REBIRTH 185Shi'ite doctrine declares that the twelfth imam will reveal himself at the
end of history, sparking the perfection of Allah's community and inaugu-
rating the final Age of Justice, the endpoint sought by all good Muslims.
Upon reaching its endpoint, history will end, the dead will be resurrected,
and Allah's judgment will sort all who have ever lived into heaven or hell
according to their just desserts. Because of this expectation that the Hidden
Imam will appear again at the end of days, Shi'i sometimes refer to him as
the Mahdi "the expected one" {a concept that exists in Sunni Islam too,
but less vividly.) Most of today's Iranians adhere to this branch of Shi'ism,
making the Twelvers the mainstream Shi'i of modern times.
In the mid-fifteenth century, the Safavids embraced this complex of be-
liefs. The twelve folds on the red hats worn by the Qizilbash symbolized
the twelve imams. By this time the Safavids were a cultlike group headed
by an ambitious sheikh with a growing army of soldiers at his command.
The soldiers saw him not just as their commander in chief but as their life-
line to heaven.
These politicized Safavids were operating in a context of social chaos.
The Persian world, smashed once by Genghis Khan and smashed again by
Timur-i-lang, was fragmented into many little principalities ruled by di-
verse Turkish chieftains. The Turkish chieftains were all resolute Sunnis.
Shi'ism, by contrast, had long been identified with Persian resistance to in-
vasive aliens, a pattern that began in the days of Arab dominance and
picked up again once Turks took over. Now, in the wake of the Mongol
catastrophe, this militant Shi'ite cult known as the Safavids easily linked
up with all the antistate, revolutionary activity going on. No wonder the
Safavids made local princes uneasy.
In 1488, one of these princes decided to take action. He had the head
of the Safavid order killed. Then for good measure he had the man's eldest
son murdered as well. He probably would have done away with his
younger son too, a two-year-old boy by the name oflsmail, except that the
Qizilbash whisked this little fellow into hiding, just a few steps ahead of
the state-paid killers.
Over the next ten years, the Safavids hardened into a formidable secret
society. Ismail grew up in hiding, hustled constantly from safe house to safe
house. The whole time, the Qizilbash regarded him as the head of their
order, and not just a figurehead. They revered the boy and believed he had