Mustafa dehqan

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Oriente Moderno, LXXXVIII, 2, 2008, p. xxx-xxx 

© Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino — Roma 

 

MUSTAFA DEHQAN 

 

 

NOTES ON A BAHƒ½‡ POLEMIC AGAINST AHL-I HAQQ

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hen the Bah…½†s came to power in Kurdistan in the heart of the territo-

ries of the Kurdish-speaking Ahl-i Haqq communities of the patriarchate 

of Gôran,

1

 and established at Kirind and Kirm…nš…h the Kurdish minority 

groups that would be the centers of Bah…½† power in Kurdistan, the stage was set 

for confrontations over religion to erupt between Ahl-i Haqq and Bah…½† intel-

lectuals.

2

 For Kirind and Kirm…nš…h were to become intellectual centers of the 

first order in the academic awakening of Bah…½†sm, especially during the late 

Q…j…r†d period.

3

 And these centers were all within the territory of the Ahl-i 

Haqq  xanedans (‘branch, family’) of Heyder†, Xam™@†, and Ate@beg†, the three 

Ahl-i Haqq regional families in the Kurdish speaking communities of the area 

with the most over-all influence.

4

 Within these ecclesiastical jurisdictions that 

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∗

 Sponsored by Iran National Science Foundation 

1 – On the Ahl-i Haqq religion, society, and history, see particularly the studies by M. Mokri, 

“Cinquante-deux versets de Cheikh Amîr en dialecte gûrânî”, Journal Asiatique, 244 (1956), p. 

391-422; idem, “Le symbole de la Perle dans le folklore persan et chez les Kurdes Fidèles de 

Vérité (Ahl-e Haqq), Journal Asiatique, 248 (1960), p. 463-481; and idem, “Étude d'un titre 

de propriété du début du XVIe siècle, provenant du Kurdistan (notes d’ethnographie et d’his-

toire)”, Journal Asiatique, 251 (1963), p. 229-256. 

2 – The involvement of the ethnic Kurds in Bah…ism and especially Babism were relatively 

strong. One of the earliest Babi communities was Kurdish, numbering 12,000 and inhabiting 

the area between Kirm…nš…h and Ÿa|ne. For Bah…½† religion, in general, see R. Jockel, Glau-

benslehren der Bahá’i-Religion, Darmstadt, 1951; and for some detailed discussions of B…b†s 

and Bah…½†s in Iranian Kurdistan, see ¼U. R. Kahh…lah,  A¼l…m al-Nis…½, Beirut, 1977, 4, p. 

194; M. Mi|r…b†, Qurrat al-¼Ayn, Š…¼ira-yi ƒz…d†x…h wa Mill†-yi ‡r…n, Köln, 1994, p. 85-86; 

B. Afr…s†y…b†, T…r†x-i J…mi¼-i Bah…½†yyat, Tehran, 2004, p. 475, 553, and 627. One must use 

these sources with care of course, due to exaggeration and bigotry in the reporting of the statis-

tical and other information. 

3

 

–

 

It should also be mentioned here that the most well-known Bah…½† Kurds, i.e. Šay² FaraÞ 

All…h al-åak† al-Kurd† and Šay² Mu|yi al-D†n al-Ÿabr† al-Kurd†, were Sunni Kurds by birth. 

See Afr…s†y…b†, op. cit., p. 540. åak† established one of the first Kurdish publishing houses in 

1920 in Cairo. Some of the works of Bah…½† literature, such as J. E. Esslemont, Baha’ullih and 

the New Era, Wilmette, Illinois, 1980 (reprint of the 1923 original), have been translated into 

the Kurdish dialects of Sôranî (by ðusein Jawdat) and Gôranî (anonymous) at the same pub-

lishing house. 

4

 

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On these xanedans and especially the xanedans of G‹ran district, see M. van Bruinessen, 

“When Haji Bektash Still bore the Name of Sultan Sahak, Notes on the Ahl-i Haqq of the 

Guran District”, in: A. Popovic & G. Veinstein (eds.), Bektachiyya: études sur l’ordre mystique 

W 

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could be both magnet and foil for the first generations of Bah…½† intellectuals in 

Iranian Kurdistan, religious dialectics and literature came to their first flowering 

in Persian in this milieu.

5

  

Responses to the Ahl-i Haqq challenge from the Bah…½† individuals who spoke 

Kurdish appear in the surviving manuscripts of a number of personal libraries of 

Ahl-i Haqq.

6

 Some controversialists, to my knowledge, wrote polemical tracts in 

Persian, including Gôranî and Turkish verses, that addressed themselves to ar-

gument about religion between Bah…½†s and Ahl-i Haqq. This genre of writing is 

the subject of the present essay. Here we may give only a very brief account of 

the most important features of the disputes with Ahl-i Haqq in the surviving 

manuscripts in Iranian Kurdistan, all of which are still unpublished and untrans-

lated into western language. 

I. The Manuscripts 

The manuscripts of the polemic are not united in a single whole and number, to 

my knowledge, around three manuscripts: Mann MS, Kirm…nš…h MS, and Ÿa|-

ne MS. The text in the Oskar Mann Manuscript Collection

7

 which contains the 

Bah…½†-Ahl-i Haqq polemic is a dispute text in which an unidentified Bah…½† 

Kurd, deftly confounds his Ahl-i Haqq interlocutors on some occasions during 

his G‹ran residence. In the course of his report of these arguments about relig-

ion, the unknown author of the report also conveys some interesting historical 

information about ideas he and his Ahl-i Haqq contemporaries held about cur-

rent events, most notably about Bah…ism.

8

 But we must let this manuscript rest 

here. We have some other manuscripts of the polemic to mention. 

There are several separate pieces in Ahl-i Haqq personal collections of the 

polemic. Two of them are very short excerpts of originally longer works. They 

———— 

des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach, Istanbul, 1995, p. 117-138; M. ¼A. Sul-

¥…n†,  T…r†x-i X…nd…n-h…-yi |aq†qat wa maš…h†r-i muti½axxir-i Ahl-i Haqq dar Kirm…nš…h, Te-

hran, 2003, p. 34-108. 

5 – According to oral accounts, the language of Bah…½† individuals is generally Persian, but 

there is ample evidence that when there are persons from another particular language commu-

nity (i.e. Kurdish and Turkish) in a sufficient number to make it practicable, services in their 

own language could be arranged. 

6 – Unpublished sources referred to in this essay include these manuscripts and extensive in-

terviews that I made in Ÿa|ne, Kirm…nš…h, and Kirind. Much of my description is in agree-

ment with those of Ahl-i Haqq Kurds who are based in Iranian Kurdistan now. 

7 – All the manuscripts of Oskar Mann from the ‘Mann/Hadank Collection’ were on loan to 

the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and were returned in 1995 to the Ber-

lin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, who now keep them in their archives (I owe this obser-

vation to Dr. Hartmut-Ortwin Feistel of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz). 

The first allusions to the Bah…½† polemic of Mann/Hadank Collection are: V. Minorsky, “No-

tes sur la secte des Ahle Haqq”, Revue du Monde Musulman,

 

40 (1920), p. 45 and 81; idem, 

“Un traité de polemique Behaïe-Ahlé-ðaqq”, Journal Asiatique, 17 (1921), p. 165-167, where 

only a linguistic discussion of polemic’s Turkish words is given. 

8 – Cf. Minorsky, 1920,

 

op. cit., p. 81. 

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have been preserved by the Ate@beg† community, in the collection of ¼El† Hey-

der. The complete form of the polemic, preserved in at least two different manu-

scripts in two different places: Kirm…nš…h and Ÿa|ne. Each one states the Bah…½† 

doctrine of his own confessional community, and offers a verse justification for 

their characteristic formulae. 

It is interesting that there are some additional folios in favor of Ahl-i Haqq 

doctrines. The modern supplemental folios are directed against Bah…½†s. The uni-

dentified author of such anti-Bah…½† folios discusses not only the false doctrines’ 

of Bah…½†s, but also the criteria for recognizing the true religion. 

There are many similarities between the contents of the different manu-

scripts of the polemic. However, there is also a need for caution as it would be 

wrong to assume too many on generalized similarities. The following summary 

is based on the basic lines of all manuscripts which their ‘mother MS’ is certainly 

compiled in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the attempt to treat the date 

of manuscript does not yielded any satisfactory result, but the script and the 

contents both suggest a date almost 25 years after Bah…½ All…h’s travel to Sulay-

m…niyyah.

9

 

II. The Arguments 

The fullest title of the polemic, as it appears in the first folio of the manuscript is 

as follows: 

A treatise on the confirmation of the holy religion of Bah…½ All…h (1817-

1829), and of the undefiled words which his disciples transmitted to the nations, 

and the nullification of Ahl-i Haqq denominations which Bah…½†s embrace. 

While this description title for the tract probably does not come from the 

pen of author, it is a fair indication of its contents. 

The epistle on the substantiation of the Bah…½† religion is unfinished in the 

form in which we have it. Yet it has two major sections. The first is an argument 

in defense of Bah…½ All…h which seeks to justify author’s previous doctrine of in-

carnation too. The last section deals with several areas of Ahl-i Haqq life about 

which converters from Ahl-i Haqq to Bah…ism have questions, viz., the venera-

tion of Serencam

10

 and the Ahl-i Haqq sub-branches. 

At a now unknown date prior to the early twentieth century (c. 1880-90) the 

author underwent a religious conversion and entered from Ahl-i Haqq to  the 

Bah…½† life. It was at this point in his career that he wrote the polemic. Author’s 

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9

 

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On Bah…½ All…h’s travel to Sulaym…niyyah and its date, see S. G. Wilson, Bahaism and its 

Claims, a Study of the Religion Promulgated by Baha Ullah and Abdul Baha, New York, 1970, 

219ff.; J. R. Cole, “Bahá’u’ll…h and the Naqshbandí Sufis in Iraq, 1854-1856”, in: J. R. Cole 

and M. Momen (eds.), From Iran East and West: Studies in Babi and Bahá’í History, Volume 2 

Los Angeles, 1984, p. 1-28. 

10

 

–

 

Serencam is the most important religious book of Ahl-i Haqq. There are several publica-

tions on Serencam’s Gôranî and Turkish poems. See, for example, V. Minorsky, Materiali dl'a 

izu¤eniya persidskoy sekti “l’udi istini” ili “Ali Ilahi”, Moskva, 1911; and M. S™r†, Sur™d-h…-yi 

D†n†-yi Y…rs…n, Tehran, 1965.  

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discussion of the doctrine of incarnation, as a basic doctrine of Ahl-i Haqq,

11

 is 

the longest single section in the polemic. He does not attempt to prove the doc-

trine here. Rather, he assumes that it is the evident teaching of the Serencam 

that in Bah…½ All…h, God has manifested Himself to His creatures, in a human 

form. Author first of all offers the reader some ‘verse reasons’ for God’s manifes-

tation of Himself in this manner, where he cites the Turkish poems of Qu@

ç

î 

Uqlî

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 and the Gôranî poems of Teymûr.

13

 In other words, the Ahl-i Haqq con-

cept of incarnation and Heptad

14

 is the basis of author’s polemic against the 

same community. 

Due to God’s generosity, man is the focal point of God’s creation, the sum-

mation of all the natural powers on earth, and endowed with a heavenly goal in 

life. Because the creator is wise, one must believe, by the force of logical neces-

sity, author claims, that God will complete what He has, in His magnanimity, 

begun. On the basis of this premise, author proposes the reason for accepting 

Bah…½ All…h as the manifestation of God. Accordingly, in His dealings with Hep-

tad and the great Ahl-i Haqq Kurdish saints, God has appeared to them in a 

manner which human senses could perceive. He spoke to Sultan Sehak, Rezbar, 

Mustafa, and others, according to the Serencam, as a man, He manifested Him-

self in them. So, author concludes, every intelligent person who agrees with the 

Ahl-i Haqq scriptures should recognize that God’s appearance to Ahl-i Haqq in 

a new ma©har or m†hm…n

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 (i.e. Bah…½ All…h), should be the culmination of His 

generosity and magnanimity as revealed in Serencam. 

In the remaining folios author explains very briefly the basic lines of Bah…ism 

and attempts to show the differences among Ahl-i Haqq sub-branches. He says 

that what Ahl-i Haqq say about Bah…ism is not correct and spends some notes 

ridiculing those who believe less noble things about Bah…ism. 

———— 

11 – For a good discussion of Ahl-i Haqq’s incarnation idea, see M. Mokri, “L’idée de l'incar-

nation chez les Ahl-e Haqq”, in: Akten des XXIV. Intern. Orientalisten-Kongr., München-Wies-

baden, 1959, p. 496-498.  

12 – Qu@

ç

î Uqlî is the most well-known saint of Ahl-i Haqq Turkish community, but there is 

no biography of scientific publication on his life. For the kelams of Qu@

ç

î Uqlî, see S. K. 

N†knizh…d, Kal…m…t-i Turk† (MS Facsimile, The Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 

No. 119032). 

13 – Sh…h Taym™r B…ny…r…n† (b.1825), known as Teymûr, was a rebellious Ahl-i Haqq leader 

of Gôran community. After having obtained his religious degree in Gôran, he traveled to Kir-

m…nš…h where he became an anti-Š†¼ah. According to Ahl-i Haqq literature, Teymûr’s revo-

lutionary Gôranî poetry was widely read among Š†¼ah Kurds. So N…¡ir al-D†n Š…h killed him 

in Kirm…nš…h. See, Ÿ. Ÿaf†z…da, D…nišn…ma-yi N…m…war…n-i Y…rs…n, Tehran, 1997, p. 365-366. 

14 – Heptad

 

or

 

Haftan is thought to manifest itself on earth in different guises from time to 

time. So different historical figures can be regarded as manifestation of the same being, and are 

thus essentially identical. See, P. G. Kreyenbroek, “Mithra and Ahreman, Biny…m†n and Ma-

lak ¦…w™s, Traces of an Ancient Myth in the Cosmogonies of Two Modern Sects”, in: P. Gi-

gnoux (ed.), Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions, from Mazdaism to Sufism [=Studia Iranica, 

Cahier 11], Paris, 1992, p. 69-71. 

15 – In the Gôranî texts the meaning of incarnation was expressed by several words: ma©har, 

m†hm…n, tajall†, m†hm…n†, j…ma, d™n, etc. Cf. Mokri, 1959, op. cit., p. 498. 

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The final interesting polemical element in author's argument is his serious 

encouragement for converting Ahl-i Haqq to Bah…ism.

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 Author’s reasons for 

accepting Bah…ism as the true religion are very simply stated. He, for example, 

argues that no one of the earthly motives for religious conversion, that he had 

rehearsed earlier, can be found in the Bah…½† religion. Bah…½†s are present every-

where, and not only in Kurdistan, or limited to Kurdish language. 

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–

 

This scheme is also discussed in Mann’s manuscript. Cf. Minorsky, 1920, op. cit., p. 81, 

idem, 1921, op. cit., p. 165.