Adam Olearius, "The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors" (excerpts). The other faction wished the leadership to remain within Muhammads biological family and backed Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammads cousin and son-in-law, whom they believed the Prophet had chosen as his successor. Despite the Safavid dynasty's Sufi origins, most Sunni or Shi'a Sufi groups were prohibited by the Nimatullahi order. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. They were originally a religious brotherhood who became more powerful because of warlords and political marriages. In spite of all this, however, the general population of Iran remained mostly Sunni until the Safavid period. 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). The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah Abbas I ( CC BY-SA 4.0) The Safavids were a dynastic family that ruled over modern-day Iran. This clearly differentiated Iran from the Ottomans, who were Sunnis. In 1514, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I invaded western Armenia, causing the ill-prepared Safavid army to retreat. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 Various groups of Persian-speaking peoples lived in the Iranian plateau and were usually described as Tajik.. Posted 7 months ago. At the apex of this structure was the shah. After subsequent campaigns, the Safavids recaptured Baghdad, in 1623, but lost it again to Murad IV in 1638. Representation of the human form has been forbidden in Islamic art at times; in Persian illuminated manuscripts, the artists response was to use the image to bring a specific person to the viewers mind without representing them accurately. @free.kindle.com emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. The Safiviyeh came to be led by a fifteen-year old, Ismail I. Miniatures were an important form of Persian art long before Islam appeared; Persian artists were prized at the court of the Abbasids, and artistic styles derived from their work, such as the nonfigurative elements used in the borders of miniatures, were later used to decorate manuscripts of the Quran. The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736 and 1750 to 1773) and, at their height, they controlled all of what is now Iran, Republic of Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus including Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Updates? There had been, however, Shi'a communities in some cities like Qom and Sabzevar as early as eighth century. Total loading time: 0 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. Thus, the end of his reign, 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. Safavid military history had three phases. Despite the strong rivalry between the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, all three empires produced paintings of this type (Figure 4.27). The Qizilbash were largely Turcoman, another Turkic group with its own language. The Safavid Empire at its 1512 borders. What was the Safavid Empire's political contributions to the world Through his mother, Shah Ismail I was descended from the Komnenos dynasty that once ruled the Byzantine Empire. Nevertheless, Safavid rulers were aggressive toward the Armenians, Georgians, and other Christians in the Caucasus region, whom they considered potentially rebellious. In 1750, it was mostly governed through a loose confederation of powerful princely states ^1 1 and rich port cities. They sustained one of the longest running empires of Iranian history, lasting from 1501 to 1736. During the Safavid period, Iran was ethnically quite diverse. inch), 153940 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran, (now at the Victoria & Albert Museum; photo: The Safavids commissioned and built hundreds of monuments during their reign, making them some of the most productive builders in all of Iranian history. Constant wars with the Ottomans made Shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz, into the interior city of Qazvin in 1548. Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Ismail's death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of vakil. Spain and the Vatican sent several embassies to Iran hoping to enlist it as an ally against the Ottomans. 20th and Pattison, Philadelphia (, The Safavids established an artistic identity that resonated with the dynasties that came after. The art of the Safavids is simply magnificent. (c) - PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD - Cambridge Core The Safavids were a dynastic family that ruled over modern-day Iran. Except for Shah Abbas II, the Safavid rulers after Abbas I were largely ineffectual. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. Other exports were horses, goat hair, pearls, and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as a specie in India. The net result of these various Safavid theories of kingship was absolutism. It was founded by Isml I, who, by converting his people from Sunnite to Shite Islam and adopting the trappings of Persian monarchy, planted the seeds of a unique national and religious identity. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. The city was built as a showpiece, with administrative buildings and public markets opening on the enormous Naqsh-e Jahan (Exemplar of the world) Square (Figure 4.22). However, Safi al-Dins great-grandson Junayd made several changes to the orders doctrine, adopting specifically Shia ideas. Wealthy patrons commissioned artistslike those in the studio of Shah Tahmaspto paint these miniatures either to illustrate books or to be kept as a separate piece of art in an album of similar works. -Made shitism the official religion of the Safavid Empire. 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. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings The armies of Peter the Great took the Caucasus in the Russo-Persian war of 17221723, while the Ottomans reoccupied northwestern Iran. -This caused tension between the Safavid Empire and Ottoman Empires, which was a Sunni empire. 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. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. Then he turned against the Ottomans, recapturing Baghdad, eastern Iraq, and the Caucasian provinces, by 1622. They invested a great deal of their capital into the building and decoration of shrines of Shia saints. The Habsburg emperor Charles V, concerned by the Ottomans progression toward Vienna, approached first Ismail and then Tahmasp about an alliance. 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. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. They sustained one of the longest running empires of Iranian history, lasting from 1501 to 1736. Tahmasp went on to become the longest-reigning Safavid shah. Sunnis who resisted conversion but remained in Iran faced death. The Safavid dynasty had its origins in a long established Sufi order, called the Safaviyeh, which had flourished in Azarbaijan since the early fourteenth century. While silk had always been a highly sought after Persian commodity, dating back to ancient times, the Safavid era produced one of the most lucrative silk industries of the early modern world. Its founder was the Persian[1] mystic Sheikh Safi al-Din (12541334), after whom the order was named. Shah Ismail I himself wrote many poems in Azerbaijani, as well as in Persian and Arabic, while Shah Tahmasp was a painter. What fueled the growth of Safavid economy was Iran's position between the burgeoning civilizations of Europe to its west and India and Islamic Central Asia to its east and north. The Safavid Empire was established in an Iran that had been long fragmented. Ismail also invited foreign Shiites living in places where they were persecuted by the Sunni majority to move to Iran, promising them land and protection. Europeans imported some of the highest volumes of Safavid textiles. 5.2: Safavid Empire - Humanities LibreTexts Creative Commons Attribution License Browne, "A Literary History of Persia," Vol. Their capitals were Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan. Since the ruler, as the representative of the Hidden Imm, was closer to the source of absolute truth than were other men, opposition to him was a sin. Under the Peace of Amasya, concluded in 1555, Armenia and Georgia were divided between the two empires; the Ottomans gained control over Iraq and access to the Persian Gulf, while Irans control over Azerbaijan was guaranteed. Following the conquest of Iran, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. Since two other sons had predeceased him, when he died on January 19, 1629, he had no son capable of succeeding him. Persian carpets of silk and wool were in high demand in Europe and other parts of the Islamic world. Although he successfully repelled an attempt by the Uzbeks to invade northeastern Iran, they remained a threat to the east, and war with the Ottomans flared up soon afterward when Suleimans armies invaded Iran in the mid-1530s. As the Safavid dynasty approached the middle of the eighteenth century, the last shahs took less and less interest in foreign and local affairs, and retreated to the interior life of the palace. and you must attribute OpenStax. Except where otherwise noted, textbooks on this site Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The city center was unique. In this portrait of Shah Ismail by an Italian painter of the sixteenth century, for example, the shahs reddish hair, possibly an inheritance from his Greek grandmother, is clearly visible. He had completely driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. At the apex of this structure was the shah. As the spiritual heir of Sheikh Zahed, Safi Al-Din transformed the inherited Zahediyeh Sufi Order into the Safaviyeh Order. One of the reasons the Qizilbash were eventually replaced as palace administrators, bureaucrats, and military elites is that they had occasionally used their collective power to render some of the weaker shahs mere figureheads. During his reign, the official language at the royal court was Azerbaijanian. However the brief puppet regime of Ismail III ended in 1760, when Karim Khan felt strong enough take nominal power of the country as well and officially end the Safavid dynasty. Iran became a feudal theocracy: There was no separation of religion and state; the Shah was held to be the divinely ordained head of both. Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad, in 1598. It did not last forever, however. Direct link to hdarwish825's post what succession rules was. He ordered all Irans Sunni Muslims to become Shiites. Published online by Cambridge University Press: hasContentIssue false, THE JALAYIRIDS, MUZAFFARIDS AND SARBADRS, TRADE FROM THE MID-14TH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE SAFAVID PERIOD, RELIGION IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS, SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD, PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE TIMURID AND TRKMEN PERIODS (782907/13801501), PERSIAN POETRY IN THE TIMURID AND SAFAVID PERIODS, For an annotated general bibliography of the Safavid period, see, https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521200943.007, Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. Safi al-Din renamed the order after himselfSafaviyyaand made a number of reforms that reshaped it from a local order to a religious movement that sought followers from around Iran and neighboring countries. Ismail I, despite his heterodox Shi'a beliefs, which were not compatible with orthodox Shi'ism (Momen, 1985) patronized Shi'a religious leaders, granting them land and money in return for loyalty. 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. The Shia believe Ali, who finally succeeded Uthman to become the leader of the Muslim community in 656, was the first legitimate imam, the title they give their spiritual leader rather than caliph. They view the line of Muhammad that descends through Ali and his wife Fatima, Muhammads daughter, as the only source of definitive religious guidance. It is 34-1/2 by 17-1/2 feet and is on view at Londons Victoria and Albert Museum. Sheikh Saf al-Dn Abdul Fath Is'haq Ardabil came from Ardabil, a city in today's Iranian Azerbaijan where his shrine still stands. It was perhaps to perpetuate the distinction of Persian from Arabic culture that attracted the Iranians towards Shi'a Islamthe heartland and sacred sites of Sunni Islam would always be in the Arabian peninsula. If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, 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. what succession rules was followed by the Safavids? By the end of this section, you will be able to: To the east of the lands of the Ottomans, another Islamic empire emerged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Then enter the name part As Tahmasps royal studio was to painting, Abbass capital at Isfahan was to architecture. This genealogy was most likely invented by court historians during the sixteenth-century reign of Shah Ismail I. This book uses the "useRatesEcommerce": false ), Reflections on the social and economic structure of Safavid Persia at its zenith, Artisans and Guild Life in the later Safavid period, Quis custodiet custodes? Junayd believed the Safavids should use their popular religious mandate to seek military and political power for themselves, and he found Shia doctrine more appropriate for his vision. are licensed under a, Connections Across Continents, 15001800, Exchange in East Asia and the Indian Ocean, Capitalism and the First Industrial Revolution, The Exchange of Ideas in the Public Sphere, Nationalism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Political Order, Inventions, Innovations, and Mechanization, Regulation, Reform, and Revolutionary Ideologies, The Collapse of the Ottomans and the Coming of War, The Causes and Consequences of World War II, The Contemporary World and Ongoing Challenges, Science and Technology for Todays World, Recommended Resources for the Study of World History, This map shows the Safavid Empire (green) at its greatest extent, including disputed territories (dots) where the Safavids found themselves in conflict with the Ottoman Empire (orange) and the Uzbek rulers of the Khanate of Bukhara (purple).