Serbadars

(Persian, “hanged men”), participants in a 14th-century national liberation movement in Iran and Middle Asia against the Mongol-Turkic nomad elite. The Serbadar movement, in which various social strata took part, was ideologically a mixture of Shiism and Sufism. Its leading ideologist was Sheikh Halife, who, at a mosque in the city of Sabzevar, preached “innovations” and “secular affairs”—that is, popular revolt—in the guise of Sufi teachings. After Sheikh Halife’s murder in 1335 at the instigation of the Sunni religious leaders. Sheikh Hasan Juri took the lead, patterning the Serbadar organization after a dervish order. Many artisans and peasants became murids (disciples) of Sheikh Hasan. Between the late 1330’s and 1380’s, the Serbadars led several popular uprisings.