Polemics and patronage in Safavid Iran: The debate on Friday prayer during the reign of Shah Tahmasb

This study argues that five treatises on the legal status of Friday prayer in Twelver Shiite law that were composed between 1555 and 1563, in the middle of the reign of Safavid Shah Tahmasb, were all penned as part of a heated competition over the post of shaykh al-islām of the Safavid capital Qazvin. Detailed analysis of the first four treatises and the context in which they were produced, building on a 1996 article that discussed the fifth, demonstrates the influence of politics and academic rivalry on texts of Islamic law and other sciences, the types of rhetorical strategies used by scholars in the competition for patronage, and the importance of support of scholars for the establishment of legitimate rule and an official religion.