English: AN ATTESTATION OF PILGRIMAGE (ZIYARATNAMA) TO MASHHAD

MASHHAD, SAFAVID IRAN, DATED BEGINNING OF RAJAB AH 928/MAY 1522 AD

Persian manuscript on paper, with 20ll. of elegant black, gold and blue shikasteh, each line slightly curving upward toward the end, dated in the last line of text, large circular black seal impression to the bottom left corner dated AH 923/1517-8 AD, folding marks, old repairs, mounted, framed and glazed 35½ x 9in. (90 x 23cm.)

This complete certificate written in elegant shikasteh attests that a certain Amir Sadr al-Milla wa al-Dunya wa al-Din Muhammad bin Sayyid Ahmad bin Shams al-Din Muhammad bin Sayyid Ghiyath al-Din 'Abd al-Sami' al-Husayn al-Misri completed the pilgrimage (ziyara or visit) to the shrine of Imam 'Ali Reza in Mashhad. The beginning section of the document stresses the virtues as pilgrimage to the "Second House of God". The Safavids were keen to encourage pilgrimage to Mashhad as hostilities with the Ottomans made performance of the Hajj to Mecca difficult. Pilgrimages to the holy shrines of the Imams were essential elements of a pious Shi'i devotional life. They were 'theoretically [] even placed on the same level as the Hajj , and to the popular mind they were perhaps more important than this, owing to a series of traditional and pietistic values which found expression in the accomplishment of the ziyara, especially to Mashhad' (Peter Jackson, The Cambridge History of Iran, vol.6, Cambridge, 1986, p.654).

The document also states that Muhammad bin Sayyid Ahmad performed all the rituals of the pilgrimage. This ten-stage ritual was later codified under Shah 'Abbas by Shaykh Baha'i and included the following necessary steps: 'a full body wash, [] the declaration of the shahada, [] to seat on the cushion at the head of the tomb of Imam Reza and to wish him peace, [] to pray two prostrations, [] to leave the back without turning the back to the tomb' (Robert Gleave, The Ritual Life of the Shrines, in Sheila R. Canby (dir.), Shah 'Abbas, the Remaking of Iran, London, 2009, pp.90-1).

The large circular seal of the shrine of Mashhad is stamped at the bottom of the ziyaratnama. A second ziyaratnama from the Shrine of Imam 'Ali Reza is in the British Museum. Although slightly later, written during the reign of Shah Tahmasp and dated AH 939/1533 AD, and incomplete it bears the same elegant seal dated AH 934/1527-8 AD (AN100897001, Sheila R. Canby, op.cit, p.91, fig.22). No other ziyaratnama of the early Safavid period appear to have been published. This document from the reign of Shah Isma'il (r. 1502-24) is a rare and early example of a type that became more common later in the Sunni and Shi'i contexts.