MOḤAMMAD-KARIM KHAN KERMĀNI, ḤĀJJ (b. Kerman, 1225/1810; d. Tahrud, 1288/1871; Figure 1), the founder of the Kermāni branch of Shaikhism (q.v.) and one of the main Shiʿite ulema of the modern period.

On the one hand, the Kermāni Shaikhi (Šayḵi) school, founded after the death of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti (q.v.; d. 1259/1844, claims to return to the foundations of Shiʿite Islam, that is, to the teaching of the Prophet and the Imams contained in the Hadith (Amir-Moezzi, 1997, pp. 33-39); on the other hand, it highlights the fact that the learning of Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi (q.v.; d. 1241/1826) and his principal disciple and successor, Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti, was inspired by the Prophet and the Imams, and especially the Imam of Time (Aḥsāʾi, Resāla-ye šarḥ-e aḥwāl, pp. 10-15, Kāẓem Rašti, p. 20, Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Hedāyat al-ṭālebin, pp. 62-67, 71-73, 116). The attitude of the school towards philosophy and speculative mysticism is very complex. Thus, Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi formulated his refutation of certain philosophers and theologians with the aid of theosophical and esoteric arguments (Cole, 1987, pp. 196-97). His thinking about the sources, restricted to the Qurʾan and the Hadith of the Imams, is much more hermeneutic than dialectic. Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi referred to this as the “unveiling” (kašf) as a source of knowledge (Aḥsāʾi, Rasāʾel al-ḥekma, pp. 27-28). The successive Kermāni masters have themselves also claimed to be guided by Imams. Here is what Moḥammad-Karim Khan said about it:

Henceforth [after a vision of the 9th Imam] I was careful to scrutinize the hidden things; I had the mental perception, the inner vision of the holy Imams, and felt myself guided by them; for my knowledge, I now resorted directly to them, and to no one else. I do not profess anything that is not based on them. I do not give my acquiescence (taqlid) to anyone else. All my knowledge comes from my inner vision, the doctrine of the Imams guiding my spiritual research. Nothing else [tr. after citation in Corbin, 1972, p. 238].

Although Moḥammad-Karim Khan dedicated a few lines to the life and work of his two predecessors, Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi and Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti, very little has been written about him, and the accessible biographical information on him is limited (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Hedāyat al-ṭālebin). The Shaikhi master Abu’l-Qāsem Khan Ebrāhimi (d. 1389/1969), however, devoted a few pages to him in his long introduction to the catalog of the works of the Kermāni Shaikhi masters, which constitutes the first history of Shaikhism composed by a master of the school (Ebrāhimi, pp. 71-75).

Moḥammad-Karim Khan was born in Kerman in 1810 and died in 1871 in Tahrud, a town southeast of Kerman. After his death, his body was transferred to the mausoleum of Imām Ḥosayn in Karbala, where he was buried. Moḥammad-Karim Khan was a member of the Qajar royal family. He was the eldest son of Ebrāhim Khan Ẓahir-al-Dawla (q.v.; d. 1824), a cousin and son-in-law of the ruler Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah (q.v.; r. 1797-1834), and a disciple of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti, with whom he had established a deep relationship during a stay in Karbalā (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Taḏkerat al-awliāʾ, pp. 55-58). Ẓahir-al-Dawla admired the theosophical exposition of Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi but was not able to meet him. After commanding the Qajar armies in Khorasan and Gilan, Ẓahir-al-Dawla was appointed governor of Kerman Province and Baluchestan, a position he held for a period of 22 years (1218-40/1803-24; Bāmdād, I, p. 21). During his governorship, he invited many ulema from Khorasan, Fars, and Arabia to settle in Kerman (MacEoin, 2009, p. 147). Many of his descendants became major landowners in the Kerman area. Some also assumed administrative responsibilities in the regions of Jiroft and Rafsanjān (de Groot, 1977, p. 142). At the turn of the 19th century, many prominent people of the region had joined the Neʿmat-Allāhiya Imamite Sufi order.

Moḥammad-Karim Khan studied during his childhood and adolescence at the Ebrāhimiya School, built at the orders of his father in the center of the Kerman bazaar and devoted to the study of Shaikhism. He left for Karbala at the age of 16 or 17 (Corbin, 1972, pp. 236-38). He remained only a few years in the ʿatabāt (q.v.) and returned to Kerman as a representative of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti. It was during this period, in 1250/1834, that he established a rich library at the Ebrāhimiya School, which was run after his death by his son and successor as the head of the Kermāni Shaikhis, Ḥājj Moḥammad Khan Kermāni (q.v.). It was also in the Ebrāhimiya School that Moḥammad-Karim Khan taught. Having received a deeply elitist education, he only went out in the company of disciples and students and led a particularly ascetic life (Manoukian, pp. 164-66), notably performing many spiritual retreats in the mosque of Langar, a village close to Kerman.

Works. Moḥammad Karim Khan’s corpus of work is immense; 278 works are attributed to him. They are divided into the following fifteen categories: theosophy (ḥekmat-e elāhiya); Shiʿite dogmatics and controversies; preaching and sermons; commentaries on the Qurʾan; hadiths of the imams; Islamic legal theories (oṣul-e feqh); jurisprudence; treatises on prayer, devotion; medicine; treatises on light, optics, the science of perspective and mirrors; treatises on colors, music; astronomy, mathematics, the science of the astrolabe; alchemy, the interpretation of dreams, geomancy; calligraphy, poetry, and grammar; and answers to diverse questions (Ebrāhimi, pp. 440-577). Moḥammad-Karim Khan’s work is particularly famous for its hermeneutics of the Shiʿite doctrine of rejāl al-ḡayb (men of the occultation) or ahl al-ḥaqq (people of truth). He especially theorized about faith in the occult elite, the companions of the Imam of Time (Emām-e Zamān), through an exposition of the doctrine of rokn-e rābeʿ (the fourth pillar). This is certainly the major contribution of the Kermāni Shaikhi school to Shiʿa thought. This faith in a hierarchy of Shiʿites dominated by a nāṭeq-e wāḥed (the unique speaker) and designated representatives, noqabā (chiefs or guides; sing.naqib) and nojabā (nobles; sing. najib), constitutes for Kermani Shaykhism the fourth principle of religion (oṣul-e din), hence the name rokn-e rābeʿ given to this doctrine (Amir-Moezzi, 2001; Hermann, 2007; idem, 2017, pp. 82-95). His most important works on this subject are Eršād al-ʿawāmm and Rokn-e rābeʿ. Moḥammad-Karim Khan was also the author of some important Hadith compilations, entitled al-Ketāb al-mobin and Faṣl al-ketāb, which reveal the central importance given to the teaching of the Imams in Šayḵi thought. He also commented on a number of suras and Hadith. One can only regret the lack of studies on this corpus, which is one of the most impressive for the modern period—for one thing, because of its very high originality and coherence, and, for another, because of its deeply encyclopedic dimension, touching almost all the religious but also non-religious sciences. On the other hand, Moḥammad-Karim Khan was less interested than his two predecessors in criticism of works of the Isfahan school of philosophy (Cole, 2001a; idem, 2001b; idem, 2001c; Lawson, 2005; idem, 2010). He did not devote any specific work to Sufism, but criticized it on several occasions, notably in his opus magnus Eršād al-ʿawāmm (IV, pp. 316-24). In particular, he criticized the relationship between Sufi disciples and their masters as slavish (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, “Resāla dar jawāb-e irādāt,” pp. 127, 136; idem, “Resāla dar rafʿ-e baʿżi šabahāt-e mošabehhin,” pp. 106-08).

The call to political quietism was a constant point in the works of Moḥammad-Karim Khan, who interpreted the teaching of Imams in this sense, a principle that must be respected more scrupulously by the ulema than by others. Even the duty of “ordering good and forbidding evil” (al-amr be’l-maʿruf wa’l–nahy ʿan al-monkar; see AMR BE MAʿRUF) seems strongly restricted during the Occultation:

How can we [Kermāni Sheikhis] be accused of seeking power in this world, of loving power, or of pushing people to revolt […]? All these claims come from the love of power (ḥobb-e riāsat) and this world. This does not correspond to the way of life of the ulema. What is most important today for the ulema is to stay away from this world and practice asceticism in it. According to the doctrine of our masters, the mojtahed cannot apply the legal penalties (ḥodud), such as killing, stoning, or flogging. Even ordering the good and forbidding the evil are forbidden in most cases until the parousia of the Imam of Time. This is our religion and our course of action. We know that some of the mojtaheds who enforce legal penalties, such as killing, stoning, or flogging, commit an error. […] At this time, the distinctive sign of the pious and ascetic scholar is loneliness and retreat, transmitting the light of Imams through learning and otherwise avoiding people (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Si faṣl dar jawāb-e irādāt …,pp. 37-39)

This call to quietism also implied a duty of obedience to the sovereign. Moḥammad-Karim Khan returned to this concept mostly in his Resāla-ye nāṣeriya dar jehād. This last treaty was composed in Rajab 1273/February 1857 in order to support Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96) against the British forces that had been occupying the port of Bušehr (q.v.) since Rabi II 1273/December 1856 in order to force the Qajars to withdraw from Herat, which they had conquered in Ṣafar 1273/October 1856. Bušehr was highly strategic economically and militarily. Resāla-ye nāṣeriya dar jehād was a call to the Iranian people to defend the nation against the British army and, more broadly, a criticism of the growing influence of the West in Iran. The conclusion of the treatise, more specifically devoted to this last question, was also republished separately under the title of Ḵātema-ye nāṣeriya. Moḥammad-Karim Khan referred more specifically to the danger of rampant Westernization seven years later, in a short book entitled Jawāb-e marḥum ʿAbd-al-ʿAli Ḵān dar eṯbāt-e maḥall-e budan-e ḵalāʿ. It is essentially a response to the activity at Dār al-Fonun (q.v.), the polytechnic school founded in Tehran by Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir (q.v.; d. 1268/1852) and inaugurated in Rabiʿ I 1268/December 1851 (Gurney and Nabavi, p. 662). Moḥammad-Karim Khan indirectly attacked its current director, the Qajar prince ʿAliqoli Mirzā Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana (q.v.; d. 1298/1880).

In this general context, one may also refer to his Noṣrat-al-Din, a book written in the style of a new genre of literature, “the refutation of priests” (radd-e pādiri) that emerged during the 19th century. It was a doctrinal answer directed at an English Christian missionary who was sent to Iran during the reign of Moḥammad Shah (q.v.; r. 1834-48) and had written a book in 1252/1836-37 inviting Muslims to Christianity.

Moḥammad-Karim Khan and the consolidation of Shaikhism. After the death of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti, most of the Shaikhis of Iran and Iraq recognized the authority of Moḥammad-Karim Khan and his successors (Cole, 1988, pp. 185-89). Moḥammad-Karim Khan did not have any relations with Tabrizi Shaikhi masters, and they accused him and his followers of being innovators. The Tabrizi branch was founded by two Tabriz clerics, namely Mollā Moḥammad Māmaqāni (d. 1269/1852) and Ḥājj Mirzā Šafiʿ Ṯeqat-al-Eslām Tabrizi (q.v.; d. 1301/1884), each of whom headed a group of disciples (Hermann, 2017, pp. 63-66; Werner, pp. 81-82, 122-26, 224-28, 252; Bayat, p. 59). The Tabrizi Shaikhis described the Kermānis as rokniya, in reference to the doctrine of rokn-e rābeʿ developed by Moḥammad-Karim Khan, or as ḥājj-karimḵāni, which was then adopted by Kermāni Shaikhis (Ebrāhimi, pp. 92-93).

On the death of Moḥammad-Karim Khan, his sons Moḥammad Khan (q.v.) and Zayn-al-ʿĀbedin Khan Kermāni (d. 1360/1941) succeeded him, followed by the latter’s descendants, namely Abu’l-Qāsem Khan Ebrāhimi (d. 1389/1969) and ʿAbd-al-Reżā Khan Ebrāhimi. After ʿAbd-al-Reżā’s assassination in December 1979, Sayyed ʿAli Musawi (d. 2015), an Iraqi Shaikhi religious scholar (ʿālem), became the head of the order, transferring the center of the Kerman School to Basra.

Moḥammad-Karim Khan played a central role in consolidating Shaikhism in the mid-19h century, notably by introducing many ulema to the Shaikhi doctrine. His students founded other Shaikhi communities and study circles outside the Kerman region. For instance, the Shaikhi community of Fārs was founded by Ḥājj ʿAbd-al-Ṣāḥeb Davāni, a religious scholar from the Davān district of Kāzerun, who is said to have met the Kermāni master on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He then decided to join the Kermāni Shaikhi school, and subsequently some of the city’s inhabitants followed his choice. Among the students of Moḥammad-Karim Kermāni (not to be confused with Moḥammad Karim Khan Kermāni) trained by him at the Ebrāhimiya School of Kerman, and then sent to animate Shaikhi circles in various regions of Iran or Iraq, one may mention Mirzā Neʿmat-Allāh Rażawi and Shaikh Ḥosayn Mazidi. Shaikh Ḥosayn moved to Basra and served the Shaikhi community there until he was succeeded by Shaikh Ṭāher Mazidi. Moḥammad-Bāqer Hamadāni (d. 1319/1901, q.v.) led a study circle in Nāʾin, which included the elites close to the governor, Mirzā Sayyed Moḥammad Khan Nāʾini (Moḥammad-Karim Kermāni, p. 45). After Moḥammad-Karim Khan’s death, Moḥammad-Bāqer founded a new branch of Shaikhism known as Jandaqi, Eṣfahāni, Mirzā Bāqeriya, or Hamadāni(Hermann, 2007; idem, 2017, pp. 28-29). It can also be noted that Moḥammad-Karim Khan was the first Shaikhi master to compose a practical treatise (Resāla-ye ʿamaliya) on feqh (jurisprudence). This work, Jāmaʿ al-aḥkām al-šarāyaʿ, which was widely consulted by the Shaikhis, indicates the prominent role of Moḥammad-Karim Khan in structuring the religious life of the Kermāni Shaikhi community.

Moḥammad-Karim Khan’s influence on the history of the Shaikhi school was also important because of his role in establishing an endowment deed (waqf) that was responsible for the consolidation of the school in Kerman city (Hermann and Rezai). A large complex, known as Majmuʿa-ye Ebrāhim Khan or Ẓahiriya was established in Kerman under the governorship of Ẓahir-al-Dawla. It consisted of a central bazaar, an annex bazaar, a water reserve (āb-anbār), a public bath (ḥammam), and the Ebrāhimiya School. On the advice of Shaikh Neʿmat-Allāh Baḥrāni, one of Kerman’s influential scholars at that time, Ẓahir-al-Dawla decided to set up this complex through a waqf. Twenty-three years later, in 1255/1839, a conflict occurred between two Kermani clerics concerning the management of this waqf. One of them, Ḥājj Sayyed Āqā Jawād Širāzi (d. 1287/1870), was the emām-e jomʿa (q.v.) of the city and the son-in-law of Ẓahir-al-Dawla. He was also one of the main opponents of Moḥammad-Karim Khan. His rival, Āḵond Mollā ʿAli Tuni Aʿmā, was a mojtahed popular with the people of Kerman. Unable to settle their differences, they turned to Moḥammad-Karim Khan, who was then 30 years old and teaching at the Ebrāhimiya School. After reviewing the waqf document, Moḥammad-Karim Khan declared it invalid for two reasons. On the one hand, neither one of the litigants had respected all of the obligations of the waqf as they had not been fully providing lessons in all the disciplines supposed to be taught at the school. On the other hand, the management was inefficient, and there were many unpaid debts (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Hedāyat al-ṭālebin, p. 158). However, Moḥammad-Karim Khan referred the document to one of the most influential jurists of the period, Sayyed Moḥammad-Bāqer Šafti (d. 1260/1844), who confirmed the opinion of the Shaikhi master. We do not know precisely the outcome of the conflict, but it seems that, in the absence of Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Āqā Jawād Širāzi and Mollā ʿAli Tuni Aʿmā monopolized for a time the management of the waqf and the premises of the Ebrāhimiya School, mostly due to their influence on the non-Shaikhi students (ṭollāb) of the city, but Shaikhi students cunningly introduced themselves into the school at night and managed to take control of it again (Modaressi Čahārdahi, 1955, pp. 261-62)

During the month of Ramażān 1262/August 1846, members of the Ebrāhimi family established the Ebrāhim Khan complex and three arable lands. The first donor (wāqef) was Moḥammad-Karim Khan himself. He owned only 1/65th of all of this property. It was only after his initiative that sixteen of his brothers and sisters also joined their shares. The properties gathered together were numerous and consequential. It can therefore be assumed that the revenues raised from this waqf were quite substantial. A few years later, efforts were made to bring together all the components of the Ebrāhim Khan complex and the land. In 1284/1867, and then in 1287/1870, the waqf was supplemented by contributions from other members of Moḥammad-Karim Khan’s family. Some 6 to 7/10ths of the revenues was to be allocated solely for the functioning of the Ebrāhimiya School and partly redistributed in the form of allowances and stipends for study. It seems that it was mostly this waqf that made it possible to finance the organization of studies in religious sciences for the Kermāni Shaikhi community. It is also possible that Moḥammad-Karim Khan supplemented these revenues in order to finance the running of the Ebrāhimiya School, as well as that of other circles scattered in Iran and elsewhere, also using in addition some of the ḵoms that he received. This waqf also financed the religious ceremonies of the community, notably of ʿĀšurāʾ (q.v.), and the dissemination of the works of the masters of the order (for more information about this important waqf, see Hermann and Rezai, pp. 95-100).

Moḥammad-Karim Khan indicated in his waqf-nāma that the manager (motawalli) of the waqf had to be the director of the Ebrāhimiya School, at that time Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Khan Yazdi (d. 1288/1871). Upon the death of Moḥammad-Karim Khan, other more modest waqfs were formed by members of the school to finance the needs of the community.

Refutation of Babism. Moḥammad-Karim Khan also remains famous for his polemics against Babism. He wrote five or six treatises on this subject. It seems that only four of them are known: Ezhāq al-bāṭel dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb(written in 1261/1845), Resāla-ye tir-e šahāb dar rāndan-e Bāb-e ḵosrān-maʾāb (written 1262/1846), al-Šahāb al-ṯāqeb(written in 1265/1849), Resāla dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb (written in 1283/1867; Ar. tr. as Resāla fi’l-radd ʿalā al-Bāb al-mortāb), and Rojum al-šayāṭen, which seems to be lost. Moḥammad Karim Khan is certainly the Shiʿi ulema contemporary with the Bāb who wrote the greatest number of treaties against Babism. He was particularly pleased to note that the region of Kerman has known very few conversions to Babism: “Thank God, I saw no Bābi, and they have not debated with me. Thank God, there is not a single Bābi in my region” (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb, p. 58). According to him, the influence of Kermāni Shaikhis on the city of Yazd had also allowed that region to experience relatively few conversions to Babism (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb, pp. 27-28; idem, Si faṣl dar jawāb-e irādāt …, p. 34). Moḥammad-Karim Khan mocked the various claims and arguments of the Bāb that he considered ridiculous and contradictory, noting in particular that the latter claimed successively to be the representative of the Imām of Time, then the messiah himself, and finally the prophet bringing a new scripture, the Bāyān. He also noted the inadequacy of his Arabic (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb …, pp. 17-20; idem, “Resāla-ye tir-e šahāb …,” p. 199; Hermann, 2017, pp. 249-57).

According to Moḥammad-Karim Khan, support for the ruler Nāṣer-al-Din Shah in his struggle against Babism was a religious obligation (wājeb) incumbent on Muslim subjects. However, he presented two types of disciples of the Bāb who should not be killed under any circumstances. He first refers to those who, without understanding the apostasy of the Bāb, gave him their support because of their natural and traditional trust in the sayyeds (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb, p. 24). The second category concerns rogues or brigands (luṭi) and opportunists looking only for power. Moḥammad-Karim Khan considers that the latter only saw the claims of the Bāb, and especially the call to jehād, as a means to create disturbances and perhaps to acquire loot. They are, therefore, not designated as heretics. Moḥammad-Karim Khan believed that those who must be fought were first and foremost those who attested to their belief in the message of Babism after clearly hearing the claims of the Bāb and in particular his rejection of the šariʿa. Moḥammad-Karim Khan also wrote a fatwā (authoritative ruling) for the purpose of condemning to death two Babi missionaries who went to Kerman (Mirzā Ḥosayn Hamadāni, tr. Browne, p. 200). For Moḥammad-Karim Khan, it was above all thanks to the ruler Nāṣer-al-Din Shah that Iran had avoided the victory of Babism over Islam. He dedicated his book, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb-e mortāb, to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, who had commissioned it. He says that the king’s action has limited the expansion of the movement in Iran and put an end to the Bābi revolts, and he particularly criticized the attitude of the Ottoman authorities, who had guaranteed the security of some Babi/Bahai leaders in their territory, and called on all the ulema to mobilize (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb …, pp. 22-24).

It is interesting to note that, despite the accusations of some clerics that the claims of the Bāb were in conformity with the doctrine of rokn-e rābeʿ, Moḥammad-Karim Khan regularly reiterated this doctrine in his first refutations of Babism. Not only did Moḥammad-Karim Khan recall the importance of rokn-e rābeʿ within Shiʿite doctrine, he also argued against the Bāb on behalf of the same fourth pillar (Moḥammad-Karim Khan, Resāla dar radd-e Bāb …, pp. 210-32).

The numerous historiographical problems in evaluating the relationship between Shaikhism and Babism have been pointed out elsewhere (Hermann, 2017, pp. 216-31). This question is all the more important in dealing with the life and work of Moḥammad-Karim Khan because the latter occupies a central place in this debate. Indeed, as the successor of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti and the senior Shiʿi ulema who wrote anti-Babi treatises during the life of the Bāb and after his death, the few mentions of the biography of Moḥammad-Karim Khan found in critical studies in European languages most often concern his opposition in the face of Babism and more generally the societal evolutions of the Qajar era. Most of these works were done by authors whose lack of scientific objectivity is evident. Louis Nicolas, for example, who considered that Babism came from Shaikhism, criticized Moḥammad-Karim Khan and the Kermāni branch in particularly harsh terms (Nicholas, I, pp. xvii-xviii, III, p. 16).

Thus, Moḥammad-Karim Khan was often presented as a conformist religious scholar breaking with the supposed “heterodoxy” of Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi and Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti and seen as a kind of “traitor” to them. For example, Denis MacEoin presented Babism as the inheritance of an esoteric Shaikhism, associating Moḥammad-Karim Khan’s theology with a Shiʿa “orthodoxy” that excommunicated Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾi (MacEoin, 2009, p. 139). For Mangol Bayat, Moḥammad-Karim Khan and the Kermāni Šayḵi branch, for their part, are seen as a deviation that breaks with the “socio-political revolutionary” education or the “progressive reform movement” of the first two teachers of the school and which would find their full measure in Bahaism. Moḥammad-Karim Khan is also blacklisted for refusing to commit to political and social changes under the rule of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah. Bayat also notes the lack of interest of the Kermāni Shaikhiis in politics, which she equates with intellectual stagnation as opposed to Babi vitality (Bayat, pp. 84, 86, 178, 181). However, no analytical study of the work of Moḥammad-Karim Khan and his successors, which seems little known to these researchers, tends to support those interpretations.