AghayedNet

In 1221/1806, he performed a pilgrimage to Mašhad. Returning through Yazd, he was persuaded by the populace to remain there; thus began a stay of almost twenty years in Iran, during which the shaikh’s reputation spread throughout the country and beyond. By 1223/1808, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah began to correspond with him, probably at the suggestion of Ebrāhīm Khan Ẓahīr-al-dawla, the governor of Kermān, who had become one of the shaikh’s most devoted admirers. Aḥsāʾī spent the winter of 1808-09 as a guest of the king in Tehran, but could not be persuaded to transfer his residence there permanently. Returning to Yazd, he settled down more seriously to write the letters and commentaries on which his growing fame was to be built.

By 1229/1814 tension seems to have developed between Aḥsāʾī and some of the notables of Yazd, probably because of his growing influence in the region. Leaving Yazd, he made for Kermānšāh, probably on the invitation of Moḥammad-ʿAlī Mīrzā, under whose patronage he remained, with occasional absences, until about one year after the prince’s death in 1237/1821. Several of the shaikh’s most important works belong to this period, including the Šarḥ al-zīārat al-ǰāmeʿat al-kabīra (1230/1815; Tehran, 1267/1850-51), regarded as his magnum opus; a commentary on the Resālat al-ʿelmīya of Moḥsen Fayż (1230/1815); the Šarḥ al-fawāʾed (1233/1818; Tabrīz[?], 1272/1856), a commentary on his earlier Fawāʾed; al-Resālat al-solṭānīya (1234/1818), in reply to questions from Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah; the lengthy Šarḥ al-mašāʿer (1234/1818; Tabrīz, 1278/1861-62), a commentary on the Mašāʿer of Mollā Ṣadrā; and the even lengthier Šarḥ al-ʿaršīya (1236/1821; Tabrīz, 1278/1861-62), on Ṣadrā’s ʿAršīya. In 1232/1817 he performed what seems to have been his first pilgrimage to Mecca, following which he stayed for eight months in Naǰaf and Karbalā.

With the death of Moḥammad-ʿAlī Mīrzā in 1821, Kermānšāh and the surrounding region fell into a rapid decline. In 1238/1822, Shaikh Aḥmad left for Mašhad, traveling via Qom and Qazvīn. In Qazvīn he was called a heretic for the first time, by Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Baraḡānī, who condemned certain passages of the shaikh’s writings as contrary to orthodox teachings on resurrection (maʿād). Leaving the matter unresolved, Aḥsāʾī continued his pilgrimage, after which he visited Yazd and Isfahan. Here he stayed as the guest of ʿAbdallāh Khan Amīn-al-dawla and was treated by both ʿolamāʾ and civic dignitaries as a visitor of considerable importance. Although several months had elapsed since the pronouncement of takfīr or condemnation by Baraḡānī, it is clear from this reception in Isfahan that its effect had not yet made itself felt outside Qazvīn.

Returning to Kermānšāh in June 1823, Aḥsāʾī left after a year to settle in Karbalā. Now aged seventy, he probably planned to remain at the ʿatabāt for the remainder of his life. But Baraḡānī had by this time gained a number of supporters at the shrines in Iraq, including Āqā Sayyed Moḥammad-Mahdī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shaikh Moḥammad-Ḥasan Naǰafī, and Āqā Sayyed Ebrāhīm Qazvīnī. Although many eminent ʿolamāʾ in Iran and Iraq continued to express open admiration and support for Aḥsāʾī, his opponents mounted a successful campaign against him at the ʿatabāt. Threatened by these efforts, the shaikh was compelled to leave Karbalā for Mecca, traveling via Baghdad and Syria. Some two or three stages from Medina, he died on 21 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1241/27 June 1826, aged seventy-three. His grave is in the Baqīʿ cemetery in Medina.

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