In 1701 unrest broke out in Kandahar, and was ruthlessly suppressed by the local governor, Gorgin Khan, and his Georgian troops; and the rebellion by the local Ḡilzi population ended with the capture of their leader, Mir Ways, who was sent to Isfahan. Shah ʿAbbās devised the internal policies that enabled the Safavid state to last for over two centuries—co-opting adversaries and balancing competing forces through accommodation and inclusion—to a new level of pragmatic effectiveness. The country was repeatedly raided on its frontiers—Kerman by Baluchi tribesmen in 1698, Khorasan by Afghans in 1717, constantly in Mesopotamia by peninsula Arabs. Local and regional functionaries, no longer held in check by the punitive sanctions of a credible shah, increased fiscal pressure and engaged in gross extortion. This did not prevent the Ottomans from taking Ganja and Tabriz a year later. Given Ṭahmāsp’s age, it is only natural that real power was initially held by a body of regents, which consisted of Div Solṭān Rumlu, amir al-omarāʾ and tutor (lala) of the new ruler, and Köpek Solṭān of the Ostājlu tribe. ʿAbbās I is universally regarded as the greatest Safavid ruler, the embodiment of the age-old Persian ideal of the just monarch. History of Iran: Safavid Empire 1502 - 1736 By: Shapour Ghasemi After the disastrous invasion of Mongols, in the 1200s, migrated Turks and Mongolian tribes adopted the Persian customs and even language.In the 1300s, the Ilkhanids, a dynasty founded by the "Genghis Khan's" grandson, Holagu Khan, had been an influential factor in Persia. Intensifying the practice of appointing ḡolāms to high positions, he gave them a more prominent place in the ranks of the military where they served to counterbalance the Qezelbāš as members of a standing army answerable to the shah himself. Thus, having concluded the Treaty of Sitva Torok with the Austrians in 1606, the Ottomans fought back, and in 1610 embarked on a campaign that once again briefly put them in control of Tabriz. ), continued to be an important official whose standing actually increased over time. The Caspian provinces fell under Safavid control in 1536-37 (although the region was only definitively pacified by Shah ʿAbbās I). C… However, neither could stem the corrosive effect of mismanagement that was inherent in the administration of crown lands, whose supervisors lacked the incentive of the supervisors of quasi-private fiefs to invest in the longterm prosperity and revenue of the land. The Ottomans, meanwhile, remained the most formidable enemy, provoked by the militantly anti-Sunni Safavids, who even employed an official called the ḵalifat al-ḵolafāʾ who was charged with anti-Ottoman propaganda. Safavid Empire aka Persia Safavid Empire; credit . With Shah Ṭahmāsp, divine pretensions gave way to a growing focus on the shah’s function as the representative of the Hidden Imam. However the Safavids did have one great poet named Sāib Trabrizi, or Sāib Isfahani. Here too, the effect was a loss of power for the Qezelbāš. In the sixteenth century, carpet weaving evolved from a nomadic and peasant craft to a well-executed industry with specialization of design and manufacturing. His diplomatic overtures to the West were mostly aimed at finding allies in his anti-Ottoman struggle and continued contacts between Persian and Christian rulers that went back to the efforts of European rulers to solicit the Il-khanids in their Crusading wars and Western attempts to encircle the Ottomans following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Even though Safavids were not the first Shi'a rulers in Iran, they played a crucial role in making Shi'ism the official religion in Iran. Aware that he would not be able to fight on two fronts simultaneously, and intent on having his hands free in the east, Shah ʿAbbās initially concluded a peace with the Ottomans that cost him Azerbaijan, Qarābāḡ, Širvān, Dāḡestān, and Baghdad, aside from partial losses in Kurdistan and Lorestān. The state employed religious propagandists (tabarrāʿiyān), whose task was to vilify Sunnis. In 1684, the state introduced a currency reform, issuing new coins of better alloy. Conversely, Esmāʿil’s religious policy made the Qezelbāš waver in their loyalty to him, fearing that a tilt toward Sunnism would mean greater power for Tajik families. It seems that the Safavid family left its homeland and moved to Azarbaijan (modern northwestern Iran) in the twelfth century. The reign of his son and successor, Shah ʿAbbās II, has been called the Indian summer of the Safavid era, in reference to his success in recapturing Kandahar, and the favorable conditions foreign observers detected in his realm. Solṭān-Ḥosayn submitted to Maḥmud, conferring on him the title of shah. By preserving ties to their ancestral homeland, they also facilitated Safavid control over these territories. In 1585, the Ottomans once again briefly seized Tabriz, massacring segments of its population. Adam Olearius, "The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors" (excerpts). Anti-Sufi sentiments, which went back to the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsp I and the condemnation by Shaikh ʿAli Karaki ʿĀmeli, culminated in this period in an outpouring of writings against the manifestations of popular Sufism. The next few years saw continued Safavid expansion across Persia. Jonayd, as yet lacking the requisite worldly power and facing the enmity of the Āq Qoyunlu dynasty, forged an alliance with this most powerful dynasty of the time, and Ḥaydar consolidated the ties further by marrying a daughter of their powerful ruler, Uzun Ḥasan (r. 1457-78). Background. Released and having returned to Kandahar, Mir Ways murdered Gorgin Khan. Originally, the Safaviyeh was a spiritual, less denominational response to the upheavals and unrest in northwest Iran/eastern Anatolia in the decades following the Mongol invasion. The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal dynasties established control over Turkey, Iran, and India respectively, in large part due to a Chinese invention: gunpowder. Its twelve gores symbolized their allegiance to the Safavid ruler and the twelve Shiʿite Imams. Constant wars with the Ottomans made Shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz, into the interior city of Qazvin in 1548. After a six-month siege during which Ṭahmāsp Mirzā, Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn’s third son, was spirited out of the city. ), swelling their ranks with thousands of Armenians, Georgians and Circassions taken captive during the brutal wars in the Caucasus in 1603-04 and 1616. Armenians and Hindu Indians, both groups with a disproportionately large role in the economy, fell on hard times as well. Mounting the throne at age ten, Shah ʿAbbās II escaped an overly long childhood dependence on the forces that dominated the harem. The period following his enthronement was followed by epidemics and famine, causing the court astrologers to declare that the shah had been crowned at an inauspicious moment. As Persians of Kurdish ancestry and of a non-tribal background, the Safavids did not fit this pattern, though the state they set up with the assistance of Turkmen tribal forces of eastern Anatolia closely resembled this division in its makeup. Encouraged by the clergy, the shah suppressed religious radicals ranging from representatives of extremist Shiʿite beliefs to Sufi groups who questioned his authority. Sheikh Safī al-Dīn Abdul Fath Is'haq Ardabilī came from Ardabil, a city in today's Iranian Azerbaijan where his shrine still stands. As of 1710, even the outward stability began to unravel, with instances of abuse of power becoming endemic. Shiraz, in southern Persia, was one art center that survived, turning out commercial art without royal patronage. At this point the Safavid realm attained the greatest expanse in its entire history, but this extended frontier was not to last. In the same period, pro-Safavid rebellions broke out in Anatolia, led by Qezelbāš who may have been attracted by the tribally organized order of neighboring Persia, and the Safavid army marched into Anatolia, intent on subverting Ottoman authority. The Safavid Empire, based in Persia , ruled over much of southwestern Asia from 1501 to 1736. After Shah Ṭahmāsp I, Shah ʿAbbās was the first Safavid ruler to patronize the arts in a sustained manner. Simultaneously, revolts broke out in Kurdistan and Lorestān. His march against Persia culminated in 1514 in the famous battle of Čālderān (see also OTTOMAN-PERSIAN RELATIONS UNDER SULTAN SELIM I), where an Ottoman army equipped with field artillery and hand guns routed Esmāʿil’s troops fighting with bows and arrows. Then two Englishmen, Robert Sherley and his brother Anthony, helped Abbas I to reorganize the Shah's soldiers into a partially paid and well-trained standing army similar to the European model (which the Ottomans had already adopted). The first qollar-āqāsi, Allāhverdi Khan, was the first of the ḡolāms to be appointed provincial governor. A stagnating influx of precious metals from the Ottoman Empire, though very much related to European conditions, reflected Persia’s faltering economy as well, and led to the closing of numerous mints in the second half of the 17th century. He wrote poetry filled with pre-Islamic Persian terms and references, referring to himself as Feridun, Khosrow, Jamshid and Alexander, as well as applying religious names, such as “son of ʿAli” and one of the Twelve Imams. 3. While favorably inclined to European missionaries and the Armenians of Jolfā (see ARMENIA AND IRAN vi. His native language was Old Tati (Āzarī), an extinct Iranian dialect of the north closely related to Persian. This created divisions within the ranks of the Qezelbāš, and led to the dynasty’s search for different ideological moorings under Shah Esmāʿil’s successors. o Early Safavid women had considerable power and respect and could be patrons of art, architecture, and religious institutions o Early Safavid differed with other Islamic socities o Divorce could be caused by either the wife or husband o After death of Abbas the Great, women lost some rights Political • Capitals: Tabriz- Qazvin- Isfahan [5] In addition to that, the Safavids' power base included largely Turkic-speaking warrior tribes from Azarbaijan and Anatolia, who were collectively known as the Kizilbash, and were, at certain points in time, the de facto rulers of the empire. Coexistence of the religious and the secular, and implicit accommodation to the power of the latter is also visible in the judicial system. Often seen as a sign of the growing ethnic rivalry between Turks and Tajiks and the first attempt on the part of a Safavid shah to curtail the power of the Turkmen Qezelbāš, this growing reliance on Persian personnel was, in effect, a pragmatic move taken in the context of state building and fiscal management, a functional division rather than a conscious ethnic policy, with the Persian wakil handling matters for which the Turkmen rulers had neither the competence nor the appetite. ʿAbbās then turned to the western front and, having secured the support of the rulers of Georgia through alliances, resumed war with the Ottomans, who were vulnerable because they had been engaged in war with the Austrian Habsburgs since 1593, and were wracked by internal rebellion. Turning his attention to the Uzbeks, the new ruler recaptured Mashad and Herat. In 1558 Ṭahmāsp retook the city from Akbar, Homāyun’s successor. Sufis bore the brunt of the renewed persecution instigated by Majlesi the Younger, but non-Muslims suffered as well. He expanded commercial links with the English East India Company and the Dutch East India Company. He raised the profile of the ḡolām institution (see BARDA and BARDADĀRI iv. An important consequence of the Ottoman occupation of Tabriz was the forced migration of hundreds of skilled metal workers to Istanbul. Shah ʿAbbās was the first Safavid ruler to attempt to establish control over the Persian Gulf coast, an area with strong connections to the Indian Ocean that had rarely been an integral part of Persia and that had long been ruled by independent, mostly Arab dynasties. ], and then in Azerbaijan until 1502, d. 1504), in the Battle of Šarur, in the Aras valley. In 1738, Nadir Shah reconquered Afghanistan starting with the city of Kandahar. They outlawed it at the turn of the century. Their main supporters were Turkmen tribal groups known as the Qezelbāš (Qizilbāš), “redheads,” in reference to the red headgear they were said to have adopted at the time of Ḥaydar. Despite falling revenues and military threats, later shahs were said to have had lavish lifestyles. Instead, in order to forestall rebellion and premature claims to the throne, he killed one of his sons and blinded two more. While the shah resided in Faraḥābād for long periods of time, court eunuchs dominated politics, thwarting the adoption of any effective solution to the country’s pressing problems through manipulation and intrigue. Within a decade of the founding of the new regime, important changes with far-reaching consequences occurred in its makeup. Yet it is also true that the Safavids made many original contributions and their legacy survives in various ways. Under pressure from Maryam Begom, the shah organized a military campaign, but problems with the recruitment and payment of soldiers doomed the effort. The Afšār, for instance, seized control over Khuzestan and Kermān. 1 and 2). The state’s drastic financial crisis was exacerbated by the record number of people who annually performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in this peirod, draining huge sums of gold from the country. The existing army unit of qollar, consisting of ḡolāms, was reorganized and expanded, and the position of qollar-āqāsi, the head of this corps, turned into one of the most elevated bureaucratic posts. In terms of military matters, Solaymān’s reign was uneventful, mostly because the shah was scrupulous in observing the Treaty of Qaṣr-e Širin. Time in Early Modern Islam - February 2013. In the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul, and Lahore. In 1723 Tsar Peter concluded a treaty of alliance with Ṭahmāsp, according to which the Russians received the Caspian provinces as well as Darband and Baku, and pledged to assist Ṭahmāsp in the pacification of the rest of Persia. His successor, Moḥammad Beg, was as formidable an official in his continued focus on the enhancement of royal income. ), in 1512, the Uzbeks regained Transoxania and briefly occupied Herat and Mashad. Invariably, though, customary law (ʿorf), prevailed over the šariʿa (shari’a), especially in criminal cases, and most people are said to have favored government courts over religious courts. Isfahan bears the most prominent samples of the Safavid architecture, all constructed in the years after Shah Abbas I permanently moved the capital to that city in 1598: The Imperial Mosque, Masjid-e Shah, completed in 1630, the Imami Mosque,Masjid-e Imami, the Lutfullah Mosque and the Royal Palace. Later, in 1722, an Afghan army led by Mir Wais' son, Mahmud, marched across eastern Iran, besieged, and sacked Isfahan and proclaimed Mahmud "Shah" of Persia. Science and Technology By: Cole Brandser In 1514, the Safavid were not very technologically advanced. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in … By the seventeenth century, trade routes between East and West had shifted away from Iran, causing a decline in commerce and trade. His military success against the Ottomans was mostly fortuitous. The Divan was also further subdivided and this is how the central government functioned. Having lived under the protection of the ruler of Gilān for five years, in 1499 Esmāʿil emerged from the Caspian region, defeated the Širvānšāhs, and set out to wrest control of western Persia from the Āq Qoyunlu. He did so in part by creating subsitute military and administrative elites. Upon Jonayd’s death, his followers allegedly began to call him “God,” and his son, Ḥaydar, “Son of God.” At the time of Shah Esmāʿil I, a genealogy was fabricated according to which Ṣafi-al-Din descended from the seventh Imam, Musā al-Kāẓem (d. ca. First, he bargained for peace with the Ottomans in 1590, giving away territory in the north-west. He brutally repressed all support for Esmāʿil, proscribing Shiʿism and massacring large numbers of its adherents. As the shah was either a minor upon accession or one who retreated into seclusion after taking office, Safavid royal women, who are said to have numbered 500 under Shah Solṭān Ḥosayn, and especially the queen-mother, played a crucial role in state affairs, serving on the secret royal council by the late 17th century. And as we enter into the 16th century, you have the Safavid Dynasty take over. 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