The Relationship between the Sufis and the Ilkhanīd State in the Uliya-Name Texts: A Study on Safwat al-Sāfa by Ibn Bazzāz (d.759H)

As the most significant hagiography of Ilkhanīd period, Safwat al-Sāfa articulates a specific narrative of Sufi-State relationships under Ilkhanīds. What is represented in this new narrative is not the overall political history of the time, but only some moments, in which the central event is the encounter between the representative of ideological power, i.e. Sufi leadership, and representatives of secular power, politico-military elite. Safwat al-Sāfa's reports do not imply a complete representation of those events and do not correspond to the official historiographical reports of those events, but are aimed at writing them in line with the author's political orientation. The author, thus, selects some elements of political history and reconfigures them in a new narrative arrangement in order to provide a new account with real actors and real events with a degree of verisimilitude. Neither absolutely allegorical nor totally realistic, this new narrative configuration combines allegorical elements with realistic ones to transmit its political point; the superiority of ideological power over political power.