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(d. 1535), the leading planetary theorist of the century, who naturally
authored treatises on geomancy and lettrism both; therein he presents
them as sciences that allow the practitioner to explore, and intellectually
ascend, the great Chain of Being as proximate cause of all sublunary
and celestial phenomena.9 Likewise, Mr Dmd (d. 1630), a founding
member of the so-called philosophical school of Isfahan and intimate of
Shah Abbs, declared the basis of his metaphysical system as a whole to
be emanationist-lettrist neopythagoreanism: world as (Arabic) text.10
What is rarely acknowledged, however, is the fact that such lofty
(occult-)philosophising had very immediate political applications. The
greatest thinkers of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Iran, including Mr
Dmd and his peers, feature in some contemporary sources as practicing
occultists in service to the Safavid state, master talismanists responsible
for protecting the realm and letter-magically directing its political
course. Most prominently among them, Shaykh Bah (d. 1621), the
hugely influential Safavid shaykh al-islm, master mathematician and
polymath extraordinaire, is remembered to this day as one of the most
powerful occultists and letter mages of his generation. But this function
was simply part and parcel of his larger role as a primary architect of
the new Safavid imperial culture, in terms material, legal, theological
and magical: as an architect, he helped to design and construct Isfahan
as imperial capital; as a jurist-theologian, he helped to transform the
unstable messianic-sufi framework of the early Safavid state into a stable
orthodox Twelver Shii imperial template; as an occultist, he strengthened
the state by constructing astral-letter-magical devicestalismans (sg.
tilasm)to protect and guide the ruling elite and defend against plague
and invasion.
Such were the invaluable services that charismatic scholar-occultists
offered their royal patrons throughout the early modern Persianate world.
Most importantly, it was precisely the neoplatonic-neopythagorean
cosmology these theosised philosophers codified that legitimised
Islamicate hierarchical cosmocracy, this lettrist Ibn Arabian monism that
fuelled henological imperialism.
As sketched above, the Safavids patronage of occultism was clearly
enthusiastic; yet by comparison to that of their imperial rivals, it appears
9
10
The
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The
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