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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, who
established Twelver Shia Islam as the official religion of Iran at
the beginning of the sixteenth century, was revered by his
followers as a Sufi master. Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, has a
long tradition in Iran. It developed there and in other areas of
the Islamic empire during the ninth century among Muslims who
believed that worldly pleasures distracted from true concern with
the salvation of the soul. Sufis generally renounced materialism,
which they believed supported and perpetuated political tyranny.
Their name is derived from the Arabic word for wool, suf,
and was applied to the early Sufis because of their habit of
wearing rough wool next to their skin as a symbol of their
asceticism. Over time a great variety of Sufi brotherhoods was
formed, including several that were militaristic, such as the
Safavid order, of which Ismail was the leader.
Although Sufis were associated with the early spread of Shia
ideas in the country, once the Shia clergy had consolidated their
authority over religion by the early seventeenth century, they
tended to regard Sufis as deviant. At various periods during the
past three centuries some Shia clergy have encouraged persecution
of Sufis, but Sufi orders have continued to exist in Iran. During
the Pahlavi period, some Sufi brotherhoods were revitalized. Some
members of the secularized middle class were especially attracted
to them, but the orders appear to have had little following among
the lower classes. The largest Sufi order was the Nimatollahi,
which had khanehgahs, or teaching centers, in several cities
and even established new centers in foreign countries. Other
important orders were the Dhahabi and Kharksar brotherhoods. Sufi
brotherhoods such as the Naqshbandi and the Qadiri also existed
among Sunni Muslims in Kordestan. There is no evidence of
persecution of Sufis under the Republic, but the brotherhoods are
regarded suspiciously and generally have kept a low profile.
Iran also contains Shia sects that many of the Twelver Shia
clergy regard as heretical. One of these is the Ismaili, a sect
that has several thousand adherents living primarily in
northeastern Iran. The Ismailis, of whom there were once several
different sects, trace their origins to the son of Ismail who
predeceased his father, the Sixth Imam. The Ismailis were very
numerous and active in Iran from the eleventh to the thirteenth
century; they are known in history as the "Assassins" because of
their practice of killing political opponents. The Mongols
destroyed their center at Alamut in the Alborz Mountains in 1256.
Subsequently, their living imams went into hiding from
non-Ismailis. In the nineteenth century, their leader emerged in
public as the Agha Khan and fled to British-controlled India, where
he supervised the revitalization of the sect. The majority of the
several million Ismailis in the 1980s live outside Iran.
Another Shia sect is the Ahl-e Haqq. Its adherents are
concentrated in Lorestan, but small communities also are found in
Kordestan and Mazandaran. The origins of the Ahl-e Haqq are
believed to lie in one of the medieval politicized Sufi orders. The
group has been persecuted sporadically by orthodox Shias. After the
Revolution, some of the sect's leaders were imprisoned on the
ground of religious deviance.
Data as of December 1987
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