Messianic Hopes and
Mystical Visions
The Nu– rbakhshı-ya between
Medieval and Modern Islam
Shahzad Bashir
Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions tells the story of the N u– rbakhshı-ya, an
Islamic messianic movement that originated in fifteenth-century Iran and central
Asia and survives to the present in Pakistan and India. In the first full-length study
of the sect, Shahzad Bashir illumines the significance of messianism as an Islamic
religious paradigm and illustrates its centrality to any discussion of Islamic sectarianism. By tracing Nu– rbakhshı- activity in the Middle East and central and southern
Asia through more than five centuries, Bashir brings to view the continuities and disruptions within Islamic civilization across regions and over time. Bashir effectively
captures the way Nu– rbakhshı-s have understood and debated the meaning of their
tradition in various geographical and temporal contexts.
Bashir provides a detailed biography of the movement’s founder, Muhammad
–
Nu rbakhsh (d. 1464). Born to a Twelver Shı-’ı- family, Nu– rbakhsh declared himself
the mahdı- , or the Muslim messiah, as an adept of the Kubravı- Sufi order under the
influence of the teachings of the great Sufi master Ibn al-’Arabı- (d. 1240).
Nu– rbakhsh’s religious worldview, which Bashir treats in depth in this volume, offers
a new window onto the intellectual world of the late medieval Islamic East.
Although Nurbakhsh met with limited success as a claimant to the title of mahdıduring his lifetime, his movement prospered after his death as his disciples remained
active in Tı- mu– rid and S• afavid Iran, central Asia, and Ottoman Anatolia. Bashir analyzes the spread of the Nu– rbakhshı-ya as well as its greatest sociopolitical triumph—
transplantation into Kashmir in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, from
where the movement extended into neighboring Ladakh and Baltistan. Making use
of previously unexamined sources, Bashir recounts every phase of Nu– rbakhshı-
SHAHZAD BASHIR is an assistant professor of religion at Carleton College in
Northfield, Minnesota. Born in Pakistan
and educated at Amherst College and Yale
University, Bashir now lives in Nort h field.
history, paying particular attention to the reinterpretation and adjustment of the tradition in each local context.
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