All other . In addition the shah's personal bodyguard, made up exclusively of Caucasian ghulms, was dramatically increased to 3,000. After subsequent campaigns, the Safavids recaptured Baghdad, in 1623, but lost it again to Murad IV in 1638. The lesser officials were the qazi, corresponding a civil lieutenant, who ranked under the local governors and functioned as judges in the provinces. The Safavid order soon gained great influence in the city of Ardabil, and Hamdullah Mustaufi noted that most of the people of Ardabil were followers of Safi al-Din. The 'Amili (Shiite scholars of what is know South Lebanon) operating through the Court-based religious posts, were forced to master the Persian language; their students translated their instructions into Persian. After Uzun Hassan's death, his son Ya'qub felt threatened by the growing Safavid religious influence. The fourth vakil was murdered by the Qizilbash, and the fifth was put to death by them. All other religions, and forms of Islam were suppressed. Power was shifting to the new class of Caucasian deportees and imports, many of the hundreds of thousands ethnic Georgians, Circassians, and Armenians. The Europeans began to be fascinated by the Iranians and their culture Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (160102), for example, makes two references (at II.5 and III.4) to 'the Sophy', then the English term for the Shahs of Iran. [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. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Buwayhids, who were of Zeydi a branch of Shi'ism ruled in Fars, Isfahan, and Baghdad. This was the beginning of the East India Company's long-running interest in Iran. [191] In addition to these, there were separate officials appointed for the caretaking of royal banquets and for entertainment. The country was repeatedly raided on its frontiersKerman by Baluchi tribesmen in 1698, Khorasan by Afghans in 1717, constantly in Mesopotamia by peninsula Arabs. To uphold the standard, another source of revenue was needed, and road toll, that were collected by guards (rah-dars), were stationed along the trading routes. The series of campaigns that Tahmsp subsequently waged after realising this in the wider Caucasus between 1540 and 1554 were meant to uphold the morale and the fighting efficiency of the Qizilbash military,[169] but they brought home large numbers (over 70,000)[170] of Christian Georgian, Circassian and Armenian slaves as its main objective, and would be the basis of this third force; the new (Caucasian) layer in society. [72] The victory resulted at least in part from Safavid use of firearms, which they had been acquiring and drilling with since Chaldiran.[73]. [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. Medieval Islamic period" in, Mikheil Svanidze, "The Amasya Peace Treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Iran (June 1, 1555) and Georgia,", Max Scherberger, The Confrontation between Sunni and Shii Empires: Ottoman-Safavid Relations between the Fourteenth and the Seventeenth Centuries in. A separate official, the Commander-in-Chief, was appointed to be the head of these officials. 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. The Safavids (Persian: ) were a native Iranian dynasty from Azarbaijan that ruled from 1501 to 1736, and which established Shi'a Islam as Iran's official religion and united its provinces under a single Iranian sovereignty in the early modern period. [183] It remains only a small minority in the Shii world. They wanted to spread "Shiism by military means." They viewed the leader of the Empire with . Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (/sfvd, s-/), also referred to as the Safavid Empire,[c] was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. In 1659, the Kingdom of Kakheti rose up against the Safavid Iranian rule due to a change of policy that included the mass settling of Qizilbash Turkic tribes in the region in order to repopulate the province, after Shah Abbas' earlier mass deportations of between 130,000[143] 200,000[123][124][144] Georgian subjects to Iran's mainland and massacre of another thousand in 1616 virtually left the province without any substantial population. The strength of the Kizilbash was reduced, while the use of firearms was expanded. They were the continuers of the classical tradition of Islamic thought, which after Averroes died in the Arab west. political (1/2 Max 1/2 miranda) -the Safavid political structure is represented by a pyramid with the highest social class at the top or the shah, and the lowest social class at the bottom or the farmers and herders. Ottoman Political Hierarchy. [159], Also among the aristocracy, in the middle of the hierarchical pyramid, were the religious officials, who, mindful of the historic role of the religious classes as a buffer between the ruler and his subjects, usually did their best to shield the ordinary people from oppressive governments. Bureaucracy and landed class who were considered the middle classes. 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). 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. Shah Soltan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in eastern Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. Eventually Abbas became frustrated with Spain, as he did with the Holy Roman Empire, which wanted him to make his over 400,000 Armenian subjects swear allegiance to the Pope but did not trouble to inform the shah when the Emperor Rudolf signed a peace treaty with the Ottomans. According to Encyclopdia Iranica, for Tahmsp, the problem circled around the military tribal elite of the empire, the Qezelb, who believed that physical proximity to and control of a member of the immediate Safavid family guaranteed spiritual advantages, political fortune, and material advancement. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-was-the-safavid-empire-195397. The main imports were spice, textiles (woolens from Europe, cottons from Gujarat), metals, coffee, and sugar. However, at that time it was referred to by various other names. The Safavid Empire was a theocracy. [83] Their formation, implementation, and usage was very much alike to the janissaries of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. This system avoided an entrenched aristocracy or a caste society. Trade with the West and industry expanded, communications improved. Similarly, within the Safavid empire the harem was seen as an 'internal power structure,' in which women could exert political power. Was Safavid Iran an Empire. Thus Div Soltn emerged victorious in the first palace struggle, but he fell victim to Chuha Sultn of the Takkalu, who turned Tahmsp against his first mentor. The Safavids were poorly armed, while the Ottomans had muskets and artillery. the peace treaty signed between the ottoman empire and the safavid empire on may 17, 1639, after the conquest of baghdad, which had been in the hands of the iranians for 14 years as a result of murat's baghdad campaign, ending the 1623-1639 ottoman-safavid war and determining the current turkey-iran border.13 from a general point of view, it Among these, the founder of one of the most successful f orders, Shh Ni'matullh Wal (d. 1431), traced his descent from the first Isml Imam, Muhammad ibn Isml, as evidenced in a poem as well as another unpublished literary composition. In response, a Ghilzai Afghan chieftain named Mirwais Hotak revolted and killed Gurgin Khan, the Safavid governor of the region, along with his army. Anthony Bryer. It was from this time that the division of the Shia world into mujtahid (those who could follow their own independent judgment) and muqallid (those who had to follow the rulings of a mujtahid) took place. There had been, however, Shi'a communities in some cities like Qom and Sabzevar as early as eighth century. The afav order at Ardabl, however, was distant enough from any political centre to remain neutral, allowing the Persian mystics to build a strong following of their own. The Safavid Empire of Persia. [138], The shah had set great store on an alliance with Spain, the chief opponent of the Ottomans in Europe. Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad in 1598. They correctly identified the three key points to control all seaborne trade between Asia and Europe: The Gulf of Aden, The Persian Gulf and the Straits of Malacca by cutting off and controlling these strategic locations with high taxation. Mir Damad is considered the founder of this school. From the time of Shah Abbas onwards, more land was brought under the direct control of the shah. The two wrestlers were covered in grease. "The Safavid Period". [82], Tahmsp also planted the seeds that would, unintentionally, produce change much later. In earlier times, the Shah had been closely involved in judicial proceedings, but this part of the royal duty was neglected by Shah Safi and the later kings. 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. They were able to summon for a divorce and were given a lot more trust and respect than usual. In the 16th century, carpet weaving evolved from a nomadic and peasant craft to a well-executed industry with specialization of design and manufacturing. Also, there were the quazi-religious fraternities called futuvva, which were run by local dervishes. After the decline of the Timurid Empire (13701506), Iran was politically splintered, giving rise to a number of religious movements. (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. With the beginning of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, Albuquerque, a Portuguese general, conquered Hormoz Island in southern Iran. [29] The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by establishing Twelver Shsm as the state religion of Iran, as well as spreading Sha Islam in major parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia.[29][31]. And, just as the higher levels of the social hierarchy was divided between the Turkish "men of the sword" and the Persian "men of the pen"; so were the lower level divided between the Turcoman tribes, who were cattle breeders and lived apart from the surrounding population, and the Persians, who were settled agriculturalists. 4, p. 14. 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. Tabriz was the center of this industry. The Turkish spoken in Safavid Iran was mostly what nowadays is referred to as Azeri or Azerbaijani Turkish. 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. The treaty was the first formal diplomatic recognition of the Safavid Empire by the Ottomans. [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 effective control under Shah Tahmasp II and then ruled as regent of the infant Abbas III until 1736, when he had himself crowned shah. Second to the Prime Minister post were the General of the Revenues (mostoufi-ye mamalek), or finance minister,[189] and the Divanbegi, Minister of Justice. [104] The following year the loyal Qizilbash forces (the Turkmen and Takkalu who controlled Qazvin), with vizier Mirza Salman and crown prince Sultan Hamza Mirza at their head, confronted the rebelling Ustajlu-Shamlu coalition which had assumed control of Khorasan under the nominal rule of young Abbas.
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