Initially, the Safavids brought clerics from the Arab world, particularly Jabal Amil in what is now south Lebanon, but gradually a new breed of Iranian Shia faqihemerged. Of these, Mohammad Baqir Majlisi, appointed to the state-sponsored posts of Friday prayer leader in the Safavid capital Isfahan in 1660s and shaykh al-Islam in 1687, was particularly important.
According to Turner, “it was under Majlisi that Twelver Shi’ite externalism became truly orthodox, while all other views were rejected and often forcibly repressed”:
One of Majlisi’s first acts was to destroy the idols of a Hindu temple that had been set up by Indian merchants in the capital…the heartbroken Hindu keeper of the temple consequently committed suicide…Majlisi also obtained a decree for the expulsion of Sufis from the capital, which was rigidly enforced …Majlisi wrote several decrees on the correct way of performing the canonical prayer (salat), on the treatment of zakat [alms-giving] and on the rules of fasting. Such works of jurisprudence were the stock-in-trade of the externalists.
Majlisi wrote mainly in Persian rather than Arabic, giving his works a wider audience. In these he didn’t just clarify issues of prayer and alms giving, he strongly condemned Sufi practices like singing, dancing, vegetarianism and seclusion.
from the Guardian, UK
Removal of the heart: how Islam became a matter of state in Iran
Some academics argue the Safavid Shahs gave Iranian Shiism a rule-fixation and abandonment of spirituality it has never lost
The 5th Shah of Safavids, 17th Century, Shah Abbas
