The Empires of the Near East and India: Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities

I. The Leading Religious College in Early Modern Iran

MARYAM MOAZZEN

Ten years after his coronation, Shah Sultan Husayn (d. 1722), who had assumed power August 6, 1694, at the age of twenty-six, commissioned the construction of the Madrasa-yi Sultani. The madrasa was also known as Madrasa-yi Madar-i Shah (The College of the Queen Mother) and Madrasa-yi Chahar Bagh (The College of the Four Gardens). It is currently called Imam Jaʿfar-i Sadiq Seminary (Hawza) (in honor of the sixth Shiʿi imam). However, the name given in the madrasa’s deeds of endowment (waqf-namas) is Madrasa-yi Sultani (the Royal Religious College).¹ It is the largest of its kind in Iran apart from the Madrasa-yi Ghiyathiyya at Khargird, which was built between 1438 and 1444.

The construction of the Madrasa-yi Sultani began in 1704. The shah ordered eunuch Aqa Kamal, the treasurer of the royal court (sahib jamʿ-i khazana), to supervise its construction.2 According to the college’s endowment deed (waqf-nama) dated 1706, part of which is translated below, Shah Sultan Husayn endowed the entire madrasa-mosque complex, its dome, aiwan (also spelled ivan or iwan), and courtyard for the benefit of all Shiʿa Muslims. He dedicated the chambers around its courtyard as well as buildings, reservoirs, a well, a kitchen, and the rest of the madrasa structure to the students of religious sciences and to the people who prayed in the mosque of the madrasa.³ ‘Abd al-Husayn Khatunabadi reports that “Shah Sultan Husayn set about building the Royal Madrasa in the Chahar Bagh district in Isfahan in 1704 and its construction was completed in 1707.”⁴ Nonetheless, various completion dates are mentioned in epigraphs at different places in the madrasa. The entrance gate mentions the year 1711, whereas inside the madrasa is written 1708. The madrasa’s chambers also mention the year 1708, whereas the dome says 1711. Finally, the dome’s inscriptions contain the year 1714 and the madrasa’s veranda mentions 1709. Therefore, we may assume that the madrasa was built over the span of ten years, from 1704 to 1714. Some historians say the building is a mosque that has rooms for students. In the words of Muhammad Mahdi b. Muhammad Rida Isfahani: “The entire mosque is a madrasa.”⁵ That said, all other primary sources refer to this complex as a madrasa.

In his Ganjinah-yi athar-i tarikhi-i Isfahan, Lutfallah Hunarfar states that Shah Sultan Husayn’s mother built a three-story caravanserai, which was known as Sara-yi Fathiyya (in recent decades, Hotel ʿAbbasi was built in its place), alongside the madrasa, as well as a market called Bazar-i Buland (currently known as Bazar-i Hunar, with a thousand two-story shops) that donated their revenues to the madrasa-mosque complex.⁶ ʿAbd al-Husayn Sipinta also attributes the construction of the madrasa to the shah’s mother and says that Shah Sultan Husayn only repaired it.⁷ Historical and biographical sources, however, do not provide much information about her, and in the endowment deed Shah Sultan Husayn is named as the sole patron of the madrasa.

In addition to the aforesaid properties, between 1709 and 1714 Shah Sultan Husayn donated vast agricultural lands and urban properties to support the madrasa’s professor and students and to pay for the upkeep of the buildings and the religious activities stipulated by the terms of the endowment. The shah gifted several buildings, including a coffeehouse (qahwa-khana), public bathhouses, reservoirs, and subterranean canals. He created the post of wazir-i Halal, a royal official, whose sole responsibility was to oversee the properties dedicated to the Madrasa-yi Sultani and other charitable endowments he had founded.⁸

The Madrasa-yi Sultani is about 8,500 square meters. The length of its courtyard is about 65.5 meters, and its width is 55.5 meters. Its facade, dome, and minarets are adorned with tiled mosaics, and the architectural features and interior decoration are great examples of Islamic geometric art. The entrance portal, decorated with gold facade and silver, and the tile works inside the madrasa are masterpieces of prime workmanship. Shah Sultan-Husayn ordered ʿAbd al-Latif of Tabriz, the goldsmith of the royal household, to create the door.⁹ No expense seems to have been spared for this later addition, completed in 1714. The doors were made of twenty mans of silver, and the contemporary Sayyid ʿAbd al-Husayn Khatunabadi reports that the sum of eight hundred tumans was spent on the main door of the madrasa alone—an enormous sum.¹⁰ On the day of their installment, the city was illumined with lights.

The students’ rooms were built around the large rectangular courtyard, interrupted only by the deeply recessed double-height aywans in the center of each wall. The Madrasa-yi Sultani has 150 chambers. Some sources give different numbers for the rooms: Muhammad Zaman Tabrizi reports that it contains 156 rooms furnished for students.11 The madrasa’s floor plan, however, shows only 150 chambers. A special room located north of the portal was prepared for the personal use of Shah Sultan Husayn.¹² Although Mir Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi (d. 1715), the madrasa’s first professor, began teaching there in 1706–7, Madrasa-yi Sultani was not inaugurated until 1710.

THE ENDOWMENT DEEDS OF THE MADRASA-YI SULTANI

Although all but one of the original waqf-namas of the Madrasa-yi Sultani are lost, copies of several of the madrasa’s endowment deeds enable us to determine the extent of its endowed properties (mawqufat). Muhammad Nadir Nasiri Muqaddam published a waqf-nama of the madrasa dated 1709.¹³ The original text of this waqf-nama is housed in the Iran-i Bastan Museum.¹⁴ Muhammad Taqi Danishpazhuh, who had seen the document, described it as follows: “Waqf-nama number 8549, held in the Ancient Iran Museum, was written by the calligrapher Mirza Ahmad Nayrizi in 1720 on European paper and its title is written in gold. It is lavishly decorated with brilliant colour.”¹⁵ ʿAbd al-Husayn Sipinta published the deeds of endowment of Madrasa-yi Sultani based on copies of the originals.¹⁶ The current research is based on copies of the waqf-namas, kept in the Idara-yi awqaf-i Isfahan, and Sipinta’s edition.

The deeds of endowment of the Madrasa-yi Sultani provide a wealth of information about the way this major religious and cultural institution was managed and how its resources were put to use. As stated in the deeds of endowment, the shah’s purpose in establishing the Madrasa-yi Sultani was “to disseminate the seeds of good words” and also for the Shiʿa and the faithful “to benefit from this pious foundation, so that they would pray for the survival and longevity of the shah’s rule.”17 Moreover, in the deeds of the madrasa, waqf is emphasized as an exchange and an investment that would bear abundant returns, which could be repaid either here and now or in the hereafter. In the waqf-namas, anticipation of divine returns—especially as the result of the prayers of the poor, given in return for charities—is expressed in frequent statements.¹⁸ One group of beneficiaries of this pious endowment included fourteen Qurʾan reciters who were stipulated to beseech God’s favor for the shah and to be advocates for his personal quest for salvation while performing their prayers.¹⁹ Aware of the essential role of the waqf institution in promoting religio-cultural and educational and social welfare, Shah Sultan Husayn made use of waqf as a mechanism to foster socio-religious and spiritual cohesion in addition to projecting a pious image of himself. As the deeds of endowment reveal, Shah Sultan Husayn assigned a part of the revenues of the Madrasa-yi Sultani’s waqfs to people visiting the shrines of the imams and sponsoring other pious activities. In the waqf-nama issued in 1711, Shah Sultan Husayn stipulates that “the sum of twelve Tabrizi tumans was to be given either to four Twelver Shiʿis wanting to visit the holy shrines of the Imams in Iraq but without the financial means to do so, or to the people who already visited the shrines, but who were in debt due to this journey and who did not have the money to return home.”²⁰ He also made use of the waqf institution’s symbolic value to create bureaucratic links between his own temporal power and religious authority. The establishment of a large madrasa would also be deemed a symbol of the prosperity of his realm as well as his leadership skills.²¹

With regard to format, Madrasa-yi Sultani’s deeds of endowment have the principal elements of similar documents. All waqf-namas of the Madrasa-yi Sultani include the following elements: basmala, Hamdala (Praise to God), tasliyya (the prayer upon the Prophet Muhammad and his family), and identification of the donor.²² The waqif acknowledges that the world is just a hospice and a bridge to the hereafter. He states that when a man dies he survives through his pious deeds because he establishes this pious endowment, which gives eternal profit and acts as a memorial that survives him.²³ Before enumerating and describing the endowed properties, the document’s lawfulness is accounted for. The donor declares he has the full right of disposal over properties, and that right is followed by a statement of stipulations inherent to a waqf as well as an admonition against changing them.²⁴

Waqf-namas of the madrasa then offer a general description of the properties, which were assigned in perpetuity. The expenses, wages, personnel, property management, and administration system of the madrasa itself, however, are outlined in much greater detail. Afterward, there are descriptions of the beneficiaries and pious purposes for which the income of the waqf is to be spent. The administrator of the endowment is named as well as who should replace him upon his death. To safeguard his charitable foundation, Shah Sultan Husayn encouraged the managerial team to faithfully follow the stipulations that he had set down. I could not obtain access to ledgers or books belonging to the endowments, so it is not possible to discuss any possible maladministration. He also outlined a set of guidelines for future fiduciaries. The documents close with an invocation and the date of the deed.²⁵

The elements do not always appear in exactly the same order in all deeds of the madrasa. The deeds typically bear the names of the people who have confirmed the provenance of the endowed properties and Shah Sultan Husayn’s seal. One can safely assume that the witnesses are the most ceremonially important religious figures of their time. The following marginal note by Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi, the first professor of the madrasa, is typical of the witnesses’ statement in these endowment deeds:

Praise be to God who donated the bounty of the next world to whoever cultivates the seeds of goodness and justice in the farm of this world and waters its garden with the charities running from the spring of good fortune! May the integrity of reason and prayer and peace be upon the master of the school of the cosmos and the teacher of the book of creation—the Prophet Muhammad and his family—and upon the noble imams undertaking the duties of teaching and guiding and may the salvation on the Day of resurrection depend on their intercession!…I complied with his [Shah Sultan Husayn’s] order and carried out as his proxy His Majesty, the donor. ²⁶

In addition to the thousand-two shop bazaar, agricultural properties of various kinds including arable fields, hamlets, gardens, irrigation canals, and water shares constituted the majority of the endowed properties. Some of these properties are large, and others are only a few shares (sahms) in the property.27 The Madrasa-yi Sultani’s deeds of endowment provide detailed data on the expenses, wages, personnel, property management, and administrative structure of this religious higher learning institution. The deeds describe the qualifications and duties expected of principal staff including the trustee (mutawalli), the supervisor (nazir) and his overseers (mubashirin), the professor of the madrasa, and the accountant (mustawfi). It gives details about their salaries and other material benefits. The trustee was responsible for maintaining and preserving waqf goals and for the pious endowment’s prosperous utilization.²⁸ To secure the survival of his waqf, Shah Sultan Husayn established a perpetual succession of trustees. He set down the condition that upon his death the reigning ruler of every age must act as the trustee.²⁹ In the deed written August 29, 1711, we read: “His Majesty, the donor Shah—may God protect him from the dreads of Resurrection Day—reserves the trusteeship of the aforementioned endowment to himself as long as the world is illuminated by his radiant light and after himself to the one who is the reigning king of Iran.”³⁰

The endowment deed for the Madrasa-yi Sultani also stipulates the salaries and duties of the madrasa’s personnel, including the head servants (khadim-bashi or sarkar-i ‘amala-yi madrasa), a storehouse-man (tahwildar), eight servants, two lamp-men, three custodians (farrash), three doormen, two water-carriers, and a gardener. The document spells out how the khadim-bashi has to be present at the madrasa most of or all day and has to make every effort to keep it clean and well organized for the use of students. He was instructed to make sure that workers are doing their best, neither cheating nor doing wicked acts. For this service, he is not to receive any other money from the royal court.³¹According to the waqfiyya written in 1711, the sum of twenty-nine tumans was to be spent on illuminating the mosque, prayer courtyard, teaching hall, corridors of the upper-storey rooms, the madrasa’s entrance, and other places that students would come and go and need to be lit. The lamps of the madrasa and mosque were to be lit by sheep fat and other materials considered suitable.³²

In addition to all these personnel whose main duties were to keep the madrasa-mosque complex clean and in good order, the fees of a librarian, four muezzins, and fourteen Qurʾan reciters are provided for in the deed of endowment. The madrasa librarian was in charge of receiving books, cataloging them, and putting them in their appropriate places. By the terms of the waqfiyya, the librarian—who was appointed by the trustee to handle the donated books—was supposed to spend most of his time at the madrasa so students could borrow the donated books. He also kept track and took care of them to prevent any loss or damage.33 The librarian would receive the sum of seven tumans annually. He may lend books to the students based on the stipulations mentioned at the back of each donated book. ³⁴ The following is a sample of the notes written at the back of donated books. At the back of Mulla Sadra’s Sharh-i Hidayat al-Hikma, one of the books donated to the library of the Madrasa-yi Sultani and currently kept at the library of the Gowhar Shad Mosque in Mashhad, no. 1363, is this note:

This least of all servants of God, donates this manuscript to all Shiʿa who seek religious sciences and I assign myself as its mutavalli and upon my death I leave it to the care of the mutavalli of the Madrasa-yi Sultani, and I legally stipulate that whoever needs this volume, should obtain it from the professor of the madrasa and do not keep it longer than six months and return it to the professor of the madrasa [at the end of six months], and whenever he needs to keep it for more than six months, he may keep the book by asking the professor of the madrasa. He must not take the book out of Isfahan. Whoever changes this deed, may Prophet Muhammad foredoom and damn him!³⁵

The deed of endowment of the library of the Madrasa-yi Sultani, currently kept in the Ayatullah Marʿashi Library, no. 9607, reads:

All the books endowed to the madrasa’s library must be recorded and submitted to the librarian of the madrasa and when any of students needs a book, after obtaining a permission of the madrasa’s professor, he can keep the book as long as he needs to benefit from it. He should not keep it longer than needed. If any of the non-residence Shiʿis needs any books, they also [can borrow books] after obtaining a permission of the madrasa’s professor as well as a receipt containing the seal of the professor [of the madrasa] and then may go to the librarian and leave the receipt with the librarian and then borrow the book and keep it as long as he needs it. He must not take the book outside of Isfahan. If the professor doesn’t trust him, he may ask for [a] deposit and then give him the book.

If anybody wants to take along any books during his visitation of the shrines of the imams, he may take the book outside of Isfahan after obtaining a receipt containing the seal of the professor of the madrasa and upon his return from his pilgrimage he must return the book to the librarian of the madrasa. He must do his best to keep the book safe from getting ruined or damaged. As long as he is in Isfahan, he must return the book(s) to the professor of the madrasa so that he is certain that the book is in good shape and then if he needs it again, he may ask the professor to lend the book to him again.

The professor of the madrasa must do his best to safeguard all the books as well as to provide the needs of students and whoever from the Shiʿa need any books kept in the library of the madrasa. His Excellency, the donor, stipulates legally that books donated to the madrasa must not be bought, sold, and given as gifts or pawned and also must not be exposed to perishing and relocation! Borrowers must also not keep the books longer than needed and do not leave them idle. When the people of knowledge study them, they should remember the shah, the donor, and pray for him during their prayers remember the shah, the donor, and pray for him.³⁶

Shah Sultan Husayn generously supported students. Students not only enjoyed a free education but also were given substantial monthly stipends. The teacher of the Royal Madrasa was to choose ideal students who possessed fine natural dispositions, intelligence, and discernment, and who could occupy themselves with benefiting from the madrasa’s opportunities and by being beneficial to others after the termination of their stay at the madrasa. The professor, who was in charge of distributing students’ stipends, had to divide the sum of 528 Tabrizi tumans from the remaining 8.5 percent of the revenues among the madrasa’s chambers. The deed reads:

His Excellency, the successful donor, the absolute ruler on the face of the earth, in the deed of the endowment lawfully made the condition that the residents of the auspicious madrasa who receive stipends must be pious Twelver Shiʿis—may God increase their numbers. They must possess the right faith, and observe religious rituals and live in the madrasa in accordance with the norms and customs of the day. The madrasa’s teacher must assign them to the madrasa’s rooms and if any student does not possess the desirable features and other conditions stipulated by the trustee of every age, and if the teacher does not deem his being in the madrasa advisable, the teacher must expel him and house someone who possesses the itemized characteristics in his place and give him the stipend. The students must not be corrupt or wicked. If the teacher feels there is a need to have a student act as the head-student, he can choose one of the students and give him an extra 100 dinars daily to do whatever is required from a head-student.37

Students and personnel of the Madrasa-yi Sultani received medical care. In a deed written in 1711, Shah Sultan Husayn donates the revenues of a village to students of the Madrasa-yi Sultani and whoever needs medical attention. In the deed we are told that whenever one of the students, Qurʾan reciters, madrasa servants, or staff, or anyone else goes to the madrasa from the Twelver-Shiʿis seeking medicine and medical attention, they should be treated and fed. They were to be given whatever they need by way of medicine, food, fruit, or medical attention. If they need a nurse, they would be provided with a male or female nurse. The teacher was instructed to sign and stamp all the receipts. If some funds remained, they were to be given to a hospital next to the Qaysariyya and the ʿAbbasabad hospitals.³⁸ According to the deed, the teacher’s signature was necessary for these expenditures.³⁹

In a waqfiyya written in 1712, Shah Sultan Husayn donates the revenues of a whole village and the shares of five other villages to be spent on purchasing charcoal to be divided among the chambers of the madrasa for use in winter and other times that the teacher deems appropriate. If crops and revenues of the properties’ leave a surplus after the price of charcoal, the extra money was to be spent on purchasing animal oil or firewood, whichever seems more useful for the residents. The animal fat was supposed to be divided among the chambers of the madrasa for lighting the rooms in the same way that the charcoal was distributed. If the teacher decided to buy firewood, it was supposed be given to the tahwildar of the madrasa for distribution to the residents who need it for cooking.40 They were expected not to leave their rooms idle and were always to be present at the madrasa and keep themselves busy with acquiring religious sciences.⁴¹

Like all other Shiʿi patrons of religious institutions, Shah Sultan Husayn paid special attention to holy dates in the Shiʿi calendar as well as to the month-long holy period of Ramadan. Every evening during Ramadan was a celebration. Students residing in the madrasa alongside forty-one poor and needy fasting Twelver-Shiʿis enjoyed the evening meal for breaking the fast (iftar), whether they were students or nonstudents (whether sayyid or not), women or men, married women or widows. Shah Sultan Husayn stipulated that “the sum of two hundred ninety-six riyals and one tenth of a riyal was to be spent on providing meals every night of the month of Ramadan”⁴² and ordered the following:

The meal must consist of bread, cheese, sweet paste (halwa), dates, and sherbet. Breads must be round and small and dates must be black or similar to the dates produced in Medina. Dates must be seeded and stuffed with almonds and the like. In preparing halwa, fine oil and flour and sugar must be used to sweeten it and honey and syrup of grapes must not be used [to sweeten it], and if they want to make halwa from starch, they must add saffron. Sherbet must be made with sugar, willow-water, and sweet basil seeds and in seasons when good ice is around, it must be added to sherbet. The nights of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first of Ramadan are the time of mourning [the martyrdom of ʿAli] so they should exclude halwa, sherbet, and dates [from the menu] and instead of those [sweet foods] they must make meals that are not sweet. The cost of these substitute foods must be approximately one hundred dinars.⁴³

The mutawalli must give the sum of twelve Tabrizi tumans to one of the religious scholars so that he will distribute that money in the month of Ramadan among the needy fasting Shiʿis. Each should receive two hundred dinars with which to break his fast.⁴⁴

Although the deeds of endowment of the Madrasa-yi Sultani do not fully list the books that should be studied, they are valuable for revealing the subjects, which were sponsored by the last effective Safavid monarch, because they reveal the nature of the dominant discourse at the turn of the eighteenth century in Iran. These documents not only reveal that the donor (waqif) was concerned with making sure his madrasa would continue operating, but they also outline the general content of the curriculum. In the deeds of endowment of his madrasa, Shah Sultan Husayn stipulated that the teacher must teach only religious sciences and should exclude rational sciences and Hikmat (philosophy) from the curriculum. The deed reads:

And the sum of fifty Tabrizi tumans as teaching fee should be paid to the professor of the madrasa appointed by the trustee of the madrasa. The professor must be present during the teaching days established for the madrasa, and he should occupy himself with teaching and discussing religious sciences including prophetic tradition as well as sayings of the imams, Qurʾanic exegesis, jurisprudence, principles of religion as sources and theories of law as well as their ancillary sciences including Arabic language, syntax, morphology, logic, and all other sciences that their teaching and learning are lawfully permitted. He should teach them to the extent that is necessary and customary. At least one of his courses should be on one of the celebrated hadith books. He should avoid discussing and teaching philosophical and Sufi works. He must do his best to make students focus on their studies and discussions and ensure that students advance further in their studies and also guarantee that the revenues of the endowments spend property according to the waqf stipulations.45

In the diploma marking the appointment of Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi, Shah Sultan Husayn also ordered that the professor of the Madrasa-yi Sultani “must only teach religious sciences and transmit prophetic hadiths and imami khabars. He must avoid teaching rational sciences (‘ulum-i ‘aqli) and philosophy.”⁴⁶ Statements like these indicate the concern of the ruling elites with maintaining the religious orientation of the madrasa curriculum and also demonstrate the significant role played by donors (waqifs) with respect to the curriculum. Waqifs also exercised their influence through the appointment or discharge of professors. Thus the content of the curriculum was a consequence of the close association between the ruling authorities and educational activities.

Madrasa-yi Sultani, along with other madrasas built by some members of the Safavid household and wealthy individuals, set the official direction in higher learning; they did not, however, monopolize education in Safavid Isfahan. As in all Islamic societies, education was tied to individual scholars who transmitted texts to students in a variety of places. Some scholars avoided the court and shunned teaching in madrasas altogether, establishing their own teaching circles. One example is the teaching circle of Muhsin Fayz in Kashan.⁴⁷ Some madrasa teachers even taught subjects that were excluded from the curriculum of the madrasa in which they were appointed to teach. For example ʿAbd al-Nabi Qazwini reports that Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi, the teacher of the Madrasa-yi Sultani, taught Sharh-i Isharat. He does not mention where these teaching sessions were held or which commentary on Ibn Sina’s Isharat wa al-tanbihat was taught.⁴⁸ The deeds of endowment of the Madrasa-yi Sultani reflect the Safavid court’s opposition to philosophical enquiry during the final decades of Safavid rule. Shah Sultan Husayn and his aunt, Maryam Begum, as well as many other founders of madrasas of early modern Iran banned philosophical studies in the educational institutions under their patronage in favor of a concentration on hadith, fiqh, and Qurʾanic sciences.⁴⁹

NOTES

1. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan (Isfahan: Intisharat-i Idara-yi Kull-i Awqaf, Mantaqa-yi Isfahan, 1967), 150, 160ff.

2. Aqa Kamal himself built a madrasa in Isfahan in 1695 and named it after Shah Sultan Husayn. For more on this madrasa, see Rasul Jaʿfarian, “Waqf-nama-yi Sultan Husayniyya maʿruf bi-Madrasa-yi Aqa Kamal,” in Mirath-i Islami-i Iran 1: 259–90.

3. Muhammad Nadir Nasiri Muqaddam, “Waqf-nama-yi Madrasa-yi Chahar-bagh-i Isfahan,” Waqf: Mirath-i jawidan 2, no. 4 (1998): 112–18; Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 149–50.

4. ʿAbd al-Husayn Khatunabadi, Waqayi’ al-sinin wa al-a’wam, ed. M. Bihbudi (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-i Islamiyya, 1973), 556.

5. See Muhammad Mahdi b. Muhammad Rida Isfahani, Nisf-i jahan fi taʿrif-i Isfahan, ed. Manuchihr Sutudeh (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1989), 69.

6. Lutfullah Hunarfar, Ganjina-yi athar-i tarikhi Isfahan (Tehran: Chapkhana-yi Ziba, 1971), 722.

7. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 116.

8. Yusuf Rahimlu, ed., Alqab wa mawajib-i dawra-yi safawi (1371; repr., Mashhad: Intisharat-i Danishgah-i Firdawsi Mashhad, 1992), 66.

9. Hunarfar, Ganjina-yi athar-i tarikhi-i Isfahan, 691–94; Abu al-Qasim Rafiʿi Mehrabadi, Athar-i milli-yi Isfahan (Tehran: Anjuman-i Athar-i Milli, 1974), 446–50; Blake, Half the World, 160.

10. Khatunabadi, Waqayi’ al-sinin wa al-a’wam, 560.

11. Muhammad Zaman Tabrizi, Fara’id al-fawa’id fi ahwal madaris wa masajid, ed. Rasul Ja’fariyan (Tehran: Daftar-i Nashr-i Mirath-i Maktub, wabasta bi-Muʻawanat-i Umur-i Farhangi wa Irshad-i Islami, Ihya’-i Kitab, 1994), 291.

12. Hunarfar, Ganjina-yi athar-i tarikhi-i Isfahan, 719–20.

13. Nasiri Muqaddam, “Waqf-nama-yi Madrasa-yi Chahar Bagh, ”112–18.

14. There is a microfilm of this waqf-nama in the Kitabkhana-yi Markazi-i Danishgah-i Tihran under number 1735.

15. Cited in Nasiri Muqaddam, “Waqf-nama-yi Madrasa-yi Chahar Bagh,” 113.

16. See Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 120–228.

17. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 125.

18. See, for example, Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 145.

19. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 125.

20. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 199. In two other waqfiyyas issued in 1711, Shah Sultan Husayn also set down that every year the sum of forty Tabrizi tumans from the revenues of 1,197 shares of the Josharan garden were to be given to three pious individuals as described above to perform hajj and visit the holy cities of Iraq and the shrine of Imam Rida at Mashhad on behalf of Shah Safi. Also in another waqfiyya of the same date, Shah Sultan Husayn orders that the same amount of money from the revenues of eleven of the twelve shares of the Garden of Sa’adat-abad and other parcels of land had to be given to three pious individuals to perform hajj and visit the holy cities of Iraq and the shrine of Imam Rida at Mashad on behalf of Shah ʿAbbas II. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 229–35; 243–50. In another waqfiyya issued in 1711, Shah Sultan Husayn donated the revenues from a few parcels of land to a group of Twelver-Shiʿis residing in Najaf so that each would receive a minimum of three Tabrizi tumans to a maximum of five. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 210.

21. For this aspect of waqf, see Richard van Leeuwen, Waqfs and Urban Structures: The Case of Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–33, 178–203.

22. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 144.

23. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 145.

24. He stipulated that no endowed properties could be sold, transferred under inheritance, or misappropriated during his life or after death. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf, 149–50, 175.

25. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 177.

26. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 203, Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi’s note, which is written in Arabic, ends with his prayers and well wishes for the shah and for the continuity of his kingship.

27. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 156–57ff.

28. For a detail description of the duties of trustees, see R. D. McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 3ff.

29. Dilaram Khanum also stipulated that upon her death the reigning monarch of each age would hold the trusteeship of her endowments. Nuzhat Ahmadi, “Chahar waqf-nama az chahar madrasa-yi Isfahan dar dawra-yi safawi,” in Rasul Ja’fariyan, Mirath-i islami-i Iran 3: 103.

30. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 130. In another deed drafted in 16/5/1123(2/7/1711), Shah Sultan Husayn urges the future mutawallis to take only their trusteeship fees. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 174–75.

31. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 167.

32. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 166.

33. In the text of the deed, the scribe writes diya’, which means real estate, properties. Obviously, here that is out of context—it must be day’, which means damaged.

34. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 167.

35. Rasul Jaʻfariyan, Safaviya dar ʻarsah-ʾi din, farhang va siyasat (1379; Qum: Pizhuhishkadah-i Hawzah va Danishgah, 2000–2001), vol. 2, 745.

36. Rasul Jaʻfariyan published a copy of the waqf-nama, see Jaʻfariyan, Safaviya dar ʻarsah-ʾi din, farhang va siyasat, 746–49.

37. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 169–70.

38. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 222.

39. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 188–90.

40. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf, 190.

41. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 127.

42. Sipinta, Tarikhcheh-ye awqaf Isfahan, 162.

43. Sipinta, Tarikhcheh-ye awqaf Isfahan, 162–63.

44. Sipinta, Tarikhcheh-ye awqaf, 129–30, 199.

45. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 169.

46. See Shah Sultan Husayn’s hukm to Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi in the end of the thesis.

47. For more information on his teaching circle, see Muhsin Fayd Kashani, Dah risala-yi muhaqqiq-i buzurg Fayd Kashani, ed. Rasul Ja’fariyan (Isfahan: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i ʻIlmi wa Dini-i Imam Amir al-Muʾminin ʻAli, 1992), 61–63.

48. ʿAbd al-Nabi Qazwini, Tatmim Amal al-amil, ed. Ahmad al-Husayni and Mahmud al-Marʻashi (Qum: Maktabat Ayatullah al-Marʻashi, 1986), 77–78.

49. Sipinta, Tarikhcha-yi awqaf Isfahan, 169–70, 299.