ABSTRACT
Sufism was arguably the most influential mode of piety across Iran when the Safavids came to power. Moreover, the founder of the Safavid empire, Shah Esma‘il, hailed from a Sufi family and was considered to be a ‘Perfect Master’ or morshed-e kamel by his devotees. Sufism has its humble origins in disparate pietistic movements that emerged across Central Asia and the Fertile Crescent in the eighth and ninth centuries. The Qezelbash fought as holy warriors against non-Muslim states in this frontier region, and both Joneyd and Heydar died on the battlefield. The religious outlook of the Qezelbash was highly syncretistic, combining shamanic elements of their Turkish ancestors with ‘extremist’ Shi‘i as well as Sufi beliefs. The Nurbakhshi network branched off of the larger Kobraviyya network after the former’s namesake founder, Sayyed Mohammad Nurbakhsh, instigated a rebellion during Shahrokh’s time claiming to be the awaited Mahdi.
