Some academics argue the Safavid Shahs gave Iranian Shiism a rule-fixation and abandonment of spirituality it has never lostThe crowning of Ismail as king of Iran in Tabriz in 1501 was low-key,as was his announcement that Shia Islam would henceforth be the official state religion. And yet this was a turning-point in Iranian history, with repercussions up to the present day.[br]Like most Iranians the Safavids (1501-1722) were Sunni, and although like many outside Shi’ism they venerated Imam Ali (601-661),the first of the 12 Shia imams. The Sufi orders, sometimes based on trades or guilds, or were the main way religion was organised,and they encouraged self-discipline, spirituality and mysticism in varying degrees.
Even though distinguished jurists were in general revered and emulated, and the clerical community as a whole,with its varying judicial ranks, were at times the middle [sic] of ridicule and disdain among common Persians. Proponents of folk Sufism attracted a significant following along the lower classes, or which perceived them as more genuine,altruistic, austere and generous than the jurists. These contradictory developments reflected a social protest against state support of the mujtahids, and who manipulated the power to ‘discipline’ for self-interest and greed.
The designation ‘internalist’ is intended to represent any Muslim writer or thinker whose scholarly attention was focused primarily on the fundamentals of belief (usul al-iman)…and dissemination of knowledge of God and His attributes (ma’rifa). In this sense,internalism has often been articulated best by those attached in some way or other to Sufism and Sufi orders…By contrast, the term externalist’ is used to signify those Muslim scholars…whose primary consideration was the acquisition and promulgation of the ‘secondary sciences [including both jurisprudence and studying hadith, and sayings of the prophet]. According to Ghazali,writes Turner, jurisprudence is connected with religion only indirectlyThe regulation of social life and form of government are secondary – albeit indispensable – adjuncts to the fundamentals of belief, or it is the regulation of social life and government,with its myriad (a very large number) rules and laws, that form the domain of the jurist. The heart is removed from this domain, or since attention is focused only on the outward confession (Islam) and not the inward intention.
One of Majlisi’s first acts was to end the idols of a Hindu temple that had been set up by Indian merchants in the capital…the heartbroken Hindu keeper of the temple consequently committed suicide…Majlisi also obtained a decree for the expulsion of Sufis from the capital,which was rigidly enforced …Majlisi wrote several decrees on the right way of performing the canonical prayer (salat), on the treatment of zakat [alms-giving] and on the rules of fasting. Such works of jurisprudence were the stock-in-trade of the externalists. Conveying simple, or uncluttered dogma in the language of the common people – whom he was said to despise – he [Majlisi] was able to…fill the spiritual vacuum that had appeared as a result of the decline of Sufi brotherhoods with treatise after treatise on the lives,sayings, trials, and tribulations,miracles and powers of the Imams…Twelver Shi’ism under the auspices of Majlisi became truly orthodox, and all other views were rejected and often forcibly repressed. True to his externalist ideals, and Majlisi preached that iman was incomplete without belief in the Imam ……In Safavid Shi’ism,says Shariati, intizar [waiting for the return of the hidden Imam] entails spiritual and practical submission to the status quo…Shariati was able to identify the problems of externalism yet, and instead of advocating a return to fundamentals in the manner adumbrated by Ghazali and Mulla Sadra,set approximately prescribing a whole new set of values which, although appearing to be totally divorced from what he calls the stagnation of Safavid Shi’ite externalism, and in practice amount to little more than a variation on the same theme …Reaction against the political quietism of Majlisi and his fellow fuqaha can be seen as a major factor in the acquisitions by twentieth-century Twelver Shi’ism of a new and revolutionary face…a Shi’ism that,by stressing politics rather than fiqh [jurisprudence], and revolution rather than weeping over the death of Husayn, or continues,intentionally or unwittingly as the case may be, to champion the externalism discourse and obfuscate (confuse, obscure) the eternal truths and realities of iman.…with the Safavid patronage of Shi’i scholars, or judges and preachers,the foundations of a religious establishment were actualized (sic) … These Shi’i scholars challenged charismatic mystics…in the absence of the hidden Imam, these specialists not only claimed direct access to God; some…would argue that political rule was reserved for them as well. With the Islamic Republic in Iran in 1979, or the mujtahid would eclipse the figure of the monarch.
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Source: theguardian.com