Cities and Centers of Shiite Jurisprudential Texts Compilation and Transcription in Iran During the First Half of the Safavid State (1501-1588)

To identify cities and centers where Shiite jurisprudential texts were compiled and copied.

Data was collected by searching the Indexes of the Union Catalog of Manuscripts of Iran (فهرستگان نسخ خطی ایران =).

Out of 554 titles identified, 392 had notes of place. Around 50 % (192 titles) were written or copied in Mashhad and Isfahan, Shiraz, Qazvin, Kashan, and Tabriz. Only for 86 titles the center was mentioned. Of this number 65 were produced in 47 seminaries. The rest were reproduced in centers such as shrines, mosques, private houses, Nezamiyehs (institutions of higher learning in the Muslim world), Khangahs (Sufi centers for spiritual retreat), and local communities.

Proliferation of Shiite schools in the first half of the Safavid period in major cities played an important role in reproduction of Imami jurisprudential texts for teaching purposes. Authors of contemporary works were jurists like Mohaghegh Karki and Sheikh Baha'i and the works of famous jurists who immigrated from Jabal Amel to Iran upon the invitation of Safavid monarchs to help with the promotion of Imami Shiism among the population which the majority used to be Sunnis until then. Calssical works by authors such as Allameh Helli and Mohaghegh Helli were also copied vastly.