It became more identifiably Shi'a in its orientation around the year 1400. 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 Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. In addition to fighting its perennial enemies, the Ottomans and Uzbeks, as the seventeenth century progressed, Iran had to contend with the rise of two more neighbors. The succession was evidently undisputed. Beginning in 1526 periodic battles broke out, beginning in northwest Iran but soon involving all of Khorasan. In 1545 a combined IranianMughal force managed to seize Kandahar and occupy Kabul. Turkic) origins. From 1553 for forty years the shah was able to avoid being ensnared in tribal treacheries. [83] Their formation, implementation, and usage was very much alike to the janissaries of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. An important feature of the Safavid society was the alliance that emerged between the ulama (the religious class) and the merchant community. 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. She is said to have poisoned his opium.[94]. [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). Quickly making a name as a military genius both feared and respected amongst the empire's friends and enemies (including Iran's archrival the Ottoman Empire, and Russia; both empires Nader would deal with soon afterwards), Nader Shah easily defeated the Afghan Hotaki forces in the 1729 Battle of Damghan. Later, Shah Abbas I moved the capital even deeper into central Iran, to the city of Isfahan, building a new city next to the ancient Persian one. [193], The Safavid court was furthermore a rich mix of peoples from its earliest days. The Gunpowder Empires: Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal, Biography of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Spread of Islam in Asia From 632 to Present, Twelver Shiites and the Cult of Martyrdom, Rulers of the Persian Empire: Expansionism of Cyrus and Darius, J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. In fact, it was the founder of the Safavid Empire, Shah Ismail I, who forcibly converted Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam and established Shi'ism as the state religion. As a result of Mongol conquest, and relative religious tolerance of Ilhanids, Shi'a dynasties were established in IranSarbedaran in Khorasan being the most important. In the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul, and Lahore. 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. From 1540 and onwards, Shah Tahmasp initiated a gradual transformation of the Iranian society by slowly constructing a new branch and layer solely composed of ethnic Caucasians. To further legitimize his power, Ismail I also added claims of royal Sassanian heritage after becoming Shah of Iran to his own genealogy. The crown prince (the vizier's son-in-law) meekly turned him over, and the Qizilbash executed him and confiscated his property. Blow, D; Shah Abbas: The ruthless king who became an Iranian legend; pp. [207], The Safavid economy was to a large extent based on agriculture and taxation of agricultural products. In 1501, the Safavid Shahs declared independence when the Ottomans outlawed Shi'a Islam in their territory. Despite the Safavid dynasty's Sufi origins, most Sunni or Shi'a Sufi groups were prohibited by the Nimatullahi order. One of the strikingly significant things about the Safavid dynasty--a religious order that over the centuries took on military and political elements--is the many wars that were fought. The Safavids ultimately succeeded in establishing a new Persian national monarchy. These cities were later inherited by his Abdali Afghan military commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani, who would go on to found the Durrani Empire in 1747. Savory, II, p. 1116. Shah Abbas ordered a general massacre in Beradost and Mukriyan (Mahabad) (Reported by Eskandar Beg Monshi, Safavid Historian, 1557-1642, in the Book "Alam Ara Abbasi") and resettled the Turkish Afshar tribe in the region while deporting many Kurdish tribes to Khorasan. The main imports were spice, textiles (woolens from Europe, cottons from Gujarat), metals, coffee, and sugar. the rise of the Safavid empire was when king shah Abbas took power in 1629 and lead the safavid empire. Abbas also moved the capital to Isfahan, deeper into central Iran. It forever influenced Persian nationalism. [139], More came of Abbas's contacts with the English, although England had little interest in fighting against the Ottomans. To counter the rising Safavid power, in 1502, Sultan Bayezid II forcefully deported many Shiite Muslims from Anatolia to other parts of the Ottoman realm. Mohammad allowed others to direct the affairs of state, but none of them had either the prestige, skill or ruthlessness of either Tahmsp or Ismail II to rein in the ethnic or palace factions, and each of his rulers met grim ends. 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 Qezelbash Turkmens, the "men of the 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 Persia, be they Arabs, Turkic, Mongols, or Turkmens. [96], The amirs demanded that she be removed, and Mahd-i Ulya was strangled in the harem in July 1579 on the ground of an alleged affair with the brother of the Crimean khan, Adil Giray,[96] who was captured during the 15781590 Ottoman war and held captive in the capital, Qazvin. His painting and calligraphic style influenced Iranian artists for much of the Safavid period, which came to be known as the Isfahan school. "[93] His conduct might also be explained by his drug use. All other . (This book was written by Ferdousi in 1000 AD for Sultan Mahmood Ghaznawi) Another manuscript is the Khamsa by Nizami executed 15391543 by Aqa Mirak and his school in Isfahan. He did so by taking the humiliating step of coming to peace terms with the Ottomans by making, for now, permanent their territorial gains in Iraq and the territories in the north, including Azerbaijan, Qarabagh, Ganja, eastern Georgia (comprising the Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti), Dagestan, and Kurdistan. Whereas neither the ancient Greeks nor the Romans accorded high social status to their doctors, Iranians had from ancient times honored their physicians, who were often appointed counselors of the Shahs. This new layer of society would continue to play a vital role in Iranian history up to and including the fall of the Qajar dynasty, some 300 years after Abbas' death. [197] In time, this proved to become a burden to the people that were under the direct rule of the Shah, as these commissioners, unlike the former governors, had little knowledge about the local communities that they controlled and were primarily interested in increasing the income of the Shah. The Ilkhanid ruler ljait converted to Twelver Shiism in the 13th century. 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. Two years later in 1587, the massive invasion of Khorasan by the Uzbeks proved the occasion whereby Murshid Quli Khan would make a play for supremacy in Qazvin. [162], Since pre-Islamic times, the sport of wrestling had been an integral part of the Iranian identity, and the professional wrestlers, who performed in Zurkhanehs, were considered important members of the society. Efahn fell to the Ghilzai Afghans of Kandahr in 1722. Ismail I continued to expand his base in northwestern Iran. After that they join together in uttering a great cry and trying to overthrow each other. [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). He had completely driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. The Safavid empire had a strong social structure with kings and royals at the top and peasants at the bottom. [190], As for the royal household, the highest post was that of the Nazir, Court Minister. The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (c. 9801037) was still regarded as one of the primary textbooks in medicine throughout most of the civilized world. The Safavid Empire of Persia. (2020, August 25). In the next 10 years he subjugated the greater part of Iran and annexed the Iraqi provinces of Baghdad and Mosul. That is for the women and to get themselves in good form. [180], The Akhbari movement "crystalized" as a "separate movement" with the writings of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (died 1627 AD). Tahmsp resolved to end hostilities and sent his ambassador to Soleymn's winter quarters in Erzurum in September 1554 to sue for peace. Unlike other empires women had a lot of rights. [241], By the sixteenth century, Islamic science, which to a large extent meant Persian science, was resting on its laurels. [133] Abbas's attitude, however, was in marked contrast to that of his grandfather, Tahmasp I, who had expelled the English traveller Anthony Jenkinson from his court on hearing he was a Christian. [16], An Iranian dynasty rooted in the Sufi Safavid order[32] founded by Kurdish sheikhs,[33] it heavily intermarried with Turkoman,[34] Georgian,[35] Circassian,[36][37] and Pontic Greek[38] dignitaries and was Turkish-speaking and Turkified. The Safavid Empire was formed in 1501 and ended by the invasion of Afghans in 1722. In 1585 two events occurred that would combine to break the impasse among the Qizilbash. Establishment of Shi'ism as the state religion, Conflict between Turcomans and Persians during the Safavid period, E. Yarshater, "Language of Azerbaijan, vii., Persian language of Azerbaijan,". Humayun was not the only royal figure to seek refuge at Tahmasp's court. Who were Safavids? Ismil exploited the first element to seize power in Iran. The arguably most renowned historian from this time was Iskandar Beg Munshi. [159], Jean Chardin, the 17th-c French traveler, spent many years in Iran and commented at length on their culture, customs and character. As a result, the empire began a long, slow slide into obscurity after his death in 1629. Power was shifting to the new class of Caucasian deportees and imports, many of the hundreds of thousands ethnic Georgians, Circassians, and Armenians. Period 3 April 6, 2011 Safavid and Mughal Mughal and Safavid were a few of the strongest empires in their time. Regarding the usage of Georgian, Circassian and Armenian at the Royal Court, David Blow states,[195]. Although the early afav order was originally Sunni, following the jurisprudence of the Shfi school, it gravitated toward Shiism over time, perhaps pulled along by the popular veneration of Al. During these operations an agent of the Samlu (now supporting Sam Mizra's pretensions) attempted to poison the shah. Their rise was attributed to their strong military presence, trade and economic gain, religious tolerance and ideology that rulers should be chosen by ability not class or wealth. The Safavid empire had a strong social structure with kings and royals at the top and peasants at the bottom. What was the most significant role that the Safavid dynasty played? 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". After a long and bloody siege led by the Safavid grand vizier Hatem Beg, which lasted from November 1609 to the summer of 1610, the Kurdish stronghold of Dimdim was captured. This unique headdress represented the Shici ideology of the Safavid dynasty, with the twelve folds of the turban symbolizing the imams in Twelver Shiism. Tahmasp I's successor, Ismail II, brought another 30,000 Circassians and Georgians to Iran of which many joined the ghulam force. [16] The inscriptions on Safavid currency were also in Persian. In 1599, Abbas sent his first diplomatic mission to Europe. It covered all of Iran, and parts of Turkey and Georgia. [121], The following spring in 1614, Abbas I appointed a grandson of Alexander II of Imereti to the throne of Kartli, Jesse of Kakheti also known as "Is Khn". By the seventeenth century, trade routes between East and West had shifted away from Iran, causing a decline in commerce and trade. As Vladimir Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Qezelbash "were no party to the national Persian tradition." Chardin specifically noticed the rank of doctors and astrologers and the respect that the Shahs had for them. Although a majority of the people in the kingdom were Iranians, there were also some Arabs, Turks, and Armenians. Its founder was the Persian[1] mystic Sheikh Safi al-Din (12541334), after whom the order was named. [68], At the downfall of Husain Khan, Tahmsp asserted his rule. The relationship between the Turkic-speaking 'Turks' and Persian-speaking 'Tajiks' was symbiotic, yet some form of rivalry did exist between the two. Sheikh Saf al-Dn Abdul Fath Is'haq Ardabil came from Ardabil, a city in today's Iranian Azerbaijan where his shrine still stands. Ferrier, R. W.; A Journey to Persia: Jean Chardin's Portrait of a Seventeenth-century Empire; pp 7171. Thereafter, the continuing struggle against the Sunnisthe Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeastcost the Safavids Kurdistan, Diyarbakr, and Baghdad, while Tabrz was continuously under threat. Clothes that became soiled in any way were changed immediately. John R. Perry, "Turkic-Iranian contacts", Last edited on 21 December 2022, at 07:16, establishing Twelver Shsm as the state religion of Iran, a war with Iran that would last until 1590, Abbas I's Kakhetian and Kartlian campaigns, conquered the Hotaki's last stronghold in Kandahar, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Al-Hikma al-mutaaliya fi-l-asfar al-aqliyya al-arbaa, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, "Chronicling a Dynasty on the Make: New Light on the Early afavids in ayt Tabrz's, "Islamic Culture and Literature in Iran and Central Asia in the early modern period", "The emergence of the Safavids as a mystical order and their subsequent rise to power in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries", "BARDA and BARDA-DRI v. Military slavery in Islamic Iran", "GEORGIA vii. Saffron was the best in the world Melons were regarded as excellent fruit, and there were more than 50 different sorts, the finest of which came from Khorasan. His oldest son, the crown prince Mohammad Baqer Mirza, was executed following a court intrigue in which several Circassians were involved, while two others were blinded. Poetry lacked the royal patronage of other arts and was hemmed in by religious prescriptions. Rather than rely on another Turkmen tribe, he appointed a Persian wakl. Then he turned against Iran's archrival, the Ottomans, recapturing Baghdad, eastern Iraq and the Caucasian provinces by 1616, all through the 16031618, marking the first grand Safavid pitched victory over the Ottomans. So absolute was his power, that the French merchant, and later ambassador to Iran, Jean Chardin thought the Safavid Shahs ruled their land with an iron fist and often in a despotic manner. Map Code: Ax01488. Safavids went on and conquered rest of . This defection of two of the shah's most trusted subjects and gholams infuriated the shah, as reported by the Safavid court historian Iskander Beg Munshi. The Safavid Empire lasted from 1501-1722. Safavid Empire c. 1630. With the Safavid state and its territories secured, in 1738 Nader conquered the Hotaki's last stronghold in Kandahar; in the same year, in need of fortune to aid his military careers against his Ottoman and Russian imperial rivals, he started his invasion of the wealthy but weak Mughal Empire accompanied by his Georgian subject Erekle II,[155] occupying Ghazni, Kabul, Lahore, and as far as Delhi, in India, when he completely humiliated and looted the militarily inferior Mughals. 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. [210][211] According to contemporary historians, though, the landlord always had the worst of the bargain with the farmer in the crop-sharing agreements. 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