1. See, for instance, G. E. von Grunebaum, “The Cultural Function of the Dream as Illustrated by Classical Islam,” in G. E. von Grunebaum and Roger Caillois, eds., The Dream and Human Societies (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), 3–21. A more recent example is Katz, Johnathan G., “Shaykh Ahmad's Dream: A 19th-century Eschatological Vision,” Studia Islamica 79 (1994): 157–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Von Grunebaum's categories include the following: (1) dreamer receives personal messages; (2) dream constitutes a private prophecy; (3) dream elucidates theological doctrine; (4) dream bears on politics; (5) dream is used as a tool of political prophecy (“Cultural Function,” 11–20).

3. For a discussion on dream narratives in medieval Europe and the influence of Persian and Islamic images and motifs on Latin and French literature, s.v. “visions” (Alice Cornelia Loftin) in Joseph R. Strayer, ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1982–89). See also Dutton, Paul Edward, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

4. See Meisami, J. S., “The Past in Service of the Present: Two Views of History in Medieval Persia,” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 247–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the actual account of the dream see Shāhnāma, ed. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, 6 vols. (New York: State University of New York Press, 1978), 1:16–17.

5. Woods, John E., “Timur's Genealogy,” in Mazzaoui, Michel M. and Moreen, Vera B., eds., Intellectual Studies on Islam: Essays Written in Honor of Martin B. Dickson (Utah: University of Utah Press, 1990), 86Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., 91.

7. Ibid. It is unclear whether or not this is the first instance in the Mongol-Timurid Ashikhistorical tradition that this dream is mentioned. Woods states that a similar account appears in Ibn Arabshah's ‘Ajā'ib al-maqdūr (ca. 1422), but its historiographical relationship to the other texts remains unclear (ibid., 97).

8. Ibid., 91.

9. See Ashikpashazade, Die altosmanische Chronik des ‘Ashikpasazade, ed. Giese, F. (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1929), 6–35Google Scholar, trans. Robert Dankoff as “From ‘Ashiqpashazada's History of the House of ‘Osman,” ed. and annot. John E. Woods, TMs [photocopy]. Also see EI², s.v. “Ashik-pasha-zade“; Inalcik, Halil, “How to Read ‘Āshik Pasha-zade's History,” in Heywood, Colin and Imber, Colin, eds., Studies in Ottoman History in Honour of Professor V. L. Ménage [Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994], 139–56Google Scholar, where Inalcik establishes the death of Ashikpashazade at 1502.

10. Ashikpashazade, “From ‘Ashiqpashazada's History,” 3.

11. Ibid.

12. Inalcik, “How to Read ‘Āshik Pasha-zade's History,” 147.

13. Ibid.

14. See, for example, Woods's discussion on Timur's changing attitude towards the Timurid family tradition (“Timur's Genealogy,” 100–117).

15. For instance, Iskandar Beg Munshi uses both the Aq Quyunlu chronicle Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya and the Timurid/Safavid Ḥabīb al-siyar in his Tārīkh-i ‘ālām-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī. For more historiographical information on these texts, see Woods, John E., The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976), 22–25Google Scholar.

16. See Woods, “Rise of Timurid Historiography“; A. Adamova, “Repetition of Compositions in Manuscripts: The Khamsa of Nizami in Leningrad,” in Lisa Golombek and Maria Subtelny, eds., Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 67–75; and Losensky, Paul E., ‘“The Allusive Field of Drunkenness': Three Safavid-Moghul Responses to a Lyric by Baba FighanI,” in Stetkevych, Suzanne Pinckney, ed., Reorientations/Arabic and Persian Poetry (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 227–62Google Scholar. The development of Persian historiography and its connection with Arabic historical writing has not yet been fully explored, although in her comparison of Bayhaqi and Firdawsi, Meisami discusses the relationship between early Persian and Arabic historical writing (“Past in Service of the Present“).

17. See, for instance, Waldman, Marilyn Robinson, Toward a Theory of Historical Narrative: A Case Study in Perso-Islamicate Historiography (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980), 14–16Google Scholar.

18. Safavid historians followed the same historiographical technique in composing the introductions (dībācha/muqaddima) to their chronicles. Here, they imitated as well as transformed earlier models, in particular the introduction to Kh^wand Amir's Ḥabīb al-siyar. The introductions to most Safavid chronicles are highly conventional and contain specific sorts of information in established structural positions. The historians transformed the model they based their work on to reflect the dynasty's changing political and religious ideology as well as their own personal situation. See Sholeh A. Quinn, “The Historiography of Safavid Prefaces,” in Charles Melville, ed., Pembroke Papers (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, forthcoming).

19. See Tavakkul b. Isma'il b. Bazzaz, Ṣafvat al-ṣafā, ed. Ghulam Riza Tabataba'i Majd (Ardabil: G. Tabataba'i, 1373 Sh./1994); Sadr al-Din Sultan Ibrahim Amini Haravi, “Futuḥāt-i shāhī,” MS, Vaziri Library, Yazd, 5774, MS, Dushanbe I, 139; Ghiyath al-Din b. Humam al-Din Shirazi Kh^wand Amir, Tārīkh-i ḥabīb al-siyar, ed. Jalal al-Din Huma'i, 4 vols. ([Tehran]: Kitabkhana-yi Khayyam, 1333 Sh./1954); Amir Mahmud b. Kh^wand Amir, Īrān dar rūzgār-i Shāh Ismā‘īl va Shāh Ṭahmāsb Ṣafavī, ed. Ghulam Riza Tabataba'i (Tehran: Bunyad-i Mawqufat-i Duktur Mahmud Afshar, 1370 Sh./1991)—this work is also known as Ẕayl-i ḥabīb al-siyar and I shall refer to it as such in the main body of this essay; Qazi Ahmad Munshi Qumi, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh, ed. Ihsan Ishraqi, 2 vols. (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1363 Sh./1984); Iskandar Beg Munshi, Tārīkh-i'ālam-ārā-yi ‘Abbāsī, ed. Iraj Afshar, 2 vols. (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1350 Sh./1971 [2nd ed.]); trans. Savory, Roger as History of Shah ‘Abbas the Great (Tārīkh-e ‘Ālamārā-ye ‘Abbāsī), 2 vols. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

20. Yazdi completed his Ẓafarnāma in 1427–28. See Woods, “Timur's Genealogy,” 86. Scholars have written relatively extensively about the Ṣafvat al-ṣafā and its numerous versions, in particular one by Abu al-Fath al-Husayni, whom Shah Tahmasp commissioned to revise the original text. The most significant change made over time to the Ṣafvat al-ṣafā was extending the Safavid family genealogy back several generations to indicate descent from the seventh Imam of the Twelver Shi'ah, Musa al-Kazim.

21. See EI², s.v. “Kh^wandamir” (H. Beveridge and J. T. P. DeBruijn); Maria Szuppe, Entre Timourides, Uzbeks et Safavides; questions d'histoire politique et sociale de Hérat dans la première moitié du XVI;^ͤ siècle, ([Paris]: Association pour l'avancement des études Iraniennes, 1992), 54–57.

22. Amini, Futūḥāt, folio 2a. Note: all references to the Futūḥāt-i shāhī refer to the Yazd manuscript unless otherwise indicated.

23. See Mir Kh^wand, Tārīkh-i rawżat al-ṣafā, 1 vols, ed. Parviz, ‘Abbas ([Tehran]: Khayyam, 1338 Sh./1959)Google Scholar.

24. See, for instance, Kh^wand Amir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 326–28. All references to Ḥabīb al-siyar concern vol. 4.

25. Although Martin Dickson establishes that Hasan Beg Rumlu relies on Ḥabīb alsiyar in his Aḥsan al-tavārūkh, Rumlu does not imitate the Herat historians in his account of the early Safavids and thus, like his Qazvini colleagues, does not relate Shaykh Safi's dreams. See Martin B. Dickson, “Sháh Ṭahmásb and the Úzbeks: the Duel for Khurásán with ‘Ubayd Khán (930–946/1524–1540),” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1958), XLVII-XLVIII.

26. Qazi Ahmad also includes information from Nusakh-i jahān-ārā and probably a lost history by Mawlana Hayati Tabrizi. See Qazi Ahmad, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh, 3; and Kashani, Qazi Ahmad Ghaffari Qazvini, Tārīkh-i jahān-ārā, ed. Naraqi, Hasan (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-yi Hafiz, 1342 Sh./1963)Google Scholar. This text is more commonly known as Nusakh-i jahān-ārā.

27. Ṣafvat al-ṣafā in its entirety consists of an introduction and twelve chapters.

28. Ibn Bazzaz, Ṣafvat al-ṣafā, 86.

29. Ibid., 87–88.

30. The term nūr-i vilāyat appears quite regularly in reference to the Safavid shaykhs. In his description of Shaykh Junayd, the author of Nusakh-i jahān-ārā states that “from his life-giving brow, the signs of outward [temporal] sovereignty were manifest even as the lights of spiritual [inward] supremacy (anvār-i vilāyat-i ma ‘navī)” (Ghaffari Kashani, Jahān-ārā, 261). In his discussion of light and its role in Sufi thought, Henry Corbin discusses Najm Razi's (d. 1256) mystical treatise which outlines the different “lights” associated with various spiritual states. Among these are the light of prophecy (nubuvvat) and the light of initiation (vilāyat). See Henry Corbin, L'Homme de lumière dans le Soufisme iranien (France: Éditions Presénce, 1971), 154–64, trans. Pearson, Nancy as The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism (Boulder & London: Shambhala, 1978), 103–110Google Scholar.

31. Amini, Futūḥāt, folio 147a.

32. Ibid., folio 147b.

33. Ibid. Iskandar Beg Munshi makes a similar statement in his description of Isma'il's adoption of Twelver Shi'ism as the official state religion: “The innovating practices (rusūm-i mubtada'a) of the people in error [orthodox Sunnis] were suppressed, and Shi'ites, who hitherto had lived by dissimulation, now practiced the Imams’ religion openly, and their opponents crept into corners to conceal themselves” (Iskandar Beg, ‘Ālam-ārā, 45; Savory trans., 28).

34. Amini, Futūḥāt, folio 147b. See also Dushanbe MS, folio 246a. The quote is from Qur'an 37:164.

35. Heredity, in particular descent from the Imams as a basis of ruling legitimacy, was actually an illegitimate claim within the standard doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism. Moojan Momen suggests that Safavid claims of descent from Musa al-Kazim were made to disguise the fact that such claims were irrelevant: “It was clearly impossible for the Safavids to claim designation [naṣṣ] (except in visions of the Hidden Imam) and the great stress in their propaganda on their descent from the Imams can only be seen as a smokescreen to hide the fact that this was an irrelevance” (An Introduction to Shi'i Islam [Oxford: G. Ronald, 1985], 108).

36. See Arjomand, Said Amir, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 81–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Kh^wand Amir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 413–14.

38. Ibid., 414.

39. In his description of Anatolian “Turcomans of ‘Ali” who submitted themselves to Shah Tahmasp, the Venetian traveler Michele Membré writes: “The Shah gave each one [Turkomans] cloth for clothing and his cap, which they call tāj” (Membré, Michele, Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia (1539–1542), trans. Morton, A. H. [London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1993], 18)Google Scholar.

40. Kh^wand Amir, Ḥabīb al-siyar, 414.

41. Amir Mahmud, Īrān dar rūzgār, 34–35.

42. Ibid., 35.

43. Ibid, (emphasis added).

44. Although Shah Tahmasp may have suppressed groups that proclaimed him Mahdi (see Momen, Introduction, 109–110), he continued to promote the notion that he had special connections with the Mahdi. Membré describes how Shah Tahmasp would not allow one of his sisters to marry “because, he says, he is keeping her to be the wife of the Mahdī. This Mahdī is a descendent of ‘Alī and Muḥammad, and he says he keeps her on the grounds that he is the court and the true place of Muhammad. Thus, too, he has a white horse, which he keeps for the said Mahdī … no one rides this horse and they always put it in front of all his horses” (Membré, Mission, 25–26).

45. Amir Mahmud was not the first historian to use both terms in order to legitimize the rule of a king. Arjomand cites pre-Safavid Persian writers Davvani and Khunji, who refer to Uzun Hasan and Sultan Ya'qub, respectively, as both imam and caliph (Arjomand, Shadow of God, 179).

46. Qazi Ahmad, Khulāṣat al-tavārīkh, 12. Like Amir Mahmud, Qazi Ahmad also interpreted two dreams together.

47. See Quinn, Sholeh A., “Historical Writing during the Reign of Shâh ‘Abbâs I” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1993)Google Scholar.

48. For a detailed analysis of Timur's alleged meeting with the Safavid Shaykh Kh^waja ‘Ali, see Heribert Horst, Tīmūr und Ḫoğä ‘Alī: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Ṣafawiden (Mainz: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1958).

49. See Tihrani, Abu Bakr, Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya, ed. Lugal, Necati and Sümer, Faruk, 2 vols. (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1962–64), 1:11Google Scholar.

50. See Quinn, “Historiography of Safavid Prefaces,” forthcoming, for a discussion of how Siyaqi Nizam performs a number of complex abjad calculations in order to justify calling Shah ‘Abbas ṣāḥibqirān. See also Iskandar Beg, ‘Ālam-ārā, 1102–1103, for his explanation as to why he calls Shah ‘Abbas by that name.

51. Iskandar Beg, ‘Ālam-ārā, 13; Savory trans., 23.

52. See Quli, Vali Quli Shamlu b. Davud, Qiṣaṣ al-khāqânī, ed. Nasiri, Hasan Sadat (Tehran: Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance, 1371 Sh./1992)Google Scholar; Astarabadi, Husayn b. Murtaza Husayn, Tārīkh-i sulṭānī: az Shaykh Ṣafī tṣ Shāh Ṣafī, ed. Ishraqi, Ihsan (Tehran: Intisharat-i ‘Ilmi, 1364 Sh./1985)Google Scholar.

53. Marvi, Muhammad Kazim, Tārīkh-i ‘ālām-ārā-yi Nādirī, ed. Riyahi, Muhammad Amin, 3 vols. (Tehran: Naqsh-i Jahan, 1364 Sh./1985), 6–7Google Scholar. For an analysis of this passage in particular, and Muhammad Kazim Marvi and questions of legitimacy in general, see Ernest Tucker, “Explaining Nadir Shah: Kingship and Royal Legitimacy in Marvi's, Muhammad Kazim Tārīkh-i ‘ālām-ārā-yi Nādirī,” Iranian Studies 26, nos. 1–2 (1993): 95–117Google Scholar.

54. It is interesting to note that by 1675, when the anonymous ‘Ālam-ārā-yi Ṥafavī was written, the story had evolved even further. In this version, all references to ḥukm-i vilāyat and nūr-i vilāyat are removed, and Shaykh Zahid tells Shaykh Safi that the dream means “From your children, one will become a king and be the propagator of the true religion (maẕhab-i ḥaqq)” (Shukri, Yad Allah, ed., ‘Ālam-ārā-yi Ṥafavī [(Tehran): Intisharat-i Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, 1350 Sh./1971], 13)Google Scholar.