Proximity to the Prophet Muhammad in Fifteenth-Century Samarkand

Abstract This article contributes to the growing literature on sayyids and sharifs by particularizing the way this status was understood in Samarkand in the fifteenth century. It compares popular understandings of the sayyid/sharif status of two saints mentioned in an anonymously authored shrine visitation guide from the period, Qandiyya-yi Khurd, with a more scholarly text from the same period, Muhammad Parsa's Fasl al-Khitab. I argue that the use of the genealogical moniker “sayyid” along with other strategies of proving affinity with and/or proximity to the Prophet Muhammad were used to legitimate the sacred status of the early Islamic period figures Qutham ibn ‘Abbas and ‘Abdi Darun. The methods used by the anonymous author of Qandiyya-yi Khurd demonstrate an expansion of the idea of proximity to and descent from the Prophet Muhammad and mirror Sufi strategies of sacred lineages. While establishing the sayyid/sharif status of individuals in eastern Islamic cities can be seen in other forms of historical and hagiographic literature in earlier periods, the case of these two long-deceased Samarkandi saints sheds light on broader religious and political inclinations in the late medieval period.