Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on the Ṣafavid-Qizilbāsh entry into and seizure of the city of Herat as recounted in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ of Zayn al-Dīn Maḥmūd Vāṣifī, a work which was completed it in Tashkent and dedicated to Abū’l-Muẓaffar Hasan Sulṭān b. Kīldī Muḥammad Sulṭān in 1538-39.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on the Ṣafavid-Qizilbāsh entry into and seizure of the city of Herat as recounted in the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ of Zayn al-Dīn Maḥmūd Vāṣifī, a work which was completed it in Tashkent and dedicated to Abū’l-Muẓaffar Hasan Sulṭān b. Kīldī Muḥammad Sulṭān in 1538-39. The Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ itself defies easy classification or categorization: While it is first and foremost a memoir, similar in many respects to the work of Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur, and is thus possessed of autobiographical elements, the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ may also be considered a history written from Vāṣifī’s unique perspective. Whereas the histories of Ghiyās al-Dīn Muḥammad Khvāndamīr, Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dūghlāt, Iskandar Munshī, Ḥasan Rūmlū and others focused their attention on dynastic power struggles and members of the ruling aristocracies, the narrative of Vāṣifī recounts historical events great and small to which he may or may not have been tangentially related. Thus, while the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ does not provide an account of the battle of Marv on December 2, 1510, the death and dismemberment of Muḥammad Shībānī Khān, or the massacre that ensued thereafter, what it does provide is Vāṣifī’s narrative account of the Ṣafavid-Qizilbāsh entry into the city of Herat, the reaction and fear of the townspeople as the Qizilbāsh asserted their authority, and a glimpse of what life was like for the people of Herat during the Ṣafavid occupation. In Addition to this topic, the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ covers a range of topics and events over the course of forty-six chapters and serves as an excellent source for reconstructing the social history of Islamic Central Asia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This paper is based upon the author’s translation from Persian to English and analysis of relevant portions of the Badāyi‘ al-vaqāyi‘ and supporting primary and secondary sources.