Throughout the Safavid period, the religiosity of the Iranian world transitioned from an Alid-centered Sunni orientation to a Twelver Shiʿa one, whereby the only legitimate authorities over the religious community after the Prophet were seen to be the eleven direct descendants of Imam Ali. This confessional transformation initiated changes in ritual practices and altered the ways in which the objects and spaces ensconced in shrines and the burial complexes of saintly figures were thought to impart sacrality.
These two papers explore different approaches to pious practices as they are affected by or inscribed into these sacred spaces and objects. Derek Mancini-Lander considers the 14th-century Rukniyya Madrasa and shrine complex of Yazd, examining how the transition to Shiʿism under the Safavids affected the ways in which pious visitors experienced and interacted with this structure and its unique furnishings. Sussan Babaie further explores the particularities of this sort of Safavid inflected ritual practice of visitation to shrines by considering how the ubiquitous application of mirror mosaics suggest rapturous intersections between spiritual and physical experiences of space.
Sussan Babaie is Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam at The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Her research on early modern Persianate cultures explores notions of urbanity through performative mediations architecture, space and the art object provide. Her current research on the links between culinary and visual cultures of Iran looks at painting, foods, vessels, cookbooks and practices of feasting as productive of ‘taste’, both gustatory and visual. She also contributes to current debates on contemporary arts of Iran.
Derek Mancini-Lander is Lecturer in the History of Iran at SOAS, University of London. His research and teaching revolve around the cultural history of the late medieval and early modern Persianate world. He is especially interested in urban and local history, and in particular the intersection between space, memory, and narrative in Persian historiography. His current work focuses on shrine-centered religiosity and its role in the composition of migration narratives concerned with travel between Safavid Iran and the Deccan.