[Editor’s Note: All photos are taken by the author.]
The Pir-e Banu legend has been intermingled with the story of Bibi Shahrbanu, (Bib Sharbanu) whose pilgrimage site lies in the ancient Persian city of Rey (Raay) just south of modern day Tehran. Mary Boyce has effectively shown the relationship between the Pir-e Banu story and the Shahrbanu legends. In her article, “Bibi Shahrbanu and the Lady of Pars” she discusses how the literary tradition regarding Shahrbanu has her as Imam Hussyn’s wife/mother whereas in the oral tradition she is both the daughter of Yazdegard III and Hussyn’s wife/mother. There are multiple versions of her story, but she was most often considered another of King Yagdegird III’s daughters who:
was captured by the Arabs and taken to Madina, where she became the wife of Husayn, son of Ali. To him she bore a son, “Ali Zayn al-Abidin, who became the fourth Shia Imam. After the tragedy of Karbala, the Persian princess fled, as Husayn himself had bidden her, on her dead husband’s horse, and rode for her life back to Persia, with her enemies in hot pursuit. They were close upon her as she drew near Ray, and in desperation she tried to call on God; but instead of Yallahu” O God! Her weary tongue uttered instead Ya kuh! O mountain!, and miraculously the mountain opened before her and took her living into its rocks. A piece of her veil was caught in the stone and remained an object of veneration for centuries.viii
An early mid10thC rendition by Kulini states:
…Ali’s mother brought, not before Uthman, but before Umar, hated by the Shia; ignoring thereby two historical facts, one, that “’Umar died in 644, whereas ‘Ali was not born until 657, the year after Uthman’’s death; the other, that Khorasan was conquered during the caliphate of Uthman. According to Kulini, “Umar sought to harm the princess, but Ali father of Husayn intervened, and bade him let her choose for herself a husband among those assembled. She went at one to Husayn. Being questioned by Ali, she declared her name to be Shahrbanu, wherat he replied: ‘No, you are Jehanshah’.ix
A later 10th C version in the Tarikh-I Qum relates:
that the mother of the Imam Ali, son of Husayn, was Sharhbanoe, daughter of Yazdigird, and that she died giving birth to Ali. … there is some agreement among the texts for the name of Ali’s mother and that she was a slave by capture, but her identity and fate differ according to Shi’a and Sunni versions.x
In all of them there is some overlap. Basically, according to Boyce, “the princess was brought before Umar, threatened by him (usually with being sold as a slave), and rescued by Ali; and that she was either given by Ali to Husayn, or herself chose Husayn as husband. In none of these accounts is anything said about the ultimate fate of the princess.”xi
Similar to Chak Chak, there is a spring at the foot of the arid mountain where Bibi Shahrbanu’s cave is situated with a mulberry wishing tree nearby. The actual pilgrimage shrine is across a courtyard from the cave with supposedly Bibi Shahrbanu’s handprints on the inside walls. The shrine itself is now more like a typical Shiite mausoleum. There is no archeological evidence to indicate that the structures are older than about 200-300 years, but there is reason to believe that the site has been used as a place of worship for Shiite Muslims at least since the 9th C. The generic oral tradition tie to the older Sassanian legend is perhaps a way to assert Persianness over the Arab invaders while building a bridge between ancient Anahita worship and the new religion.xii
The worship of Anahid became disreputable, while the story of Husayn’s Sassanian wife gained currency. With her, ‘the Mother of the Nine Imams’, a princess of the Persian blood royal, a human figure came into existence remote enough and exalted enough to be identified with ‘the Lady’ of Ray. Once the identification was made, then it became necessary to forge a link between the wife of the long-dead martyr of Karbala and the mountain shrine where ‘the Lady’ was still venerated as a living presence; and so, one may suppose, the legend was shaped that brought the princess to find refuge alive in the rocks of the sanctuary.xiii
Later the Zoroastrian elements were overridden, and the site became regarded as the grave of Shahrbanu in line with the worship of saints in Shiite Iran. “Inside the inner sanctuary there is an inscription, ‘This tomb of the Mother of Believers, the most excellent of princesses, my Lady Shahrbanoe. May Allah sanctify her secret!’”ix
The basic story is that of a woman seeking refuge from invading non-believers. She is lost and desperate when she begs a desert rocky mountain to provide her shelter and maintain her purity. Beyond the scope of human reasoning, the earth barren rock opens to save her. This pattern is the same at all of these five sites. The caves where the women were sheltered are indicative of the earliest symbols of the womb of mother earth while the caverns are each on steep and difficult to reach mountain slopes, the traditional home of the gods. Each of them also has a water source, indicating abundance. This ancient symbolism, also indicated by the animals associated with the earliest sites, sheep and cows, harken back to elements of the pre-Zoroastrian goddess Anahita, who was adopted into the Zoroastrian temple and formal religious system by Artaxerxes II (404-358 BCE). He adopted the Babylonian kings’ concept of building temples and placing a tax on the people of the neighboring villages to pay for the sacred sites as well as fill the royal coffers. Artaxerxes II built temples to Anahita at Susa, Echabatana, and perhaps the largest at Kangavar. Anahita is aligned early on with the Sumerian and Babylonian goddesses Inanna and Ishtar, and with her contemporary Aphrodite. All are goddesses of abundance, love, beauty, and war. They are all associated with water and in this and by her protection of the royal house, i.e., faith, she is also aligned with Saraswati. While worship at the sacred sites remained, the stories about them changed over time. At Bibi Qyz, the story is perhaps in its truest form. The main idea being that maiden purity – both physical and spiritual – supported by the mountain and waters brings fertility and blessings on the seeker. This site has more animistic elements as is seen in the sheep horn cemetery nearby. The two Yazdi Zoroastrian sites differ only slightly in intent. Both Bibi Nikbanu and Bibi Banu were of royal lineage wanting to escape Arab invaders to protect both themselves and their faith from desecration. Bibi Sharbanu’s legend makes the largest change as it combines elements of the earlier stories to bridge the royal Persian dynasty to the future Shia ‘royalty’ with the nine Imams she is said to have been ancestor to. Bibi Parau takes the story and makes it solely about protecting Islam. The two Muslim sites now have mausoleums taking them out of the earlier nature worshipping arena, which was prevalent for both pre-Zoroastrian and Zoroastrian Persian traditions.
From the generic legend, the boundaries of physical and spiritual space are overcome by the grace of God. Purity of body, mind and spirit, elements of Zoroastrian as well as Abrahamic faiths, are of critical importance, not just for the woman who was provided refuge, but also for the pilgrim who comes asking for the ‘saints’’ assistance. The boundaries between mythic and historical times are also blurred in that some most likely ancient worship sites for Anahita became merged into quasi- historical sites for real historical figures, even though they may not really have ever been at their particular current shrine locations. Within the mythic legends there is a crossing of the boundaries among heavenly bodies who are called upon for help, the earth which opens up to grant refuge, and the waters from within which provide nourishment to both body and soul, thereby fertilizing the barrenness of the land, and for the pilgrims, their bodies. The legends also indicate an hierarchical power reversal, as the woman who was forced from material security by the hands of stronger male conquerors, through the power of the mountain and grace of God, became – by overcoming time and space– more powerful as an intermediary for the faithful between the physical and spiritual worlds. Central to the overcoming of boundaries and hierarchy is the voice. In each of the stories the mountain only opens after being called to do so. The sincere desperate plea from the petitioner is the key to open the stone wall and to letting refreshing waters gently flow.
It is through the voice that these legends have been kept alive. They are not literary works, but oral traditions. As such the legends change over time and place to meet the needs of the people of the community. There is a commonality, though, in showing that what is central to being Persian is different from the conquering Arabs. Persian pride shows through even in the Muslim sites as the woman protects the essence of Persian purity. The protection the land provides for the people that these stories relate is an indication of the historical conflict between Arab and Persian and through their retelling the animosity survives. These five examples of long-told legends relating to current pilgrimage sites for a quasi Animistic-Muslim community, Zoroastrians across the globe and Shi’ite Muslims in Iran and Turkmenistan share the common pattern of a helpless pure woman begging assistance from a seemingly barren mountain and receiving help and nourishment from it. Boundaries of myth and history, the physical and spiritual worlds, and of time and place are blended in each of the legends even as they perpetuate ancient conflicts. The typical power structures of male – female, conqueror – conquered are also reversed. They form what Kane calls the “principle of exchanged balance,” that leads to “a network of causes-causing-causes-to cause causes…. It is all process-unending.”xv
Today new structures are being built on these sites to accommodate the increasing number of tourists/pilgrims. This influx is likely to have an impact on the evolving oral traditions that make up this unending process of trying to understand Iran’s history and changing place in the modern world.
(End of the Essay)
viii Boyce, “Bibi Sharbanu,” 33
ix Boyce, “Bibi Sharbanu,” 35
x Boyce, “Bibi Sharbanu,” 35
xi Boyce, “Bibi Sharbabu,” 35-36
xii Michael J. Fischer, “Sacred Circles: Iranian (Zoroastrian and Shi’ite Muslim) Feasting and Pilgrimage Circuits.” In Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley, ed. Sacred Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (NY: Greenwood Press, 1991), 131-144.
Marta Simidchieva, “Rituals of Renewal: Sadeq Hedayat’s “The Blind Owl” and the Wine Myths of Manucehri” Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 22 (83), Nr. 1 La letteratura persiana contemporanea tra novazione e tradizione Publ. Instituto per l’Oriente C.A. Nallino. (2003), 224.18 Retrieved from: http://jstor.org.libproxy.nau.edu/stable/25817873
xiii Boyce, “Bibi Sharbanu,” 37
ix Boyce, “Bibi Sharbanu,” 38xv Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers. (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1998), 102, 166
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