The latter included merchants trading in the bazaars, the trade and artisan guilds (asnf) and members of the quasi-religious organizations run by dervishes (futuvva). Although no one could have bristled more at the power grab of his "mentor" Murshid Quli Khan, he rounded up the leaders of a plot to assassinate the wakl and had them executed. The interpretation of the Safavid Empire as a revival of an Iranian imperial tradition dating back to the Achaemenids is not credible, but the dynasty did create the framework in which modern Iran developed. Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Ismail's death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of vakil. The Ottomans pushed further and on August 23, 1514, managed to engage the Safavids in the Battle of Chaldiran west of Tabriz. According to author Moojan Momen, "up to the middle of the 19th century there were very few mujtahids (three or four) anywhere at any one time," but "several hundred existed by the end of the 19th century. Shah Soltan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in eastern Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. The primary court language [with Abbas I's reign (r. 15881629)] remained Turkish. Shah Ismail I himself wrote many poems in Azerbaijani, as well as in Persian and Arabic, while Shah Tahmasp was a painter. However, Shah Abbas was fearful to the point of paranoia about the assassination and executed or blinded all of his sons to prevent them from replacing him. With the beginning of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, Albuquerque, a Portuguese general, conquered Hormoz Island in southern Iran. While large in terms of land area, the large proportion of deserts and mountains in its territory meant density was very low; the empire's population is estimated to have probably numbered between eight and ten million in 1650, as compared to c.20 million for the Ottoman Empire in 1600. (1986). [121] Moreover, he planned to deport all nobles of Kartli. [148], The Dutch and English were still able to drain the Iranian government of much of its precious metal supplies. In 1545 a combined IranianMughal force managed to seize Kandahar and occupy Kabul. Unlike other empires women had a lot of rights. Another official selected by the consensus of the local community was the kadkhoda, who functioned as a common law administrator. [90] Shortly after the installation of Ismail II on August 22, 1576, Haydar was beheaded. [65] This court intrigue lead directly to tribal conflict. The army divisions were: Ghulams ("crown servants or slaves" usually conscripted from Armenian, Georgian, and Circassian lands), Tofongchis (musketeers), and Topchis (artillery-men). Shah Ismail I was the first of the Safavids to try to establish once again an alliance against the common Ottoman enemy through the earlier stages of the HabsburgPersian alliance, but this also proved to be largely unfruitful during his reign. During his reign he had realized while both looking to his own empire and that of the neighboring Ottomans, that there were dangerous rivalling factions and internal family rivalries that were a threat to the heads of state. Since two other sons had predeceased him, when he died on January 19, 1629, he had no son capable of succeeding him. The Safavid Empire was a theocracy. "IRAN ix. Thus came the term "Turk and Tajik" to describe the Persianate, or Turko-Persian, nature of many dynasties which ruled over Greater Iran between the 12th and 20th centuries, in that these dynasties promoted and helped continue the dominant Persian linguistic and cultural identity of their states, although the dynasties themselves were of non-Persian (e.g. Each magistrate executes justice in his own house in a large room opening on to a courtyard or a garden which is raised two or three feet above the ground. [72] The victory resulted at least in part from Safavid use of firearms, which they had been acquiring and drilling with since Chaldiran.[73]. Ismail I continued to expand his base in northwestern Iran. For most of the last decade of Ismail's reign, the domestic affairs of the empire were overseen by the Tajik vizier Mirza Shah Hossein until his assassination in 1523. Even though the Safavids were not the first Shii rulers in Iran, they played a crucial role in making Shia Islam the official religion in the whole of Iran, as well as what is nowadays the Republic of Azerbaijan. The arguably most renowned historian from this time was Iskandar Beg Munshi. Thus Abbas was able to break dependence on the Qizilbash for military might indefinitely, and therefore was able to fully centralize control for the first time since the foundation of the Safavid state. According to historian Roger Savory, "Sheikh Junayd was not content with spiritual authority and he sought material power. Ismail's 14-month reign was notable for two things: continual bloodletting of his relatives and others (including his own supporters) and his reversal on religion. Ismil exploited the first element to seize power in Iran. And his power reached its peak in 1598, when he became the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Dabashi, H. (1996) 'Mir Damad and the Founding of the School of Isfahan', in SH Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch. The Safavid Empire, based in Persia ( Iran ), ruled over much of southwestern Asia from 1501 to 1736. The moment was grave for the empire, with the Ottomans deep in Iranian territory in the west and north and the Uzbeks in possession of half of Khorasan in the east.[107]. Th is paper examines the organizing ideological and infrastructural principles of the Safavid state structure and questions whether the Safavid state had the capacity and universality to qualify as an empire. Related Questions Nadir Shah defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Damghan, in 1729. (2009). But the decade of civil war had exposed the empire to foreign danger and Tahmsp had to turn his attention to the repeated raids by the Uzbeks. [119] As mentioned by the Encyclopaedia Iranica, lastly, from 1600 onwards, the Safavid statesman Allhverd Khan, in conjunction with Robert Sherley, undertook further reorganizations of the army, which meant among other things further dramatically increasing the number of ghulams to 25,000.[120]. [31], b Official language,[10] coinage,[11][12] civil administration,[13] court (since Isfahan became capital),[14] literary,[11][13][15] theological discourse,[11] diplomatic correspondence, historiography,[16] court-based religious posts. He had all his relatives killed except for his older brother, Mohammad Khudabanda, who, being nearly blind, was not a real candidate for the throne, and Mohammad's three sons, Hamza Mirza, Abbas Mirza and Abu Talib Mirza. [206], According to the historian Roger Savory, the twin bases of the domestic economy were pastoralism and agriculture. Shah ljeitthe sultan of Ilkhanate converted to Twelver Shiism in thirteenth century. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-was-the-safavid-empire-195397. The highest level in the legal system was the Minister of Justice, and the law officers were divided into senior appointments, such as the magistrate (darughah), inspector (visir), and recorder (vakanevis). [80] Humayun handed over Kandahar, but Tahmsp was forced to retake it in 1558, after Humayun seized it on the death of the Safavid governor. The Silk Road which led through northern Iran was revived in the 16th century. The state religion was Shi'a Islam. -Did a lot of things to improve and ruin the empire. The two parties with their witnesses pleaded their respective cases, usually without any counsel, and the judge would pass his judgment after the first or second hearing. "The Safavid Period". The second most senior appointment was the Grand Steward (Ichik Agasi bashi), who would always accompany the Shah and was easily recognizable because of the great baton that he carried with him. signed peace treaty, capital moved from Tabriz to Isfahan, highest point in Safavid empire, established similar system to janissaries, the army, attempted to regain lost territories Rise of empire- Nadir Shah Afshar restored order, military adventurer, launched series of campaigns that restored the country's borders Bureaucracy was by what? As non-Turcoman converts to Islam, these Circassian and Georgian olmns (also written as ghulams) were completely unrestrained by clan loyalties and kinship obligations, which was an attractive feature for a ruler like Tahmsp whose childhood and upbringing had been deeply affected by Qezelb tribal politics. Restoring Persia as a major center of political power and cultural creativity, they also established one of the strongest and most enduring centers of Shi'ism within the Islamic world. From 1609-1610, war broke out between Kurdish tribes and Safavid Empire. The Safavid Empire was formed in 1501 and ended by the invasion of Afghans in 1722. He had effective control under Shah Tahmasp II and then ruled as regent of the infant Abbas III until 1736, when he had himself crowned shah. What was the most significant role that the Safavid dynasty played? The Ottomans soon reacted with a large-scale incursion into Eastern Anatolia by Safavid ghazis under Nr-Al alfa. They particularly established monopoly of the spice and porcelain trade between the Far East and Iran. It was the Safavids who made Iran the spiritual bastion of Shiism, and the repository of Persian cultural traditions and self-awareness of Iranianhood, acting as a bridge to modern Iran. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Map Code: Ax01488. Thus, the end of his reign, 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. Shortly afterwards, Bayezid was killed by agents sent by his own father.[81]. "The Safavid Period" in Jackson, Peter; Lockhart, Laurence. History. What remained unchanged, was the "crop-sharing agreement" between whomever was the landlord, and the farmer. In cultural matters, Tahmsp presided the revival of the fine arts, which flourished under his patronage. [30] The Safavid Shh Ism'l I established the Twelver denomination of Sha Islam as the official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. During the three centuries 1500-1800 the technology, organization, and ethnography of Persian agriculture, animal husbandry, manufacturing, and accounting underwent partial change. Not taken care of accordingly, these were a serious threat to the ruler, or worse, could bring the fall of the former or could lead to unnecessary court intrigues. Humayun was not the only royal figure to seek refuge at Tahmasp's court. Following the conquest of Iran, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. But the reverse seems not to have been true. Ruda Jurdi Abisaab. In the meantime, the navy-less Safavids lost the island of Hormuz to the Portuguese in 1507. [122][123][124][125] After fully securing the region, he executed the rebellious Luarsab II of Kartli and later had the Georgian queen Ketevan, who had been sent to the shah as negotiator, tortured to death when she refused to renounce Christianity, in an act of revenge for the recalcitrance of Teimuraz. There is some indication that Mirza Salman was the chief conspirator. Seven years later Shah ahmsp II recovered Efahn and ascended the throne, only to be deposed in 1732 by his Afshrid lieutenant Nadr Qol Beg (the future Ndir Shh). [110] Before he could begin to embark on the first stage, he needed relief from the most serious threat to the empire: the military pressure from the Ottomans. [117][118], Abbas also greatly increased the number of cannons at his disposal, permitting him to field 500 in a single battle. [58] The Ottoman sultans addressed him as the king of Iranian lands and the heir to Jamshid and Kai Khosrow.[59]. The Safavid Empire, based in Persia (Iran), ruled over much of southwestern Asia from 1501 to 1736. [6] It appears that with the advent of the Mughal empire, the harem began to directly exert political power. New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article Thvenot and Tavernier commented that the Iranian caravanserais were better built and cleaner than their Turkish counterparts. Ottoman court carpets. George Lenczowski, "Iran under the Pahlavis", Hoover Institution Press, 1978, p. 79: "Ismail Safavi, descendant of the pious Shaykh Ishaq Safi al-Din (d. 1334), seized Tabriz assuming the title of Shahanshah-e-Iran". Their hairstyle was simple, the hair gathered back in tresses, often adorned at the ends with pearls and clusters of jewels. S Social Interactions and Organization The political structure of the Safavid Empire was structured like a pyramid with the Shah at the very top of the pyramid, like a pope. However, a mutiny among his officers who refused to spend the winter at Tabriz forced him to withdraw across territory laid waste by the Safavid forces, eight days later". Although a majority of the people in the kingdom were Iranians, there were also some Arabs, Turks, and Armenians. Sir E. Denison Ross, Sir Anthony Sherley and his Persian Adventure, pp. But it was not the Turkish of Istanbul. Szczepanski, Kallie. The Takkalu replaced the Rumlu as the dominant tribe. Safavid dynasty, (15011736), ruling dynasty of Iran whose establishment of Twelver Shiism as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic and linguistic elements of the country. Summary. Of these various movements, the Safavid Qizilbash was the most politically resilient, and due to its success Shah Ismail I gained political prominence in 1501. "Greeks and Trkmens: The Pontic Exception", Peter Charanis. [68], At the downfall of Husain Khan, Tahmsp asserted his rule. By this time, the bulk of the Safaviyya were nomadic Oghuz Turkic-speaking clans from Asia Minor and Azerbaijan and were known as Qizilbash "Red Heads" because of their distinct red headgear. The two princes quarrelled and eventually Bayezid rebelled against his father. Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad in 1598. The demise of Tamerlane's political authority created a space in which several religious communities, particularly Shii ones, could come to the fore and gain prominence. A third route was therefore devised which circumvented Ottoman territory. [194] As Prof. David Blow states, foremost among the courtiers were the old nobility of Turkoman Qizilbash lords and their sons. His letter of remorse never reached Suleiman, and he was forced to flee abroad to avoid execution. [215] Caravanserais were designed especially to benefit poorer travelers, as they could stay there for as long as they wished, without payment for lodging. Savory, II, p. 1116. But it was Shah Safi, under influence by his Prime Minister, Saru Taqi, that initiated the program of trying to increase the royal revenues by buying land from the governors and putting in place local commissioners. When Tahmsp died in 984/1576, Iran was calm domestically, with secure borders and no imminent threat from either the Uzbeks or the Ottomans. [172] The rest of the masses of deportees and importees, a significant portion numbering many hundreds of thousands, were settled in various regions of mainland Iran, and were given all kinds of roles as part of society, such as craftsmen, farmers, cattle breeders, traders, soldiers, generals, governors, woodcutters, etc., all also part of the newly established layer in Iranian society.[173]. A major problem faced by Ismail I after the establishment of the Safavid state was how to bridge the gap between the two major ethnic groups in that state: the Qizilbash ("Redhead") Turcomans, the "men of sword" of classical Islamic society whose military prowess had brought him to power, and the Persian elements, the "men of the pen", who filled the ranks of the bureaucracy and the religious establishment in the Safavid state as they had done for centuries under previous rulers of Iran, be they Arabs, Mongols, or Turkmens. ThoughtCo, Aug. 25, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-was-the-safavid-empire-195397. People met there to drink liqueurs or coffee, to smoke tobacco or opium, and to chat or listen to poetry. Shah Abbas wanted to undermine this political structure, and the recreation of Isfahan, as a Grand . [116] This force of well-trained Caucasian ghulams under Abbas amounted to a total of near 40,000 soldiers paid for and beholden to the Shah. [220][221] With the later end of the Portuguese Empire, the British, Dutch and French in particular gained easier access to Persian seaborne trade, although they, unlike the Portuguese, did not arrive as colonisers, but as merchant adventurers. They in turn would be replaced by the Shamlu, whose amir, Husain Khan, became the chief adviser. [180], The Akhbari movement "crystalized" as a "separate movement" with the writings of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (died 1627 AD). Soltan Hoseyn (16941722) in particular was known for his love of wine and disinterest in governance. His painting and calligraphic style influenced Iranian artists for much of the Safavid period, which came to be known as the Isfahan school. In 1514, Sultan Selim I marched through Anatolia and reached the plain of Chaldiran near the city of Khoy, where a decisive battle was fought. He recognized the ineffectualness of his army, which was consistently being defeated by the Ottomans who had captured Georgia and Armenia and by Uzbeks who had captured Mashhad and Sistan in the east. [65] The Chaldiran battle also holds historical significance as the start of over 300 years of frequent and harsh warfare fueled by geo-politics and ideological differences between the Ottomans and the Iranian Safavids (as well as successive Iranian states) mainly regarding territories in Eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia. [192], The only field within medicine where some progress were made was pharmacology, with the compilement of the "Tibb-e Shifai" in 1556. -After declared shah (emperor), he banished his father, who was the previous shah, and blinded his brothers. Physiology was still based on the four humours of ancient and mediaeval medicine, and bleeding and purging were still the principal forms of therapy by surgeons, something even Thevenot experienced during his visit to Iran. After becoming the Safaviyeh leader in 1447, Sheikh Junayda descendant of Sheikh Safi Al-Dintransformed it into a revolutionary Shi'a movement with the goal of seizing power in Iran. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. [140] The English at sea, represented by the English East India Company, also began to take an interest in Iran, and in 1622 four of its ships helped Abbas retake Hormuz from the Portuguese in the Capture of Ormuz (1622). H.R. [183] It remains only a small minority in the Shii world. In the first years of the 16th century, the Safavids founded a dynasty that conquered what is now IRAN. According to the Iranologist Richard Nelson Frye:[240]. "[184], Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, commonly referenced to using the title Allamah, was a highly influential scholar during the 17th century (Safavid era). Afterwards, Ismail went on a conquest campaign, capturing Tabriz in July 1501, where he enthroned himself the Shh of Azerbaijan,[51][52][53] proclaimed himself King of Kings (shahanshah) of Iran[54][55][56] and minted coins in his name, proclaiming Twelver Shsm as the official religion of his domain. In August 1514 Isml was seriously defeated at Chldirn by his Sunni rival, the Ottoman sultan Selim I. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license) The Rise of the Safavid Empire [83] In turn, many of these transplanted women became wives and concubines of Tahmsp, and the Safavid harem emerged as a competitive, and sometimes lethal, arena of ethnic politics as cliques of Turkmen, Circassian, and Georgian women and courtiers vied with each other for the shahs attention.[83]. Poetry stagnated under the Safavids; the great medieval ghazal form languished in over-the-top lyricism. Throughout the rest of the decade, Ismail I fended off attacks from the Ottomans, stamped out the remnants of a rival faction, called the Ak Koyunlu, and continued to expand his territoryHamadan in 1503, Shiraz and Kerman in 1504, Najaf and Karbala in 1507, Van in 1508, Baghdad in 1509, Khorasan and Herat in 1510. [109] Abbas' own position seemed even more dependent on Qizilbash approval than Mohammad Khodabanda's was. On these occasions the royal edicts were drawn up and sealed. Mohammad was selected and received the crown on February 11, 1579. [67] In the absence of a charismatic, messianic rallying figure like the young Ismail, the tribal leaders reclaimed their traditional prerogative and threatened to return to the time of local warlords. Today, we'll take a look at this ruling power. William L. Cleveland and Martin P. Bunton. The capture of Baghdad by Ismail I in 1509, was only followed by its loss to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534. [14] David Blow adds; "it seems likely that most, if not all, of the Turkoman grandees at the court also spoke Persian, which was the language of the administration and culture, as well as of the majority of the population. As the former represented the "people of the sword" and the latter, "the people of the pen", high-level official posts would naturally be reserved for the Persians. The Empire's economic strength came from its location on the . From here, Persian traders ventured eastwards to Southeast Asian kingdoms, most notably Ayutthaya Siam, where influential Persian families like the Bunnag helped foster cordial diplomatic relations between Thailand and Iran, as evidenced in the expedition of Suleyman's Ship. Savory, Roger M.; Karamustafa, Ahmet T. (1998), This page was last edited on 21 December 2022, at 07:16. "Shahsevan in Safavid Persia". It rejected the use of reasoning in deriving verdicts and believed that only the Quran, hadith, (prophetic sayings and recorded opinions of the Imams) and consensus should be used as sources to derive verdicts (fatw). [194] There were the Persians who still dominated the bureaucracy and under Abbas held the two highest government offices of Grand Vizier and Comptroller-General of the Revenues (mostoufi-ye mamalek), which was the nearest thing to a finance minister. Women from the provinces and slaves pierced their left nostrils with rings, but well-born Persian women would not do this. [201], Criminal justice was entirely separate from civil law and was judged upon common law administered through the Minister of Justice, local governors and the Court minister (the Nazir). With the capture of Tabriz, the Safavid dynasty officially began. The Persian Empire emerged under the leadership of Cyrus II, who conquered the neighboring Median Empire ruled by his grandfather. [207], The Safavid economy was to a large extent based on agriculture and taxation of agricultural products. It was just a brief setback, however, as Abbas had already been making long-term plans to prevent further incursions. [194], During the first century of the dynasty, the primary court language remained Azeri,[189] although this increasingly changed after the capital was moved to Isfahan. [98] Mirza Salman left the capital before Pari Khn Khnum closed the gates and was able to meet Mohammad Khodabanda and his wife in Shiraz, to whom he offered his services. [195] Abbas himself was able to speak Georgian as well. One of the most renowned Muslim philosophers, Mulla Sadra (1571-1640), lived during Shah Abbas I's reign and wrote the Asfar, a meditation on what he called "meta philosophy," which brought to a synthesis the philosophical mysticism of Sufism, the theology of Shi'ism, and the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies of Avicenna and Suhrawardi Maqtul (1155-1191). [166], The power structure of the Safavid state was mainly divided into two groups: the Turkic-speaking military/ruling elitewhose job was to maintain the territorial integrity and continuity of the Iranian empire through their leadershipand the Persian-speaking administrative/governing elitewhose job was to oversee the operation and development of the nation and its identity through their high positions. The Safavid dynasty under Shah Ismail (961/1501) adopted Persian and the Shiite form of Islam as the national language and religion. Geographical discoveries, in general, and bypassing the Cape of Good Hope, in particular, in South Africa, changed traditional trade routes in Iran's international trade. [242] As such, the status of medicine in the Safavid period did not change much, and relied as much on these works as ever before. In 1501, the Safavid Shahs declared independence when the Ottomans outlawed Shi'a Islam in their territory. 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. Abbas I (Shah Abbas) -Before his rule, the empire was in an age of chaos. His primary job was to appoint and supervise all the officials of the household and to be their contact with the Shah. Eskandar Beg, pp. At its height, it encompassed the areas of modern-day Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Safavid-dynasty, Efahn, Iran: Masjed-e Shaykh Luf Allh (Sheikh Lofollh Mosque), Efahn, Iran: interior of Masjed-e Shaykh Luf Allh (Sheikh Lofollh Mosque). The Sultanates of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, and Golconda all sought Persian suzerainty not just because of religious or cultural ties, but also because of the need for a counterweight to Mughal expansion.
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