The book under review treats intellectual networks during the Timurid era by studying Sharaf al-Dīn ‘Alī Yazdī’s (d. 1454) life and work. Yazdī was a poet, historian, mathematician, and occult scientist in the city of Yazd. He traveled far and wide from Deccan to Cairo. He is the celebrated author of several historical texts such as the Ẓafar-nāma. The book is organized in eight chapters. In chapter 1, the author presents the thesis, justifying the book’s well-ordered structure. In chapter 2, Binbaş describes the background of Yazdī’s life and works, focusing on the intellectual contexts of the period. After a short discussion on Yazdī’s birth date, the author moves on to Yazdī’s biography. The chapter delineates the relationship between Yazdī and Ṣā’in al-Dīn ‘Alī Turka (1369–1432), their travels, and their studies, based on sources such as Manāqib-i Shāh Ni’matullāh Valī, Kāzirūnī’s Sullam al-Samāvāt. Yazdī’s association with the court forms the next part of the chapter, especially his relationship with Ibrāhīm Sulṭān, a learned patron at whose court art and literature flourished. During Sulṭān’s reign, he produced a history of three volumes, dealing with Timur, Shāhrukh, and Sulṭān. This chapter shows well the fluctuation of the life of an intellectual in fifteenth-century Iran.
Chapter 3 concentrates on Yazdī’s networks with different hierarchies of Sufis in Khorasan and Central Asia. Binbaş ably demonstrates the impact of informal networks in the public sphere, problematizing the notion of informal networks and how fluid such networks are. Yazdī’s collaboration with the circle of Shah Nimatullāh Valī in Fars and the Khvājagān in Khorasan are examined, especially his meeting and conversation with the mystic poet Jāmī and the latter’s suspicions of Yazdī’s ideological inclination. The chapter also studies Yazdī as a master riddler, who writes short poems called mu’ammā, hiding a person’s name in letters. Binbaş further contextualizes Yazdī’s views on the science of letters, which aimed at deciphering and experiencing the divine unity.
Chapter 4 is another intriguing chapter, dealing with influential figures such as Turka and Sayyid Ḥusayn Akhlātī. Thanks to Binbaş’s analysis, we know about Akhlātī’s life, work, and network with Sufis, ‘ulamā, and politicians in a broad area from Cairo to Deccan and Isfahan. Akhlātī, a master theoretician of the science of letters, was the teacher of both Turka and Yazdī. He is reported to have had an extravagant lifestyle, was accused of Shiism and closely involved with occult sciences, and had large followers going beyond the Timurid areas. Here Binbaş devotes his attention to Shaykh Bedreddin, an Ottoman jurist and leader of rebellions against the Ottoman dynasty in 1416, showing how transregional informal networks were. It was Akhlātī who transformed him into a revolutionary mystic. The chapter ends with a section on the science of letters and the empowerment of the informal networks. Binbaş demonstrates how this science was interpreted by different Sufis and occultists, relating the science to messianic and millenarian movements, which were very popular in fifteenth-century Iran.
In chapters 5 and 6, Binbaş deals with historiography. The large number of bulky Timurid chronicles is not easy to methodologically approach, classify, and contextualize, but the author succeeds in offering us a clear and insightful analysis. In chapter 6, Binbaş examines the chronology of Yazdī’s historical output, examining his work in some detail. The virtue of this chapter lies in bringing together scholarship on Yazdī’s oeuvre in a succinct manner, analyzing individual works, their textual history, and their sources. Binbaş focuses on Yazdī’s Muqaddima, Dībācha, and Ẓafar-nāma, which possesses a fine style, precision, and eye for details.
In chapter 7 Binbaş treats Yazdī’s political philosophy, delineating his theory of kingship in which he combined the unity of religion and politics by centering the affairs of this world and the other world on the “Perfect Man,” ideally a perfect king. Binbaş traces the evolution of Yazdī’s theory of khilāfat-i ilāhī (the divine caliphate) and khilāfat-i sūrī (the external caliphate), which he blended with intricate letter symbolism. Binbaş demonstrates that Shāhrukh’s abolishment of the Chinggisid law, or yasa, and establishment of the Sharia, was not to resurface the Sharia but a strategy to outstrip his rivals, especially Iskandar who favored the notion of a “perfect king,” i.e., “a king in command of knowledge of both this world and the other world” (261).
The book is a splendid introduction to one of the key periods in Iranian history. Written with a smooth pen, it studies Yazdī’s life with many original and profound analyses. We should be thankful to Binbaş who has painstakingly analyzed the life, the transregional network, and the works of Sharaf al-Dīn ‘Alī Yazdī. I warmly recommend the book to everyone who is interested in the Timurid era.
