Yahya al-Shirvani al-Bakubi (also spelled Bakuvi) was a 15th-century Sufi mystic from Shamakhi, who established the Khalwati order.
Yahya al-Shirvani al-Bakubi (also spelled Bakuvi) was a 15th-century Sufi mystic from Shamakhi, who established the Khalwati order.
Yahya was born in Shamakhi in the region of Shirvan, [1] then ruled by the Shirvanshahs. [2] "Khalwati" is derived from the Arabic word Khalwa (Khalwat in Persian), which means meaning "retreat", "isolation", and "solitude". This was connected to a fundamental principle of the order, which instructed members to spend 40 days in a small cell during solitary retreat once a year, during which they were to fast and pray continuously. The Khalwati order consider their founder to be the Sufi master and teacher Umar al-Khalwati, who died in 1397 in the city of Tabriz in northwestern Iran. [3] However, according to German orientalist Hans Joachim Kissling, Umar al-Khalwati's successor Yahya was the real creator of the Khalwati order, and was not given credit for it since the Khalwati members wanted the name of their order to be associated with Umar al-Khalwati. [4] According to Mehrdad Kia, Yahya "is considered to be the brotherhood's actual founder". [3]
Yahya lived in an era when there was a great deal of political unrest and religious activity in the Caucasus, Iranian Azerbaijan, and Anatolia. This was the environment in which Yahya's operations were occurring. [5] Following a disagreement with a rival Sufi, Yahya relocated from Shamakhi to Baku in c. 1460. There he established a prominent religious and political movement. The Ottoman historian and hagiographer Taşköprüzade reported that Yahya "attracted around him ten thousand people. He sent his khalifas [Sufi delegates] to all parts of the region, and was the first person to do this." [6] Yahya is the author of Wird al-Sattar, which members of most Khalwati branches are required to read. He died in Baku in 1464. [1]
Following his death, the Khalwati order's headquarters were relocated to Amasya in north central Anatolia by Yahya's followers Pir Ilyas and Zakariya al-Khalwati. This relocation may have been related to Pir Ilyas's personal background; or due to a conflict with the Shirvanshah at Shamakhi, or it may have been the result of their support of the Safavids during Shaykh Junayd's campaign in 1460, which ended in his defeat and killing at the hands of the Shirvanshah Khalilullah I. Given the Safavid and Khalwati shared origins, rituals, philosophies, and spiritual forefathers, it is difficult to pinpoint their precise relationship. [6]
Ismail I was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires. The rule of Ismail I is one of the most vital in the history of Iran. Before his accession in 1501, Iran, since its conquest by the Arabs eight-and-a-half centuries earlier, had not existed as a unified country under native Iranian rule. Although many Iranian dynasties rose to power amidst this whole period, it was only under the Buyids that a vast part of Iran properly returned to Iranian rule (945–1055).
Shirvan is a historical region in the eastern Caucasus, as known in both pre-Islamic Sasanian and Islamic times. Today, the region is an industrially and agriculturally developed part of the Republic of Azerbaijan that stretches between the western shores of the Caspian Sea and the Kura River, centered on the Shirvan Plain.
The Khalwati order is an Islamic Sufi brotherhood (tariqa). Along with the Naqshbandi, Qadiri, and Shadhili orders, it is among the most famous Sufi orders. The order takes its name from the Arabic word khalwa, meaning “method of withdrawal or isolation from the world for mystical purposes.”
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The Palace of the Shirvanshahs is a 15th-century palace built by the Shirvanshahs and described by UNESCO as "one of the pearls of Azerbaijan's architecture". It is located in the Inner City of Baku, Azerbaijan and, together with the Maiden Tower, forms an ensemble of historic monuments inscribed under the UNESCO World Heritage List of Historical Monuments. The complex contains the main building of the palace, Divanhane, the burial-vaults, the shah's mosque with a minaret, Seyid Yahya Bakuvi's mausoleum, south of the palace, a portal in the east, Murad's gate, a reservoir and the remnants of a bath house. Earlier, there was an ancient mosque, next to the mausoleum. There are still ruins of the bath to the west of the tomb.
Shamakhi is a city in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Shamakhi District. The city's estimated population as of 2010 was 31,704. It is famous for its traditional dancers, the Shamakhi Dancers, and also for perhaps giving its name to the Soumak rugs.
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam in which Muslims seek divine love and truth through direct personal experience of God. This mystic tradition within Islam developed in several stages of growth, emerging first in the form of early asceticism, based on the teachings of Hasan al-Basri, before entering the second stage of more classical mysticism of divine love, as promoted by al-Ghazali and Attar of Nishapur, and finally emerging in the institutionalized form of today's network of fraternal Sufi orders, based on Sufis such as Rumi and Yunus Emre. At its core, however, Sufism remains an individual mystic experience, and a Sufi can be characterized as one who seeks the annihilation of the ego in God.
The history of Azerbaijan is understood as the history of the region now forming the Republic of Azerbaijan. Topographically, the land is contained by the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains in the north, the Caspian Sea in the east, and the Armenian Highlands in the west. In the south, its natural boundaries are less distinct, and here the country merges with the Iranian Plateau.
Shirvan Khanate was a Caucasian khanate under Iranian suzerainty, which controlled the Shirvan region from 1761 to 1820.
Farrukh Yasar was the last independent Shirvanshah of Shirvan (1465–1500). In 1500, the first Safavid ruler, Ismail I, decisively defeated and killed Farrukh Yasar during his conquest of the area. Descendants of Farrukh Yasar continued to rule Shirvan under Safavid suzerainty, until 1538, when Ismail's son and successor Tahmasp I appointed its first Safavid governor, and made it a fully functioning Safavid province.
The Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Turkoman tribal confederation. Founded in the Diyarbakir region by Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg, they ruled parts of present-day eastern Turkey from 1378 to 1503, and in their last decades also ruled Armenia, Azerbaijan, much of Iran, Iraq, and Oman where the ruler of Hormuz recognised Aq Qoyunlu suzerainty. The Aq Qoyunlu empire reached its zenith under Uzun Hasan.
The History of the Shī‘ah Imāmate Alevī Ṭarīqah or The History of the Alevism is that of a community of Muslims of Anatolia and neighbouring regions.
The Shirvanshahs were the rulers of Shirvan from 861 to 1538. The first ruling line were the Yazidids, an originally Arab and later Persianized dynasty, who became known as the Kasranids. The second ruling line were the Darbandi, distant relatives of the Yazidids/Kasranids.
Sheikh Junayd was the son of Shaykh Ibrahim, father of Shaykh Haydar and grandfather of the founder of Safavid dynasty, Shah Ismail I. After the death of his father, he assumed the leadership of the Safaviyya from 1447–1460.
Shaykh Haydar or Sheikh Haydar was the successor of his father as leader of the Safavid order from 1460 to 1488. Haydar maintained the policies and political ambitions initiated by his father. Under Sheikh Haydar, the order became crystallized as a political movement with an increasingly extremist heterodox Twelver Shi'i coloring and Haydar was viewed as a divine figure by his followers. Shaykh Haydar was responsible for instructing his followers to adopt the scarlet headgear of 12 gores commemorating The Twelve Imams, which led to them being designated by the Turkish term Qizilbash "Red Head".
Akhsitan III was the 29th ruler of Shirvan, now part of Azerbaijan. He is thought to be the son of Shirvanshah Farrukhzad II.
The conquest of Shirvan was the first campaign of Ismail, the leader of the Safavid order. In late 1500, Ismail marched into Shirvan, and, despite heavily outnumbered, decisively defeated the then incumbent Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar in a pitched battle, in which the latter and his entire army were killed. The conquest resulted in the toppling of the Shirvanshahs as autonomous rulers, who had ruled large parts of the Caucasus for centuries, and the incorporation of their domain.
The sack of Shamakhi took place on 18 August 1721, when rebellious Sunni Lezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi. The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked.
Pir Mardakan Khanqah is historic architectural monument located in the village of Goylar, 16 km south-west of Shamakhi district of the Azerbaijan Republic. The complex includes a tomb, a dynasty building and small auxiliary buildings. It was built in XIII–XIV centuries. According to some sources, this is the tomb of Seyid Mardakani, one of the famous scholars of his time.
Küçük Ahmed Pasha was an Ottoman military commander who twice served as beylerbey (governor-general) of Damascus, one term as beylerbey of Anatolia and died commanding troops against Safavid Iran. By eliminating the rebel Ilyas Pasha in Anatolia and the powerful Druze chief Fakhr al-Din in Mount Lebanon and his command role against the Safavids, Ahmed Pasha played an important part in the Ottoman imperial revival under Sultan Murad IV.
