The myth of anti-Sufi jurists:A genealogical view at the conflict between jurists and Sufis in the Qajar era

Since the end of the Zandian era, with the return of Nematollahi Sufis to Iran, a stream of Sufi criticism was formed. Coinciding with empowering fundamentalist jurists in the field of Shiite jurisprudence, and with the union of Shiite scholars and the Qajar government, especially in the period of Fath Ali Shah, this period creates a serious confrontation between Shiite jurists and Sufis. The prevailing view in this regard is that there is a difference of opinion on epistemological issues, whose cause was the Sufis’ distance from the Shari’a. However, a review of historical sources calls this assumption into question. More specifically, the historical documents indicate the existence of one of the Sufi dynasties, the Dhahabis, with whom the jurists did not have a dispute, while the epistemological foundations of the Dhahabis and the Nematullahs are not particularly different. In the present study, using Foucault’s genealogical theory, we showed that beyond this epistemological conflict lies the presence at the center of the political discourse of the time. In fact, the issue of power has had a very important impact on determining how jurists and Sufis treated each other. Since the Dhahabiyah did not have any inclination to power, they did not face any opposition from the jurists, but the Nemat-Allahs, who claimed power, were quickly suppressed. We explained this issue using Foucault's concept of power .