All levels of society could mix there, from members of the royal court whose pavilion overlooked the square, to the Shiite clergy whose mosque was at the squares southern end, to foreign dignitaries, members of the military, merchants, and commoners. At the apex of this structure was the shah. They outlawed it at the turn of the century. Their demise was followed by a period of unrest. Adam Olearius, "The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors" (excerpts). Safi al-Din is believed to have come from a family of Kurds who spoke Azeri. One of the most famous achievements of Tahmasps workshop was an illustrated version of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran written by the poet Ferdowsi in the tenth century. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox. Before the principal phases in the development of the Safavid administrative system are discussed in detail, a brief outline of the Safavid administrative and social structure may be helpful. He also made Efahn the capital of Persia and fostered commerce and the arts, so that Persian artistic achievement reached a high point in his reign . The net result of these various Safavid theories of kingship was absolutism. The greatest of the Safavid monarchs, Shah Abbas (15871629) came to power in 1587, at the age of 16, following the forced abdication of his father, Shah Muhammad Khudbanda. Shi'a's sacred sites were much closerin Iraq, captured by the Safavids in 1623 (but surrendered again to the Ottomans in 1639). History of the Safavids from Iran Chamber, Artistic and cultural history of the Safavids from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Safavid_Empire&oldid=1092454, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. Detail, Sultan Muhammad, The Court of Gayumars, Shahnameh for Shah Tahmasp I, c. 152425, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper, 45 x 30 cm, folio 20v (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). In spite of all this, however, the general population of Iran remained mostly Sunni until the Safavid period. The Safavids also introduced Shiism as the state religion at a time when Irans population was mostly Sunni, and in doing so they fostered the deep divisions between Shiism and Sunnism that continue to characterize relations between Iran and other Islamic nations today. This warfare pattern repeated itself under Shah Tahmasp I and Sultan Suleiman I. During his reign, the Safavid state reached the height of its military, political, and economic power. Abbas I also supported direct trade with Europe, particularly England and The Netherlands, which sought Iranian carpets, silk, and textiles. When Shah Abbas I came to power in 1588, he immediately began making plans to move the Safavid capital to Isfahan, a city in central Iran. The Safavids began not as a political dynasty, but as the hereditary leaders of a Sufi order based in the city of Ardabil, located in today's northwestern Iran. The Ardabil Carpet, Maqsud of Kashan, Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. In May 1501, Ismail I declared Tabriz his capital and himself Shah of Azerbaijan. Not only had Ismails forces occupied the empires border cities, but he had begun recruiting for his army among the ethnic Turkish tribes of eastern Anatolia and encouraging the Shia Muslims in Ottoman lands to revolt against their Sunni rulers. This led inevitably to an assumption of kingly infallibility. Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Ismail's death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of vakil. Despite these similarities, however, significant differences . 28 March 2008. Disappointed by his experience navigating the rivalries within the Qizilbash, he began using enslaved Christians from Circassia and Georgia in the palace administration and civil services instead of members of the Qizilbash. [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. Abbas I was particularly lenient toward the Armenian Christian population of Isfahan, due to their participation in the lucrative manufacture and export of silk. The loss of his capital Tabriz to the enemyand to a Sunni Muslim at thatwas a huge blow to Shah Ismails standing among his own armies, made worse by the fact that he had declared himself invincible based on his fictionalized semidivine ancestry. Before the principal phases in the development of the Safavid administrative system are discussed in detail, a brief outline of the Safavid administrative and social structure may be helpful. The armies of Peter the Great took the Caucasus in the Russo-Persian war of 17221723, while the Ottomans reoccupied northwestern Iran. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Shah Soltan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in eastern Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. From 1609-1610, war broke out between Kurdish tribes and Safavid Empire. The Safavids are therefore widely known for bringing this historic change to the region. Sunnis who resisted conversion but remained in Iran faced death. Sultan Muhammad, The Court of Gayumars, Shahnameh for Shah Tahmasp I, c. 152425, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper, 45 x 30 cm, folio 20v (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). The order in Ardabil was founded in the thirteenth century by the Sufi master Zahed Gilani, and little is known about its beliefs and practices in its earliest stages. As in the Ottoman Empire, wealthy Safavid women raised their public stature by becoming patrons of the arts and endowing public buildings. Some reflections on the Persian theory of government, Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government, Bibliography on the History of Iran under the afavids, The principal offices of the Safavid state during the reign of Ism'l I, Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies, The principal offices of the Safavid state during the reign of ahmsp I, Some notes on the provincial administration of the early afavid empire, The struggle for supremacy in Persia after the death of Timr, Find out more about saving to your Kindle, Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521200943.007. First, he bargained for peace with the Ottomans in 1590, giving away territory in the north-west. If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, 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. Bureaucracy and landed class who were considered the middle classes. During the period of Mongol rule over Iran and the Caucasus, the distinction between Shia and Sunni became less important than it had been. The Safavid Empire was less ethnically diverse than the Ottoman Empire. Over the course of the 1730s, Nader Afshar, one of the Safavid vassals, established himself as a strong military ruler. Shah ljeitthe sultan of Ilkhanate converted to Twelver Shiism in thirteenth century. As the Safavids continued to push westward into Ottoman territory, Bayezids son Selim I responded by invading Iranian Azerbaijan, laying waste to Tabriz in 1514 and attempting to destroy the Qizilbash. Henceforth, a treaty, signed in Qasr-e Shirin, was established, delineating a border between Iran and Turkey in 1639, which still stands in northwest Iran/southeast Turkey. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Using traditional forms and materials, Reza Abbasi (15651635) introduced new subjects to Persian paintingsemi-nude women, youths, lovers. Through this alliance many members of the ulama became landowners themselves, creating a religious aristocracy that gave them a level of political independence. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Like that of many Sufi orders, their ideology incorporated elements of both Sunni and Shia doctrines to proclaim a universal message and attract followers from both sects. Historians generally agree that the Safavids efforts to convert Muslims in their empire to Shiism utilized coercion and force. The Safavid Empire dates from the rule of Shah Ismail (ruled 1501-1524). The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safavid order of Sufism, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Iranian Azerbaijan region. Increased contact with distant cultures in the seventeenth century, especially Europe, provided a boost of inspiration to Iranian artists who adopted modeling, foreshortening, spatial recession, and the medium of oil painting (Shah Abbas II sent Zaman to study in Rome). Presently, there is a community of nearly 1.7 million people who are descendants of the tribes deported from Kurdistan to Khurasan (Northeastern Iran) by the Safavids. Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing GRAB THE BEST PAPER 92.2% of users find it useful If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Tahmasp faced several challenges at home and abroad, however. Never was the Divine Right of Kings more fully developed than by the Safavid shahs. Another famous manuscript is the Khamsa by Nezami executed in 1539-43, by Aqa Mirak and his school in Isfahan. Like the Ottomans and Mughals, the Safavids developed a powerful military, ran a strong and well-organized central state, and fostered a climate in which artistic and intellectual culture flourished. In response, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II deported the Shiites of his empire from Anatolia to other regions where they would be unable to heed the Safavid call. Later, during the Safavid and especially Qajar period, the role of Shi'a ulema increased and they were able to exercise a role in social and political life independent of the government. The Safavid Empire was established in an Iran that had been long fragmented. Abbs I (r. 15881629) brought the dynasty to its peak; his capital, Efahn, was the centre of afavid architectural achievement. He had completely driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. The Safavid Empire at its 1512 borders. Known as, Muqarnas and mirror mosaics, outdoor portal, Chehel Sotoun (photo: Amir Pahaei, CC BY-SA 4.0). It did not last forever, however. The Ottoman (OE) and Safavid (SE) Empires are no exception to this rule. In 1536, the Ottomans formalized their own alliance with the king of France, an enemy of the Habsburgs, who sent a military adviser to counsel Sultan Suleiman about his war with Iran in 1547. The political structure of the Safavid Empire was structured like a pyramid with the Shah at the very top of the pyramid, similar to a pope. The Ottomans pushed further and on August 23, 1514, managed to engage the Safavids in the Battle of Chaldiran west of Tabriz. After Abbas had ordered the mass deportation of Georgians to central Iran, he sent Oghuz Turks (Turcomen) to settle the area; the local population that remained refused to allow them to do so, however, and staged a military rebellion. The city center was unique. In 1501, various disaffected militia from Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia who were known as the Kizilbash (Azeri for "red heads" due to their red headgear) united with the Ardabil Safaviyeh to capture Tabriz from the then ruling Sunni Turkmen alliance known as Ak Koyunlu (The White Sheep Emirate) under the leadership of Alwand. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license), The Safavid Empire was as ethnically diverse as the Ottoman Empire.