Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran (review)

This book is a deeply learned study of the government and society of Eastern Iran and Central Asia under Shahrukh (1409–1447), the son and successor of Tamerlane. Iran was then governed by a Turko-Mongolian Chagatay military elite backed by a bureaucracy recruited among local administrators and religious officials. Local cooperation was the basis of central government power.

The crucial political fact of the era was that the Timurid regime did not have a monopoly of force. All strata of the population were organized and capable of military action. Manz thus sees Timurid political life in terms of the relations among the central and local elites. Her work follows the precedents set by Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), stressing the relations among the major strata of the population, and by Roy Mottohedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (New York, 2001), emphasizing personal and clientele relationships.

The most important contribution of the book is its depiction of how fluid this society was. No sphere of power was exclusively controlled by one class or group. The local power holders varied from place to place. For example, in Samarqand, the major religious figures took the lead; in Isfahan, local headmen, viziers, and the chief judge shared power. No concept of specialized authority with dedicated functions or clear-cut boundaries between the various social strata was in evidence. Bureaucratic officials might also serve as military officers. Artisans and ‘ulama (religious leaders) might also have military roles. Timurid society functioned not through structured institutions but through a culture of personal loyalties and political entrepreneurship. Power was an individual achievement.

A marvelous and original chapter reveals that religious and spiritual authority were equally diffuse. Given the prevailing beliefs in the intercession of saints, visitation of graves to ask for divine favors, magic, charms, amulets, exorcism, as well as in Qur’an, law, theology, and mysticism, many people had access to the spiritual realm, including rulers, ‘ulama, sayyids (descendents of the prophet), Sufis, dervishes, poets and madmen, and ordinary worshipers. Even though offices, endowments, and family connections gave power to shaykhs, religious leaders had to attract followers by their personal qualities and performances. The diffusion of sources of power and authority within the religious realm, along with the fluid competition for recognition and influence, mirrored that within the political realm.

Yet this book’s atomistic image of the society is not entirely persuasive. It is like having a scorecard that identifies the players without seeing the game. A comparison with Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (New York, 1995), points to a number of potentially important issues. The household organizations that lay behind the power holders are invisible. So too are the network links and the moments of consultation and coordination, however informal, that created political factions among military lords, landlords, merchants, and urban headmen and their cohorts or among scholars, saints and shrines, and their devotees. Cultural values, methods of acquiring status and influence, career paths, and support systems—informal or otherwise—all are conspicuous by their absence.

This admirably researched book explores the historical events in exhaustive detail and provides rich anecdotal material about the policies and careers of the Timurid elites. Maybe the sources do not allow further exploration, or maybe Manz’s narrative method and conceptual agenda have shown their limitations.