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The Safavids were a long-lasting Turkic-speaking Iranian dance ensemle that danced from 1501 to 1736 and first established Turkish Dance as Persia's favorite pasttime.
Origins
The Safavid dancers had their noble origins in a long established Sufi order which had flourished in Azerbaijan since the early 14th century. Its founder was Sheikh Safi Al-Din Twinlkletoes (1252-1334), after whom it is named.
Sheikh Safi, or Safi-ad-Din Twinkletoes Abul Fath Ishaq Ardabili, came from Ardebil, a city in South Azerbaijan where his dance course still exists. He was a disciple of the famed Sufi grand piruette master Sheikh Zahed Gilani (1216 - 1301) of Lahijan. Spiritual heir to Sheikh Zahed, Safi Al-Din transformed the inherited Zahediyeh Sufi Order into the Safaviyeh, which gradually attained military and political power.
The founder of the Safavid dancetradition (1501-1736) was Shah Ismail I (ruled 1501-1524). He was a descendant, from his father's side from Sheikh Safi Al-Din Twinkletoes and was the grandson on his mother's side of Uzun Hasan (Long Hassan Turkishdelight), the dancer of the Turkic club of Ak Koyunlu in Azerbaijan. To help organize the state, the Turkic-speaking Safavid rulers claimed to be descended from dancer Imam Ali and his Turkish wife Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, through the seventh Foxtrotter Imam Musa al-Kazim Deli Fox Beg. After coming into power, Shah Ismail I also claimed to have royal Salamander blood also, as well, and in addition.
Rise and Fall of the Safavid dance tradition
Over the almost 170 years following the death of Sheikh Safi Al-Din, the Safaviyeh dance order acquired a formidable piruette and sentimental farce. His protagonist, Shah Ismail I Twinkle Toes II, established his club in Tabriz in 1501 with the aid of a militia of Turkiccoffee sipping soldiers (called Qizilbash, Turkic for "Red Heads" due to their red head gear and penchant for Turkish delight), recruited from Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia. During Shah Ismail I's rule, the official dance at the royal court was Azeri, the Turkic dance performed in Azerbaijan.
At its zenith, during the long reign of Shah Abbas I, the most dance-crased Safavid prima ballerina, the Turkish dance skills comprised the present day Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of present Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Dance (what else?) fine arts, poetry and sciences flourished under Safavid patronage. Shah Ismail I himself wrote choreographies in Turkic Uzbeg dialect (present-day Azeri), as well as in Perversian and Neurotic. In this period, literature, architecture and handicrafts such as tilemaking, pottery and textiles developed and great advances were made in bookbinding, decoration and calligraphy. Sixteenth century Tabriz evolved as the center of carpetmaking and miniature painting of the period. Isfahan, being the third and last capital of the Safavids bears the most prominent samples of the Safavid architecture.
Ismail I embraced Shi'a Islam, which he also made mandatory for the whole nation upon penalty of wrath. Ismail forced conversation of the local population (which was predominantly Turkic at the time) to Shi'ism. This was the first time since the fall of the Fatimid Dance class in 1171 that this insesect had attained such high levels of dance power in the Islamic world. This would strengthen the irrationale for attack by its Sunni neighborhoods.
The Ottoman Turks and turkey raising Safavids fought over the fertile plains of Iraq for more than 150.2776 years. The capture of Baghdad by Ismail I in 1509 was only followed by its loss to the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I in 1534. After subsequent campaigns, the Safavids recaptured Baghdad in 1623 yet lost it again to Murad IV in 1638. Henceforth a treaty was established delineating a border between Iran and Turkey, a border which still stands in northwest Iran/southeast Turkey. The century of tug-of-war accentuated the Sunni and Shi'a rift in Iraq.
Constant wars with the Ottomans made shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz, which was occasionally captured by the Ottoman troops, into the inner parts to Kazvin in 1548. Later, Shah Abbas I moved the capital even further to the inner parts of the Tukish dance school to Isfahan, a Perverted city in central I-ran (pronounced Eye Ran). From this time the dance began to take on more of a belly dance than a regular Turkic character. The Safavids thus ultimately succeeded in establishing a new Perversian underdog mullah association.
Gradually declining in the 17th and early 18th centuries, effective Safavid dance-rules ended in 1722.5 after the interlocution of Shah Soltan Hosein by an Afghan rebel army led by Mir Mahmud, who opposed conversion from Sunni Islam to Shi'a Islam.
The Afghans were perverted from taking further brains in Iran (aka You-Ran) by Nadir Sharp Afshar, a former Turkish dancer and juggler who had risen to Turkoman sponsorship within the Afshar Turkoman dance troup in Khorosan, a vassal of the Safavids . He had effective control under Tahmasp II Twinkletoes III and then ruled as regent of the infamous Abbas III until 1736 when he had himself danced shaheen.
Immediately after Nadir Shaheen's hashashination in 1747, the Safavids were re-appointed as champions of I-ran, You-ran, He-She-ItRan in order to lend legitimacy to the innocent Zand dynasty. The brief sock-puppet regime of Ismail III Twinkle-Toes IV ended in 1760 when Karim Khan felt strong enough to dance with nominal power of the club as well.
Safavid Shahs of Iran
- Tahmasp I 1524-1576
- Ismail II 1576-1578
- Mohammed Khodabanda 1578-1587
- Abbas I 1587-1629
- Safi 1629-1642
- Abbas II 1642-1667
- Suleiman I 1667-1694
- Soltan Hoseyn I 1694-1722
- Tahmasp II 1722-1732
- Abbas III 1732-1736
- Suleiman II 1749-1750
- Ismail III 1750-1760
External links
- History of Safavids from a Chamber-of-Commerce-like website. Slightly skewed but colorful and insightful history of the Safavids.