I study the usage of the twelve-month cyclical Turkī calendar in Safavid court chronicles under the reigns of Tahmasp I (1524-1576 A.D.) and Abbas I (1588-1629). I first track the introduction and establishment of this dating system under the Ilkhanate (1256-1335). I then examine the sixteenth-century adaptation and mobilization of the Turkī calendar in Safavid historiography. I offer a comparative study between the usage of Turkī and Hiǧrī chronologies by the Safavid historians to demonstrate how the exclusive adoption of Turkī calendar with respect to the Ilkhanid and Timurid dynasties generated a distinctive and parallel ‘Turkī timeline’ in contrast to the more inclusive ‘Hiǧrī timeline’. In doing so, the Safavid chroniclers accentuated the historical continuities between the Safavid shahs and their Chinggisid and Timurid predecessors. I explore this time-keeping device to ponder how the Safavids claimed Chinggisid heritage for themselves as well as over other post-Mongol polities such as in Bukhara and in Khwarazm. Reactivating the Turkī calendar, I argue, served a double purpose. First, this allowed the Safavids to assert chronological continuity, which was instrumental in politically legitimizing them as the latest in a succession of post-Mongol dynasties ruling Iran. I argue that claiming Mongol continuity was a critical mechanism of advancing historical legacy for the newly established Safavid sovereignty. Calendars served the dual purpose of presenting a chronologically contiguous Safavid past with the Mongols as well as inaugurating a coherent map for the Safavid future. Second, using the Turkī calendar in annalistic court histories provided the Safavid Shahs with a distinctive Chinggisid and Timurid trait, establishing the Safavids within an aggressively competitive post-Mongol world. This symbolic claim of Mongol heritage also contributed to the broader imperial imagery of the Safavid Shahs in a similar way as, for instance, their affirmation of descent from the Seventh Imam Mūsà al-Kāżim. Safavid historiography has typically presented the Shahs as distinctive figures, presenting them as ‘restorers’ of ‘Persian’ monarchy after centuries of Turco-Mongol rule. My paper contests this claim by showing how some of the fundamental practices of Safavid sovereignty such as that of time-keeping was drawn from their desire to highlight their Mongol heritage. Finally, studying this autochthonous time-keeping device helps to challenge the universality accorded to the Hiǧrī calendar as by-default chronological standard for Safavid historiography. Focusing on this non-linear cyclical timeline might allow us to examine the way Safavids conceptualized time as a component of early modern sovereign power.

Although the Qizilbash constituted the political and military aristocracy of the Safavid state, our knowledge about their beliefs and rituals is still meager. Persian chronicles from the Safavid period are almost totally ignorant of the peculiar Qizilbash religious practices. In this regard, travelogues and diplomatic accounts of Western observers seem more promising. Nevertheless, they too have complications. First, since the Qizilbash practiced a secretive religion, it was very difficult, if not impossible, for Westerners to have a genuine insight into the Qizilbash beliefs and rituals. Second, those sporadic short reports, which are mostly based on second-hand hearsays, are spread across a large corpus of materials; hence, it needs a meticulous and laborious examination to build a sensible picture of any Qizilbash ritual. As long as the Qizilbash religion is concerned, a third group of sources, which has not been utilized for Safavid history yet, has the potential to break new ground. As the Anatolian offshoots of the Qizilbash, the Alevis of Turkey preserved many religious and cultural traditions of their ancestors in both written and oral forms. Especially Alevi religious treatises that deal with matters of doctrine and ritual provide us with a considerably rich amount of information on the Qizilbash-Alevi faith and rituals. Some of these treatises, which are traced back to the sixteenth century, can be used as a source for the religious practices of the Qizilbash in Safavid Iran. In his 1993 article “The Chūb-i Ṭarīq and Qizilbāsh Ritual in Safavid Persia,” Alexander H. Morton has discovered some valuable details of an important Qizilbash ritual, namely ritual beating with a special stick called “chūb-e tarīq.” Morton derived his information mostly from Venetian sources, most of all the travelogue of Michele Membré. Although he was aware that the Alevis of Turkey practiced a similar ritual, he did not utilize Alevi primary sources in this study, which were indeed unknown to him. In a particular Qizilbash-Alevi book called Manāqib-e Awliyā, which was written in the sixteenth century under the auspice of Shah Tahmasb, there is a detailed explanation of this ritual, including its socio-religious roles and mythological origins. Primarily relying on this previously unused account and building on Morton’s study, this paper first determines the ritual of chūb-e tarīq and then examines its religious and political functions in the Safavid-Qizilbash religio-political organization.