Saintly Infrastructures of Medieval Islam: The Shrine at Torbat-e Jam

The importance of Christian monasteries to the socio-economic no less than the religious life of medieval Europe has long been recognized. Far less well-known is the comparable role of Muslim shrine complexes in providing a socio-economic infrastructure for their surrounding communities. This was especially the case in the eastern Islamic lands comprising what is today Iran, Afghanistan, and the other “stans” of Central Asia, as well as northwestern China. Yet whether through redistributing the wealth of rulers or managing the underground irrigation channels known as kariz or qanat, such shrines played crucial agricultural and economic no less than political and religious roles. In this episode, we trace the history of one such shrine—that of Ahmad-e Jam (1049-1141)—from the life of its founder to its patronage by such medieval conquerors as Sultan Sanjar and Tamerlane the Great to its links with the Timurid renaissance in nearby Herat. Nile Green talks to Shivan Mahendrarajah, author of The Sufi Saint of Jam: History, Religion, and Politics of a Sunni Shrine in Shi'i Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2021).