The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan

Kathryn Babayan’s The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan is a groundbreaking, original study that sheds new light on many aspects of Safavid history. Babayan introduces and utilizes a wealth of under-studied and under-utilized sources that fall under the category of anthologies, both written (majmūʿa) and visual (muraqqaʿ). She uses these anthologies as a lens through which to “read” urban Isfahan, the Safavid capital established by Shah ʿAbbas I. In particular, she focuses on what household anthologies tell us about human relationships in a city that was undergoing social, cultural, and religious transformations. Through wide-ranging and original analysis of this material, she takes us beyond the Isfahan of kings and clerics to shed light on friendships, families, individuals, and the refined and homoerotic culture that was part of the city. Rather than confining herself to a single, artificially imposed, genre of source material, Babayan effortlessly and brilliantly takes us through her readings of a broad variety of material. This includes poetry, letters, historical chronicles, paintings, individual buildings, and the entire public square of Isfahan. Instead of situating the anthologies “outside” of the urban landscape, she links the formation of these texts to how residents experienced Isfahan itself. As a result, readers themselves will gain a new, richer, and deeper understanding of the city.Chapter 1 of City as Anthology places the city of Isfahan at the center of the book’s analysis, and Shah ʿAbbas in the center of the city. The chapter opens with a description of Safavid chronicler Natanzī’s detailed and fascinating account of Isfahan’s inauguration as the new capital city. Babayan explains how Natanzī’s description likened the colorful spectacle of the inauguration to the “night of resurrection,” thereby making Isfahan the “city of paradise.”Babayan then turns to the built city, reading the Imperial Square (maydān) and paying particular attention to the Shaykh Lutfullah Mosque and the Friday Prayer Mosque. Analyzing not only the inscriptions but also the tilework and colors of the mosque, she argues that the Shaykh Lutfullah mosque may be understood as a non-denominational “God’s Mosque,” representing the sun rising in the east. As for the Friday Prayer Mosque, it also can be read as a book, educating visitors about the Twelver Shiʿi succession and the rewards for the righteous as described in Q: 76 (Time).The notion of Shah ʿAbbas as cupbearer also appears in the mosque, in connection with a story inscribed on its walls about ʿAli as the cupbearer.This motif of Shah ʿAbbas being the cupbearer is carried into a mural in the Chihil Sutūn palace, created during the reign of Shah ʿAbbas II. Here, Babayan takes us through a reading of the various scenes depicted in this famous mural. She shows how the mural reflects many aspects of the politics of eros at the court, including scenes depicting intoxication, the Safavid practice of stick disciplining (chūb-i tarīqat), and homoeroticism, with Shah ʿAbbas at the painting’s center.This all changed in the mid-seventeenth century, however, as clerics sought to scrutinize and curtail male public behavior. Sex became viewed as legitimate only in marriage, and boy-gazing and celibacy came to be seen as anti-Islamic, along with notions of collective solidarity and brotherhood. Gradually, Babayan explains, confessional boundaries became established and only clergy and other select individuals at the court had access to social power.Chapter 2 focuses on two individuals and their anthologies: (a) Aqā Husayn Khānsārī, a cleric who taught at the madrasa-yi Jadda in the bazaar, and (b) Muhammad Qāsim, a painter. The chapter opens with an introduction to anthology compilations, placing them in the context of bookmaking and libraries in Isfahan. Babayan then analyzes Aqā Husayn Khānsārī’s anthology as a single, purposely curated text. The importance of this approach cannot be overemphasized. Rather than extract items from the anthology as discreet texts to be read out of context, Babayan’s analyses show that anthologizers such as Aqā Husayn deliberately chose what kind of information to include in their compilations and in what sequence. Aqā Husayn’s anthology includes texts related to divination and prognostication; a collection of letters, some written by Aqā Husayn himself; manuals on composition; and a series of essays on love that emphasize homosocial bonds. Babayan suggests that these items collectively can be seen as part of Aqā Husayn’s attempt to distinguish himself as an immigrant in Isfahan.For the second individual, Muhammad Qāsim, Babayan attempts to reconstruct a collection (muraqqaʿ) of his artistic works, analyzing several single-page drawings and paintings. Like Aqā Husayn, Muhammad Qāsim, too, was not originally from Isfahan, and he sought patronage throughout his career. This theme can be seen in a number of his works. Other important themes in his paintings include the use of the disciplinary stick as part of the master–disciple relationship. Such asymmetrical relationships, Babayan explains, coexisted with more symmetrical relationships of love and friendship between men regardless of their hierarchical standing. Muhammad Qāsim also painted Shah ʿAbbas in 1627, which shows Shah ʿAbbas in an intimate embrace with his cupbearer. Such paintings, set in “environments of homosociability,” reflect the adab of homoerotic love. Interestingly, Muhammad Qāsim also made paintings for a copy of Vahshī’s story of Farhād and Shīrīn, the introduction to which can also be found in Khānsāri’s anthology. This suggests that the two men, despite their differences, were part of the same urban universe. As Babayan notes, themes such as spiritual and carnal love and erotic desire can be seen in both Khānsārī’s and Qāsim’s anthologies.Chapter 3 introduces two genres of writing: friendship letters, and shahrashūb (“city disturbance”) texts. Here, Babayan focuses primarily on the correspondence between two individuals who wrote in these genres. The first is a letter of friendship written by a certain Mīr Rukn al-Dīn to his friend Aqā Mansūr. In response to this letter, Aqā Mansūr wrote the second text analyzed in this chapter, a popular conduct manual which was a shahrashūb text about Isfahan. Babayan explains how friendship letters were a distinct type of correspondence and were often collected in household anthologies. These letters contained certain conventional elements, such as requests to meet in person. Additionally, anthologies included a number of certificates of sworn friendships. Taken together with friendship letters, they help explain the nature of friendship as a social institution in the Safavid era. Babayan analyzes Mir Rukn al-Dīn’s letter to Aqā Mansūr, in which he reveals his secret longing for his friend. Aqā Mansūr did not reply with another letter, but wrote instead a “guide for afflicted lovers” in the form of a conduct manual. This text was also copied out into many household anthologies. Babayan takes us through her analysis of Aqā Mansūr’s text which serves as a “city disturbance” that promotes Isfahan as a sensual, homoerotic space. The specifics in the text tell us much about Isfahan through the eyes of someone not affiliated with the court or religious institutions. Aqā Mansūr notes the places in the city to see the best male beauties, including a specific coffee house and a perfume seller’s stall. The text serves to instruct in the adab of masculinity and offers a vision of a city defined by homoerotic love. Babayan explains how Aqā Mansūr in a sense challenges authority with his text by “disturbing” the imperial politics of Shah ʿAbbas as represented by the mural that she discussed in Chapter 1.Chapter 4 turns to letters as a genre in early modern Isfahan. Babayan explains how the sixteenth-century poetic form of the ghazal morphed into friendship letters in the seventeenth century. These letters were a very popular genre that was collected into anthologies. The chapter opens with an analysis of love letters between men. Such letters, Babayan demonstrates, contained homoerotic messages and expressions of friendship, love, and desire. Individuals who moved to Isfahan from other regions used letter-writing to stay in touch with friends and family and arrange face-to-face visits within the city. Babayan analyzes several letters in the chapter. One in particular from Mīrzā ʿAlī Akbar to Zāhid Khān reveals the former’s breaking with adab in expressing his desire to reunite with his beloved both in body and spirit, thereby disclosing his love for Zāhid Khān. The chapter then talks about how friendship letters came to be codified in the form of epistolary manuals, which were also copied into the anthologies. Such manuals provided instruction in the conventional elements of letter-writing and presented examples of types of letters, including “request for meeting” letters and letters of complaint, chastising the recipient for not staying in touch. The chapter ends with a discussion of portraits depicting individuals engaged in reading letters. Letters written during the time contained requests for portraits of the beloved, and Babayan analyzes a number of these portraits. Interestingly, paintings depicting two male friends in the sixteenth century transformed by the mid-seventeenth century into paintings of single men reading a poem or a letter. In one example, a painting by Afzal Husaynī, the image of the beloved was depicted in a cushion against which the young man was rested. Babayan notes that by this time, acts such as reading or reciting poetry were understood as representing intimacy. She also raises the possibility that such portraits, which, like friendship letters, were extremely popular at the time, may have been included in letters that were sent.Chapter 5 focuses on one specific anthology preserved by the Urdūbādī family and completed in 1697. Babayan reads this anthology as the archive of a family of bureaucrats and literati. The anthology underwent transformation over time, physically being transported from Isfahan to Urdūbād in northwest Iran after the Afghan invasions of 1722 and subsequently unbound and rebound. Importantly, the anthology contains material related to the chancellery, thereby raising the interesting possibility, as Babayan states, that similar material may have been part of the Safavid state archives, long vanished. After introducing the anthology, Babayan analyzes its preface (dībācha) in light of its conventional elements and innovative characteristics. She then turns to the central theme in this chapter—female friendships—beginning the discussion with analyses of visual representations of female friendships in the artwork of Muhammad Qāsimī. Included in this section is an explanation of some of the customs and rituals associated with friendship, such as vows of sisterhood. That such relationships were extremely powerful and therefore threatening is evidenced by texts such as Aqā Jamāl Khānsārī’s ʿAqāʾid al-nisā’, which ridiculed female friendships, thereby revealing the various male anxieties that such relationships aroused.The main text in the Urdūbādī anthology that Babayan focuses on is a masnavī written by a widow whose name is unknown but who was married to a certain Mīrzā Khalīl, who served as the chief secretary of the Safavid Shah Sulaymān. The widow undertakes a pilgrimage to Mecca following the death of her husband, presumably to get over the loss, and another more secret reason: the separation she was forced to undergo due to her friendship with a female companion who had to leave Isfahan amidst the suspicions surrounding their relationship. Unfortunately, the account ends before we learn about what ultimately happened to the widow. But Babayan’s analysis helps us understand the unresolved tensions that the widow articulates in connection with her love for her female companion, her husband, and God.The City as Anthology has much to offer to many audiences of non-specialists, including scholars of the histories of friendship, sexuality, eroticism, urbanity, and much more. Specialists, now that Babayan has opened the way, will want to pursue the rich untapped material in the anthologies, which, with Babayan’s book, has already changed our understanding of the Safavid period. One hopes that the possible creation of a website on the anthologies, alluded to in the book’s acknowledgments, will become a reality. The book is richly illustrated with many of the visual and written sources that Babayan cites, and includes useful maps and an appendix listing the contents of one of the anthologies used in the book. Those wanting to explore further the sources that Babayan uses may occasionally have difficulty doing so, as sometimes citations and bibliographical information are missing. For example, in the description of the chūb-i tarīqat (stick of order), Michele Membré, a traveler to the court of Shah Tahmāsb who described this practice in his travel narrative, is quoted in the narrative but not referenced or listed in the bibliography. Furthermore, the volume could have been more extensively anchored to the growing body of scholarship already produced on the Safavids. Using the same example of the chūb-i tarīqat, Alexander H. Morton’s article on the topic is not referenced. None of this, however, takes away from the importance of this inspiring book.