DAŠTAKĪ, ʿAṬĀ-ALLĀH

 

DAŠTAKĪ, SAYYED AMĪR JAMĀL-AL-DĪN ʿAṬĀ-ALLĀH b. Fażl-Allāh b. ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Ḥosaynī Heravī (d. 912/1506, 917/1511, or 926/1520; Dānešpažūh and Monzawī, pp. 582-83; Baḡdādī, p. 664, citing the anonymous 16th-century chronicle Ḵolāṣat al-afkār, by Mīr Moḥammad-Taqī Kāšānī), a scholar of Hadith in Khorasan in the late Timurid and early Safavid periods. He was from a Sunni family that originally hailed from the Daštak quarter in Shiraz. In the late 15th century he taught at the Madrasa-ye ṣolṭānīya in Herat and preached at Friday services in the main mosque of the city.

The patronage of his three major works reflects the shifting patterns of political dominance in Khorasan. Daštakī completed Rawżat al-aḥbāb fī sīrat al-nabī wa’l-aṣḥāb in 888/1483 on commission from the Sunni Mīr ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾī (q.v.; d. 906/1501), minister to Sultan Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (Supp.), ruler of Khorasan (874-911/14691506). Probably at about the time of the Safavid conquest of Herat in 916/1510 Daštakī dedicated his Ketāb toḥfat al-aḥebbāʾ to Ḵᵛāja Moẓaffar-al-Dīn Betekčī Astarābādī, minister to Shah Esmāʿīl I (907-30/1501-24), and al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīṯ men aḥādīṯ Sayyed al-Morsalīn fī manāqeb Amīr-al-Moʾmenīn to Shah ʿAbd-al-Bāqī, who served Amir Najm-e Ṯānī until his death in 918/1512 and succeeded him in command of the Safavid forces in Herat.

Later Twelver biographers disagreed about his religious loyalties and those of his family. Nūr-Allāh Šūštarī (d. 1019/1610-11) and later Daštakīs claimed that the family had practiced taqīya (disguise of one’s religious beliefs) before the advent of the Safavids. According to Šūštarī, the first of the family to declare open allegiance to Twelver Shiʿism was Sayyed Ṣadr-al-Dīn Moḥammad b. Ebrāhīm Daštakī (d. 903/1498), ʿAṭāʾ-Allāh’s uncle and father of Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Manṣūr Daštakī (Modarres, Rayḥānat al-adab III, pp. 367-69; for various views on the Daštakīs’ acceptance of Shiʿism, see Šūštarī; Ḵᵛānsārī; Ḥabīb al-sīar [Tehran]; Dānešpažūh and Monzawī). After the fall of Herat in 916/1510 Daštakī preached a sermon praising the imams and the shah (Afandī, p. 316; Ḥabīb al-sīar IV, p. 515). Daštakī’s sermon and later Shiʿite treatises probably reflect realistic assessment of political and religious changes in Persia, rather than a genuine commitment.

 

Bibliography:

Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh Eṣbahānī Afandī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ III, Qom, 1401/1981, pp. 315-17, 318.

Aʿyān al-Šīʿa XLI, Beirut, 1400/1980, p. 6.

Esmāʿīl Pasha Baḡdādī, Hadīyat al-ʿārefīn I, Istanbul, 1951.

H. Beveridge and J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Khʷāndamīr,” in EI2 IV, pp. 1020-22.

M.-T. Dānešpažūh and ʿA.-N. Monzawī, eds., Fehrest-e ketāb-ḵāna-ye ehdāʾī-e Āqā-ye Sayyed Moḥammad Meškāt be ketāb-ḵāna-ye Dānešgāh-e Tehrān II, Tehran, 1332 Š./1953, pp. 581-84, 760. al-Ḏarīʿa I, pp. 421-22; II, p. 480; III, p. 409; IV, pp. 30, 31; VII, pp. 212, 214; XI, pp. 285-86.

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Ḥabīb al-sīar (Tehran) IV, pp. 358-59.

Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-āmel fī ʿolamāʾ Jabal ʿĀmel, ed. A. Ḥosaynī, II, Najaf, 1385/1965-66, p. 170.

Moḥammad-Bāqer Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿolamāʾ wa’l-sādāt, ed. A. Esmāʿīlīān, Qom, 1390-92/1970-72, V, pp. 189-94; VII, pp. 177-78, 194-95 n. 1; VIII, p. 71. Kašf al-Ẓonūn, ed. Yaltkaya and Bilge, I, pp. 922-23.

Qāżī Nūr-Allāh b. ʿAbd-Allāh Šūštarī, Majāles al-moʾmenīn, Bodleian Library, ms no. Ouseley 366, fols. 131a-132b (ad. fifth majles), 208a (ad. seventh majles).

Z. V. Togan, “Sur l’origine des Safavides,” in Mélanges Louis Massignon III, Damascus, 1957, pp. 345-57.

(Andrew J. Newman)

Originally Published: December 15, 1994

Last Updated: November 18, 2011

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