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Lot Essay
This waqf (endowment) is known as the “Sadeqiyya” and was established in 1077 AH (1666/1667AD). The “waqef” (founder) was Mirza Mohammad Sadeqh ibn Sadr ad-Din Muhammad Ibrahim Ishtihardi, who was Wazir of the provinces of Azerbaijan, Fars and Kerman during the reigns of Shah Abbas II and Shah Soleyman. The present lot is an early 18th century copy of the original 1659/1660 waqf. Wazirs were appointed to the main provinces by the royal court, reported to both the Amir-ol-Omara (Governor) of the province, and the court, and were responsible for administration, fiscal matters and tax collection. The original waqf document, dated 1659/1660 is held in the Sazeman-e Auqaf (Organisation for Endowments) in Tabriz. The date of our undated copy can be narrowed down to be later than 1070 AH (1659/1660AD), which is the date of the original waqf, and before 1142 AH (1729/1730AD), which is the date of the earliest dated signature in our document. Copies of waqf documents certified and witnessed by prominent 'ulama (members of the clergy) and local notables needed to be produced in order to settle disputes about ownership or administration of a waqf which was common in 17th and 18th century Persia as there was no central registry in which property ownership was recorded, and different group of beneficiaries had conflicts of interest. Our copy was probably produced during the turbulent and chaotic period of the Ottoman occupation of Tabriz (1725-1730) when the proxies of the Ottoman occupiers were attempting to confiscate waqf properties. Our document also demonstrates the norm of adding new witness statements to a waqf copy every time a dispute had to be dealt with.
The Sadeqiyya endowment incorporated a mosque, a madrasa (religious school), and a bazaar, and was endowed with significant additional revenue producing properties in Azerbaijan. The waqf specifies that portions of the income to go to the mutevalli (waqf administrator); a portion is set aside for the founder’s descendants with the largest part specified for the general expenditures of the waqf complex, especially for the upkeep of the mosque, its madrasa and the people employed there; the administration of the waqf to be handled by the founder himself during his lifetime, and for this office to be taken up after the founder’s death by the most righteous, learned and pious of his male descendants. From the document we also learn that the construction of the mosque was commenced in Rajab 1068 AH (April 1658), the waqef was appointed Wazir of Kashan in 1072 AH (1661/1662), construction of the mosque and madrasa were completed in 1075 AH (1664/1665), and the construction of the accommodations for the students of the madrasa were completed in Ramadan 1077 AH (March 1667). The document also lists the bazaars, public buildings, mosques, madrasas and hammams (baths) in each of the districts of Tabriz which had survived the Ottoman-Safavid wars of 1623-1939, adding the name of the benefactors who had endowed the mosques, madrasas and hammams. The most frequently named benefactor is Pir Budaq Khan Pornak Torkman ibn Shahbandeh Khan, who was Governor of Azerbaijan (1625-1635 and 1643-1650).
The Sadeqiyya waqf and its significant property holdings were studied in-depth by Abdolali Karang in Yek sanad-e tarikhi (A historical document, Tabriz, 1966, issue 100) and Assar-e bastani-e Azerbaijan (Historical documents of Azerbaijan, Tehran, 1972); Shahzadeh Nader Mirza in his Tarikh wa jughrafi-e dar-al-saltane Tabriz (History and geography of province of Tabriz, Tehran, 1981); and Christoph Werner in “An Iranian town in transition: a social and economic history of the elites of Tabriz” (Wiesbaden, 2000, pp.103-122). The significance and prominence of this waqf within the context of mid-17th century Tabriz is further highlighted by the remarks of the French jewellery merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who on his 6th voyage to the East when he was visiting Tabriz in 1664, describes the buildings of the Sadeqiyya waqf to be the most noteworthy buildings of Tabriz. In his travel account he says “In the year 1638 the City was almost ruin’d by Sultan Amurath, but it is almost rebuilt again. There are in it Bazaars, or Market-houses, which are well built, and many Inns very commodious, two Stories high. The fairest is that of Mirza-Sadé, Governour of the Province, who caus’d it to be built with a Market-house, adjoyning, to which he has added a Mosquee and a Colledge, with good Revenues.”
Abdolali Karang provides a complete transcript on of the waqf text (which is available upon request) and a detailed description of the buildings and properties of the Sadeqiyya waqf which have survived to the present day.
Shahzadeh Nader Mirza mentions how because of the greed of the descendants of the founder who were both the administrators and partial beneficiaries of the waqf, the waqf’s main purpose, the upkeep of the madrasa and the mosque had been forfeited. Most prominent and important among the waqf’s properties was a bazaar, which was and is still known today as the Bazaar-e-Sadeqiyya. At the beginning of the 19th century this bazaar was in ruins and crown prince Abbas Mirza rented its ground from the waqf administrator for a period of 30 years and for an amount of 300 tomans per year and rebuild the bazaar. The rent went directly to the madrasa, mainly for the alimentation of the students and the payment of the employed teachers. After the original period of the lease was over, the descendants of Mirza Mohammad Sadeq re-claimed the bazaar in order to generate rental revenue primarily for themselves, not heeding the advice of the senior ‘ulama (clergy), to be content with what waqf income they had, and to prolong the original contract that benefitted the madrasa. Accordingly, the city administration imposed heavy taxes on the property before handing it over to the heirs, so that after the deduction of imposed taxes, practically nothing remained, thus leaving no money for the maintenance of the madrasa which soon fell out of operation and at the time Shahzadeh Nader Mirza was writing in the early 1880s there were no longer students or any teachers at the madrasa.
Christopher Werner points out that apart from the religious and pious reasons to bequeath a wafq, there were numerous more mondane motivations during to establish such a legal structure. A wafq as a legal instrument made it possible to transform private property into a more secure and less vulnerable form of “public” ownership. Without a central registry which certified and guaranteed ownership of land and property in Safavid Persia such assets were easily lost to powerful officer-holders or tribal chiefs. Waqfs thus became a legal vehicle to not only endow assets for charitable purposes but also to secure ownership of those assets for one’s descendants and prevent usurpation of property, which is why most large waqfs established during the Safavid period had a double nature, one that can be regarded as the waqf’s charitable, and the second the waqf’s private aspect, combining private economic intentions with benevolent charitable objectives. These large waqfs (like the Sadeqiyya) were therefore neither a pure wafq ahli (family endowment), nor a pure wafq khairi (charitable endowment). Werner adds further that the standard practice of by making their descendants both waqf administrators and waqf beneficiaries, the waqf founders created a conflict of interest which in the long run inevitably resulted in the charitable purposes of a waqf to be neglected in order to increase the income of the founder’s descendants. This was not only the fate of the Sadeqiyya, as shown by Shahzadeh Nader Mirza, but also with other large waqfs of that period as shown by Christopher Werner who also notes that it is still remarkable that waqf like the Sadeqiyya (and others which he analyses) continue their existence up to the present time, surviving the fall of the Safavid dynasty, the Ottoman occupation of Azerbaijan, attempts by Nadir Shah to control and seize waqf properties, as well as the numerous local wars daunting Azerbaijan and Persia in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. But as shown the character of these waqf did not remain the same as they continued to undergo significant changes and alteration over time. In the case of the Sadeqiyya, the original purpose of the endowments, the preservation and subsistence of a mosque/madrasa-complex ceased and was replaced by the private financial interests of the descendants, but it is still registered today with the Sazeman-e Auqaf (Organisation of Endowments) as a functioning waqf.
The Sadeqiyya endowment incorporated a mosque, a madrasa (religious school), and a bazaar, and was endowed with significant additional revenue producing properties in Azerbaijan. The waqf specifies that portions of the income to go to the mutevalli (waqf administrator); a portion is set aside for the founder’s descendants with the largest part specified for the general expenditures of the waqf complex, especially for the upkeep of the mosque, its madrasa and the people employed there; the administration of the waqf to be handled by the founder himself during his lifetime, and for this office to be taken up after the founder’s death by the most righteous, learned and pious of his male descendants. From the document we also learn that the construction of the mosque was commenced in Rajab 1068 AH (April 1658), the waqef was appointed Wazir of Kashan in 1072 AH (1661/1662), construction of the mosque and madrasa were completed in 1075 AH (1664/1665), and the construction of the accommodations for the students of the madrasa were completed in Ramadan 1077 AH (March 1667). The document also lists the bazaars, public buildings, mosques, madrasas and hammams (baths) in each of the districts of Tabriz which had survived the Ottoman-Safavid wars of 1623-1939, adding the name of the benefactors who had endowed the mosques, madrasas and hammams. The most frequently named benefactor is Pir Budaq Khan Pornak Torkman ibn Shahbandeh Khan, who was Governor of Azerbaijan (1625-1635 and 1643-1650).
The Sadeqiyya waqf and its significant property holdings were studied in-depth by Abdolali Karang in Yek sanad-e tarikhi (A historical document, Tabriz, 1966, issue 100) and Assar-e bastani-e Azerbaijan (Historical documents of Azerbaijan, Tehran, 1972); Shahzadeh Nader Mirza in his Tarikh wa jughrafi-e dar-al-saltane Tabriz (History and geography of province of Tabriz, Tehran, 1981); and Christoph Werner in “An Iranian town in transition: a social and economic history of the elites of Tabriz” (Wiesbaden, 2000, pp.103-122). The significance and prominence of this waqf within the context of mid-17th century Tabriz is further highlighted by the remarks of the French jewellery merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who on his 6th voyage to the East when he was visiting Tabriz in 1664, describes the buildings of the Sadeqiyya waqf to be the most noteworthy buildings of Tabriz. In his travel account he says “In the year 1638 the City was almost ruin’d by Sultan Amurath, but it is almost rebuilt again. There are in it Bazaars, or Market-houses, which are well built, and many Inns very commodious, two Stories high. The fairest is that of Mirza-Sadé, Governour of the Province, who caus’d it to be built with a Market-house, adjoyning, to which he has added a Mosquee and a Colledge, with good Revenues.”
Abdolali Karang provides a complete transcript on of the waqf text (which is available upon request) and a detailed description of the buildings and properties of the Sadeqiyya waqf which have survived to the present day.
Shahzadeh Nader Mirza mentions how because of the greed of the descendants of the founder who were both the administrators and partial beneficiaries of the waqf, the waqf’s main purpose, the upkeep of the madrasa and the mosque had been forfeited. Most prominent and important among the waqf’s properties was a bazaar, which was and is still known today as the Bazaar-e-Sadeqiyya. At the beginning of the 19th century this bazaar was in ruins and crown prince Abbas Mirza rented its ground from the waqf administrator for a period of 30 years and for an amount of 300 tomans per year and rebuild the bazaar. The rent went directly to the madrasa, mainly for the alimentation of the students and the payment of the employed teachers. After the original period of the lease was over, the descendants of Mirza Mohammad Sadeq re-claimed the bazaar in order to generate rental revenue primarily for themselves, not heeding the advice of the senior ‘ulama (clergy), to be content with what waqf income they had, and to prolong the original contract that benefitted the madrasa. Accordingly, the city administration imposed heavy taxes on the property before handing it over to the heirs, so that after the deduction of imposed taxes, practically nothing remained, thus leaving no money for the maintenance of the madrasa which soon fell out of operation and at the time Shahzadeh Nader Mirza was writing in the early 1880s there were no longer students or any teachers at the madrasa.
Christopher Werner points out that apart from the religious and pious reasons to bequeath a wafq, there were numerous more mondane motivations during to establish such a legal structure. A wafq as a legal instrument made it possible to transform private property into a more secure and less vulnerable form of “public” ownership. Without a central registry which certified and guaranteed ownership of land and property in Safavid Persia such assets were easily lost to powerful officer-holders or tribal chiefs. Waqfs thus became a legal vehicle to not only endow assets for charitable purposes but also to secure ownership of those assets for one’s descendants and prevent usurpation of property, which is why most large waqfs established during the Safavid period had a double nature, one that can be regarded as the waqf’s charitable, and the second the waqf’s private aspect, combining private economic intentions with benevolent charitable objectives. These large waqfs (like the Sadeqiyya) were therefore neither a pure wafq ahli (family endowment), nor a pure wafq khairi (charitable endowment). Werner adds further that the standard practice of by making their descendants both waqf administrators and waqf beneficiaries, the waqf founders created a conflict of interest which in the long run inevitably resulted in the charitable purposes of a waqf to be neglected in order to increase the income of the founder’s descendants. This was not only the fate of the Sadeqiyya, as shown by Shahzadeh Nader Mirza, but also with other large waqfs of that period as shown by Christopher Werner who also notes that it is still remarkable that waqf like the Sadeqiyya (and others which he analyses) continue their existence up to the present time, surviving the fall of the Safavid dynasty, the Ottoman occupation of Azerbaijan, attempts by Nadir Shah to control and seize waqf properties, as well as the numerous local wars daunting Azerbaijan and Persia in the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. But as shown the character of these waqf did not remain the same as they continued to undergo significant changes and alteration over time. In the case of the Sadeqiyya, the original purpose of the endowments, the preservation and subsistence of a mosque/madrasa-complex ceased and was replaced by the private financial interests of the descendants, but it is still registered today with the Sazeman-e Auqaf (Organisation of Endowments) as a functioning waqf.