sufism namely Sharī"ah, T| arīqah, and H{ aqīqah and explain the relation of these terms based on the library research and descriptive analysis of the three words in the two books, i.e. Asrār al-Sharī"ah and Jāmi" al-Asrār wa Manba" al-Anwār of Sayyid H{ aydar Āmulī. Whether the terms are self-sufficient or interdependent? This study concludes that the three terms are an integral unity that cannot be separated from one another since those three terms refer to the one essence, the one Truth. Those are Divine law brought by Prophet Muhammad.
“Ahl-i Haqq”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition, Part 2009-2, pp. 51-58., 2009