The Sholars of Oriental Studies and the Immigration of  Amilis  ulama to Safavid Iran

The cause and significance of the immigration of ‘Amilis ‘ulama to Iran in Safavid era is a polemical topic among the scholars of oriental studies in the last few decades. Some of them agreed with Edward Browne who believed that the paucity of shi’i sources and ‘ulama in Iran was the main reason for the invitation by Safavid kings. Most of the pioneer scholars such as Roger Savory, Albert Hourani and among the youngers, Rula Jurdi Abisaab supported this assumption. On the other hand, some scholars approved Andrew Newman viewpoint that diminished the importance of the immigration and maintained that the main reason for the invitation of ‘Amilis ulama by Shah Isma’il was since the Shi’i‘ulama of Bahrain and Irak denied and underestimated this invitation and accused the Safavid kings to extremism. Meanwhile, Abissab and Newman are both the representatives of those two theories among the scholars. It seems that the differentiate is derived from the distinctive frameworks of their studies. While Newman considered the issue in a ‘Usuli-Akhbari framework, Abissab used the same information and evidence in a Safavid-Ottoman framework. In this article, both viewpoints will be compared and assimilated.