Qashqāʾī, Jahāngīr Khān

Qashqāʾī, Jahāngīr-Khān, teacher of philosophy and some Islamic sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries/13th and 14th centuries (1864–1949/1243–1328).

Little is known about his life. He was the son of Muhammad-Khān Qashqāʾī, from the tribes of Fārs and the Dara-shūrī clan, and was born in 1864/1243 in the town of Dehāqān*, a district of Isfahan.¹ It is said that until the age of forty he only once traveled to Shiraz, and therein served as secretary to his maternal uncle, the headman of Hamgīn, a village in the Dehāqān district, while simultaneously working there as a farmer. At the age of forty he came to Isfahan and began to learn certain basic of Islamic sciences.²

In the sources, various accounts exist regarding Jahāngīr-Khān’s coming to Isfahan and his decision to remain there. According to the most widely known version, he had traveled with some members of his tribe to Isfahan in order to purchase the family’s annual provisions. During this trip he passed through Chahārsūq*, one of the quarters of Isfahan, where, due to his style of clothing and manner, he was mocked and harassed by children. At that moment, Humāyī Shīrāzī, the father of Jalāl-al-Dīn Humāyī*, happened to come to his aid and dispersed the children. Humāyī Shīrāzī then asked him about what he was doing there, to which he replied that he had some tasks, including buying strings for his sitar. Humāyī Shīrāzī directed him to Julfā*, a Christian sector of the city, to purchase the strings, and through conversation realized that Jahāngīr-Khān possessed keen intelligence. He therefore suggested that Jahāngīr-Khān remain in Isfahan and pursue studies, a proposal which he accepted, thus entering the ranks of the seminarians in middle age.³

In another account, only his eagerness for study is mentioned. According to this version, from childhood he had a strong interest in learning, and his father would hire teachers for him. However, the nomadic life of the tribe, with its constant migrations between summer and winter quarters, prevented him from pursuing education. Therefore, at the age of twenty-two or thirty-two⁴ he went to Isfahan to continue his studies. In yet another report, Dīvān-Beygī Shīrāzī states that he saw Jahāngīr-Khān in 1884/1302, and that he had been living in Isfahan for more than twenty years and was nearly fifty years old.⁵ Both of these accounts appear unlikely, for if he had been in Isfahan for over twenty years and was nearly fifty when Dīvān-Beygī saw him, then there must have been a mistake in estimating his age. Given his recorded year of birth in 1864/1243, he would have been about fifty-nine at that time. Moreover, most sources that record his birth year as 1864/1243 also state that his arrival in Isfahan occurred in 1905/1283, when he was about forty years old.⁶

In Isfahan, Jahāngīr-Khān studied with several teachers: in philosophy and kalām with Sheikh Muhammad-Reza Qumsheʾī*⁷ and Mullā Ismā‛īl Darb-Kūshkī*;⁸in jurisprudence with Mīrzā Muhammad-Hasan Najafī*⁹ and his brother Muhammad-Bāqer Najafī;¹⁰ in mathematics with Mullā Ḥeydar Ṣabbāgh Lenjānī;¹¹ and in medicine and natural sciences with Mīrzā ‛Abdul-Javād Ḥakīm.¹²

Most of Jahāngīr-Khān’s teaching career took place in the Ṣadr Bāzār Seminary*. He lectured on Mullā Ṣadrā*’s al-asfār al-arba‛a and Mullā Hādī Sabzavārī’s sharḥ al-manẓūma, thereby reviving the study of philosophy in the seminary of Isfahan. At that time, pursuing philosophy among scholars and seminarians was regarded as tantamount to unbelief and heresy and brought disrepute, yet he encouraged some students to turn their attention to these sciences.¹³ He also taught jurisprudence and legal theory, relying on Sheikh Anṣārī’s al-makāseb, al-Shahīd al-Thānī’s sharḥ al-lum‛a al-dameshqīyya, and Mīrzā Qummī’s qawānīn al-uṣūl. On the seminaries’ holidays, he explained and commented on selected passages from the nahj al-balāgha. He likewise taught mathematics and astronomy, based on Sheikh Bahāʾī*’s khulāṣat al-ḥesāb and Kh^wāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s sī faṣl on the principles of calendrical calculation. Jahāngīr-Khān also devoted himself to teaching Arabic literary and rhetorical sciences, including Ebn Heshām al-Anṣārī’s al-mughnī and Sa‛d-al-Dīn Mas‛ūd b. ‛Umar Taftāzānī’s al-muṭawwal.¹⁴

Many leading figures of the seminary benefited from Jahāngīr-Khān’s lessons in philosophy. Among the most renowned were: Sayyed Hussein Burūjerdī*;¹⁵ Ḥājj Āqā Raḥīm Arbāb*;¹⁶ Sayyed Kāẓem ‛Aṣṣār Tehrānī;¹⁷ Mīrzā Hasan Vahīd Dastjerdī*;¹⁸ Muhammad Ja‛far Kāẓemī Dehāqānī; Sayyed Hasan Mushkān Ṭabasī; Fāḍel Ṭūnī;¹⁹ Mīrzā Ali-Akbar Ḥekmī Yazdī, known as Tajallī;²⁰ Mīrzā Ali Shīrāzī Eṣfahānī*;²¹ Raḥmatullāh Sutūde Arākī;²² Sheikh Muhammad-Hasan Ṭāleqānī;²³ Mujtabā Rawḍātī;²⁴ Maḥmūd Raḍavī;²⁵ Hussein Hazāveʾī Arākī;²⁶ and Sayyed Hasan Mudarres*.²⁷

It is reported that during the Constitutional Revolution, Jahāngīr-Khān followed the political stance of Sheikh Faḍlullāh Nūrī and spoke extensively about the shortcomings of constitutionalism,²⁸ and, according to one account,²⁹ he urged Ḥājj Āqā Raḥīm Arbāb to remain silent on the matter. At the same time, however, he never showed support or sympathy for royal despotism.

Jahāngīr-Khān Qashqāʾī died in Isfahan at the age of eighty-five, on Sunday, 13 Ramaḍān 1328/1929, and was buried in Takht-e Fūlād*, in the Tekye of Sayyed Muhammad Turk, today known as the Tekye-ye Qashqāʾī.³⁰ He is remembered as an ascetic, modest, and dignified man who, despite being more learned than many of the scholars of his time, never wore clerical dress. Instead, he dressed like the elders of the tribes, wearing a felt cap, and refrained from donning a turban or leading prayers in the mosques.³¹ In his youth he composed poetry.³² It is also said that as a young man he fell in love with his cousin Gul-Andām, but, having twice failed in his proposal of marriage, he never married thereafter.³³ In accordance with his will, his books were distributed among the students and teachers of the Ṣadr Seminary, including Abū al-Qāsem Dehkurdī*.³⁴

Of Jahāngīr-Khān Qashqāʾī, only a portion of his lectures on Mullā Hādī Sabzevārī’s sharḥ al-manẓūma survives, recorded by Hasan Vahīd Dastjerdī. This work was critically edited by Jalāl-al-Dīn Humāyī* and prepared for publication by Manūchehr Ṣadūqī-Suhā in Tehran by Mawlā Publications in 2008/1387. Some historians have mistakenly attributed to him a commentary on parts of the nahj al-balāgha.³⁵ The origin of this error lies in the fact that Jahāngīr-Khān’s name was inserted, out of respect, in the preface and in several other places of a copy of Mīrzā Muhammad-Bāqer Ḥakīm, known as Nawwāb’s (d. 1829/1245) sharḥ nahj al-balāgha. Since Qashqāʾī was insistent on publishing this book, the misattribution occurred.³⁶

In the past two decades, several works have been compiled on the life of Qashqāʾī, though their content largely consists of transcriptions from earlier sources. Among them are: Mahdī Qarqānī, Khurshīd-e penhān: sharḥ-e zendegānī-ye ḥakīm Ayatollah Jahāngīr-Khān Qashqāʾī (Tehran, Media, 2003/1382); and Nādere Jalālī, zendegī-nāma va khadamāt-e ‛elmī va farhangī-ye marḥūm Mīrzā Jahāngīr-Khān Qashqāʾī (Tehran, Anjuman-e Āthār va Mafākher-e Farhangī, 2019/1398).

/Mahdi Askari/

Bibliography

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1. See: Wāʿeẓ Javādī, pp. 54–55; for a critique of his genealogy, cf. Eḥteshāmī, p. 59.  [↩]
2. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 13, p. 344; Jenāb, p. 189.[↩]
3. Humāyī, 1984/1363, introduction by Qudsī, pp. 113–114; cf. Bāmdād, vol. 1, p. 284.[↩]
4. Humāyī, 2017/1396, vol. 2, p. 674.[↩]
5. Dīvān-Beygī Shīrāzī, vol. 1, p. 387.[↩]
6. Cf. Eḥteshāmī, p. 39 for differing accounts.[↩]
7. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 13, p. 344[↩]
8. Jenāb, pp. 189, 205.[↩]
9. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 13, p. 344.[↩]
10. Jenāb, p. 666.[↩]
11. Jenāb, p. 189.[↩]
12. Humāyī, 2017/1396, vol. 2, p. 675.[↩]
13. Humāyī, muqaddame bar dīvān-e ṭarab, p. 70.[↩]
14. Jenāb, p. 190.[↩]
15. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 14, p. 605.[↩]
16. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 14, p. 721.[↩]
17. Amīn, vol. 7, p. 213.[↩]
18. Jenāb, p. 601; Barqūʿī, sukhanvarān-e nāmī-ye mu‛āṣer-e Iran, vol. 6, p. 3842.[↩]
19. Wā‛eẓ Javādī, pp. 59, 63.[↩]
20. Javāherkalām, vol. 2, p. 1060.[↩]
21. Javāherkalām, vol. 2, p. 1133.[↩]
22. Javāherkalām, vol. 3, p.1470.[↩]
23. Javāherkalām, vol. 3, p. 1531.[↩]
24. Ebn al-Reza, vol. 2, p. 402.[↩]
25. Ebn al-Reza, vol. 2, p. 460[↩]
26. Ebn al-Reza, vol. 3, p. 17[↩]
27. Sharīf Rāzī, vol. 1, p. 258.[↩]
28. Jenāb, p. 190[↩]
29. Eḥteshāmī, p. 34.[↩]
30. Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, ṭabaqāt a‛lām al-Shī‛a, vol. 13, p. 344; cf. Mahdavī, p. 173, which records his death year as 1332; see also Humāyī, muqaddame bar dīvān, p. 70, which gives his age at death as eighty.[↩]
31. Fasāʾī, p. 1581; Eḥteshāmī, p. 32.[↩]
32. Dīvān-Beygī Shīrāzī, vol. 1, p. 387.[↩]
33. Eḥteshāmī, pp. 15, 20.[↩]
34. Wā‛eẓ Javādī, p. 64; Eḥteshāmī, p. 37, who lists fifteen books that came into the possession of Dehkurdī.[↩]
35. Bāmdād, vol. 1, p. 284; Āqā Buzurg Ṭehrānī, al-dharī‛a elā taṣānīf al-Shī‛a, vol. 14, p. 12.[↩]
36. Mu‛allem Ḥabībābādī, vol. 4, p. 1232, under events of 1829/1245, n. 2; see also Wā‛eẓ Javādī, p. 65; Eḥteshāmī, p. 31.[↩]