When does a group become a group ? Remarks on the "Birth" of Shi’i Sufism, Academic Reification, and the Issue of Confessional Identity

In this lecture, we will look at at the intellectual history of early modern Iran through the lens of a largely overlooked piece of Qur’anic exegesis, the late 19th-century Bayān al-saʿāda, a Sufi tafsīr by the Niʿmatullāhī master Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (d. 1909). For both symbolic and contextual reasons, this work marks the birth of a new phenomenon in the religious history of Shiism, that is a Twelver Shi‘i Sufi ṭarīqa. The Bayān is crucial both because of the influence it exerted on subsequent Qur’anic exegesis in Iran and because it represented a tangible token of the attempt by the Niʿmatullāhī order to claim a legitimate place for Sufism within Twelver Shi‘i orthodoxy. At the same time the Bayānconstitutes a vocal testimony and reshaping of a Shi‘i Sufi ṭarīqa with all the features of an organised order as well of Twelver Shiʿi doctrine. Looking at the main features of this work and locating it in its historical and intellectual context allow us to reflect on the issue of religious identity, the role of mysticism in identity formation, and the problematic nature of the modern scholarly taxonomy of religious phenomena. These reflections will be complemented by some remarks on the idea of Iranian religiosity in the thought of two currents of French and Italian academia in the 20th century. 

Biographical note

Dr Alessandro Cancian is Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, where he works on Shi‘i Sufism, Qur’anic exegesis and the intellectual and religious history of early-modern Iran. A historian of religions and anthropologist by formation, Alessandro has published books and articles on religious education in Shi‘i Islam, Shi‘i Sufism and Qur’anic exegesis. He edited Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran (Oxford University Press, 2019), and his monograph The Emergence of Shi‘i Sufism was published in 2023 (Oxford University Press). He is also an amateur perfumer, and among other projects he has created a bespoke fragrance for the exhibition ‘The Quran: Form, Fragrance & Feeling’ (London, The Aga Khan Centre, 22 September 2023 – 20 May 2024), and he is translating a 19th-century treatise on perfume-making written by an Iranian Shaykhi master.