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The Safavids were a dynasty that ruled Iran from 1501 to 1722. They originated in (Iranian) Azerbaijan and are considered by many as one of the greatest Iranian Empires since the Islamic conquest of Persia. Predominantly Azeri Turkic in language and Iranian in identity, the Safavids established Shia Islam as the official religion of their kingdom, reasserted the original Persian identity of the region, and became the first native dynasty to established an independent and united Iranian state after eight and a half centuries of rule by Arab, Turkic, and Mongol dynasties.
Background
Origins:
Main article: Safi al-DinThe Safavid dynasty had its origins in a long established Sufi order, called the Safaviyeh, which flourished in Azerbaijan and Anatolia since the early 14th century. Its founder was the Sufi saint Safi Al-Din of Ardabil (1252-1334), a man of obscure but possible Kurdish and/or Persian origin. First, the Safaviyeh was a spiritual response to the upheavals and unrest in northwest Iran/eastern Anatolia in the decades following the Mongol invasion. It changed from a Sunni order to extremest Shi'a (ghulat) around 1400. In the fifteenth century, the Safaviyeh gradually gained political and military clout in the power vacuum precipitated by the decline of the Timurid dynasty. After becoming the Safaviyeh leader in 1447, Sheikh Junayd - a descendant of Sheikh Safi Al-Din - transformed it into a revolutionary Shi'ite movement with the goal of seizing power in Iran.
Founder of the Safavid empire:
Main article: Ismail IThe Safavid ruling dynasty was founded by Shah Ismā'il I. Azerbaijani in origin, he was of mixed Turkic, Iranic, and Pontic Greek heritage and was a distant descendant of Safi al-Din. As such, Ismā'il was the last in line of hereditary Grand Masters of the Safaviyeh Sufi order, prior to its ascent to a ruling dynasty, and believed himself to be of divine Islamic and royal Persian descent.
His rise to power was predominantly due to massive support from the powerful Turkoman tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan who, along with other supporters of the Safavid family, became collectively known as Qizilbash (Ottoman Turkish for "red head"). Shah Ismā'il first proclaimed a Safavid Shia state in Azerbaijan in 1501. A year later, in 1502, he claimed all of Iran.
Geopolitics:
There were many local states in the area traditionally known as Persia after decline of the Timurid Empire (1370–1506). The most important local rulers about 1500 were:
- Huṣayn Bāyqarā, the Timurid ruler of Herāt
- Alwand Mīrzā, the Aq Qoyunlu Khan of Tabrīz
- Sultān Murād, Ottoman ruler of Irāq al-Ajam
- Farrokh Yaṣar, the Shah of Širvan
- Badi Alzamān Mīrzā, local ruler of Balkh
- Huṣayn Kīā Chalavī, the local ruler of Semnān
- Murād Beg Bayandar, local ruler of Yazd
During the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire expanded across Anatolia and centralized control by persecuting Shi'ism, and eventually outlawed it at the turn of the century. In 1501, various disaffected militia from Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia united with the Safaviyeh Sufi order of Ardabil to capture the city from the then ruling Sunni Turcoman Khan, Alwand Mīrzā, head of the "White Sheep" Turcoman confederation. Along with other supporters of the Safavid family, these tribes became known as Qizilbāš - "red heads" - due to their read headgear which symbolized their loyalty to the Safavid Sufi sheikhs.
Beginnings
The Safiviyeh came to be led by a fifteen-year old Ismail I. To establish political legitimacy, the Safavid rulers claimed to be descended from Imam Ali and his wife Fatima (the daughter of Prophet Muhammad) through the seventh Imam Musa al-Kazim. To further legitimize his power, Ismail I also added claims of royal Sassanian heritage after becoming Shah.
The Safavid dynasty began in July 1501 with the capture of Tabriz. Ismail I declared Tabriz his capital and himself the Shah of Azerbaijan. Ismail continued to expand his base in northwestern Iran and was declared the Shah of Iran in May 1502. Throughout the rest of the decade Ismail I fended off attacks from the Ottomans and stamped out the remnants of the Ak Koyunlu. He continued to expand his territory adding Hamadan in 1503, Shiraz and Kerman in 1504, Najaf and Karbala in 1507, Van in 1508, Baghdad in 1509, Khorasan and Herat in 1510. By 1511, the Uzbeks in the north-east were driven across the Oxus River where they continued to attack the Safavids.
War with the Ottoman Empire
In 1514, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I invaded western Armenia, causing an ill-prepared Safavid army to retreat. The Safavids were poorly armed, while the Ottomans had muskets and artillery. The Ottomans pushed further and on August 23, 1514 managed to engage the Safavids in the Battle of Chaldiran, west of Tabriz. The Safavids were defeated and, as the Ottoman force moved on Tabriz, engaged in scorched earth combat. Tabriz was taken, but the Ottoman army refused to follow the Safavids into the Iranian highlands. By winter, they had retreated from Tabriz. This warfare pattern was repeated under Shah Tahmasp I and Sultan Suleiman I.
Safavid power in Iran was based on the military power of Qizilbash Turkic tribes ("the men of sword", as ref. by several historians), balanced with the bureaucratic power of Persian "wakils" ("the men of pen", as ref. by several historians). Ismail exploited the first element to seize power in Iran. However, his successors, and most ostensibly Shah Abbas I successfully diminished the Qizilbash influence on the affairs of the state.
Establishment of Shia Islam as the state religion
Even though Safavids were not the first Shia rulers in Iran, they played a crucial role in making Shia Islam the official religion in the whole of Iran. There were large Shia communities in some cities like Qom and Sabzevar as early as 8th century. In the 10th and 11th centuries the Buwayhids, who were of Zeydi a branch of Shia, ruled in Fars, Isfahan and Baghdad. As a result of Mongol conquest and the relative religious tolerance of the Ilkhanids, Shia dynasties were re-established in Iran - Sarbedaran in Khorasan being the most important. Shah Öljeitü - the sultan of Ilkhanate converted to Twelver Shiism in 13th century, however the population of Iran stayed largely Sunni until the Safavid period.
Following his conquest of Iran, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. The Sunni Ulema or clergy were either killed or exiled. Ismail I, despite his heterodox Shia beliefs (Momen, 1985), brought in Shi'a religious leaders and granted them land and money in return for loyalty. Later, during the Safavid and especially Qajar period, the Shia Ulema's power increased and they were able to exercise a role, independent of or compatible with the government. Despite Safavid's Sufi origins, most Sufi groups were prohibited, bar the Nimatullahi order.
Iran became a feudal theocracy; the Shah was held to be the divinely ordained head of both. In the following centuries, this religious stance would cement both Iran's internal cohesion and national feelings and provoke attacks by its Sunni neighbors.
Constant wars with the Ottomans made Shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz to the interior city of Qazvin in 1548. Later, Shah Abbas I moved the capital to Isfahan, even deeper into central Iran. Abbas I built a new city next to the ancient Persian one. From this time the state began to take on a more Persian character. The Safavids ultimately succeeded in establishing a new Persian national monarchy.
Detail from a celing fresco; Chehel Sotoun Palace; Isfahan.
Safavids’ Golden age
The greatest of the Safavid monarchs, Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) came to power in 1587 aged 16 following the forced abdication of his father, Shah Muhammad Khudābanda, having survived Qizilbashi court intrigues and murders. 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. First he sued for peace in 1590 with the Ottomans giving away territory in the north-west. Then two Englishmen, Robert Sherley and his brother Anthony, helped Abbas I to reorganize the Shah's soldiers into an officer-paid and well-trained standing army similar to a European model (which the Ottomans had already adopted). He wholeheartedly adopted the use of gunpowder (See Military history of Iran). The army divisions were: Ghulams غلام ('crown servants or slaves' usually conscripted from Armenian, Georgian and Circassian lands), Tofongchis تفگنچى (musketeers), and Topchis توپچى (artillery-men).
Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad in 1598. Then he turned against the Ottomans recapturing Baghdad, eastern Iraq and the Caucasian provinces by 1622. He also used his new force to dislodge the Portuguese from Bahrain (1602) and the English navy from Hormuz (1622), in the Persian Gulf (a vital link in Portuguese trade with India). He expanded commercial links with the English East India Company and the Dutch East India Company. Thus Abbas I was able to break the dependence on the Qizilbash for military might and therefore was able to centralize control.
The Ottoman Turks and Safavids fought over the fertile plains of Iraq for more than 150 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, signed in Qasr-e Shirin, was established delineating a border between Iran and Turkey in 1639, a border which still stands in northwest Iran/southeast Turkey. The 150 year tug-of-war accentuated the Sunni and Shi'a rift in Iraq.
In 1609-1610, a war broke out between Kurdish tribes and the Safavid Empire. 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. 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. (see 1 and ISBN 0-89158-296-7). Also see " O. Dzh. Dzhalilov, Kurdski geroicheski epos Zlatoruki Khan" (The Kurdish heroic epic Gold-hand Khan), Moscow, 1967. Nowadays 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. For a map of these areas see this map.
Due to his obsessive fear of assassination, Shah Abbas either put to death or blinded any member of his family who aroused his suspicion. In this way one of his sons was executed and two blinded. Since two other sons had predeceased him, the result was personal tragedy for Shah Abbas. When he died on 19 January 1629, he had no son capable of succeeding him. ( see Encyclopaedia Iranica at under "Abbas I the Great", page 75). The beginning of the 17th century saw the power of the Qizilbash decline, the original militia that had helped Ismail I capture Tabriz and which had gained many administrative powers over the centuries. Power was shifting to a new class of merchants, many of them ethnic Armenians, Georgians and Indians.
At its zenith, during the long reign of Shah Abbas I the empire's reach comprised Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Georgia, and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Conflict between Turcomans and Persians during the Safavid period
Main article: Kizilbash
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 Qizilbash 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. As Vladimir Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Qizilbash "were no party to the national Persian tradition". Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Ismail's death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of vakil. When the second Persian "vakil" was placed in command of a Safavid army in Transoxiana, the Qizilbash, considering it a dishonor to be obliged to serve under him, deserted him on the battlefield with the result that he was slain. The fourth vakil was murdered by the Qizilbash, and the fifth was put to death by them.(see Encyclopedia Iranica)
The Qizilbashi tribes were essential to the military of Iran until the rule of Shah Abbas I- their leaders were able to exercise enormous influence and participate in court intrigues (assassinating Shah Ismail II for example).
Economy
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 Silk Road which led through northern Iran to India revived in the 16th century. Abbas I also supported direct trade with Europe, particularly England and The Netherlands which sought Persian carpet, silk and textiles. Other exports were horses, goat hair, pearls and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as a specie in India. The main imports were specie, textiles (woolens from Europe, cottons from Gujarat), spices, metals, coffee, and sugar.
Culture
Culture flourished under Safavid patronage. Shah Ismail I himself wrote most of his poems in Azerbaijani as well as a few in Persian and Arabic all under a pen-name of Khatai, a collection of his poems in Azeri were published as a Divan. Shah Tahmasp was a painter, while Shah Abbas II was known as a poet, writing Azerbaijani verses with the pen name of Tani. Shah Abbas I recognized the commercial benefit of promoting the arts - artisan products provided much of Iran's foreign trade.
In this period, handicrafts such as tile making, pottery and textiles developed and great advances were made in miniature painting, bookbinding, decoration and calligraphy. In the sixteenth century, carpet weaving evolved from a nomadic and peasant craft to a well-executed industry with specialization of design and manufacturing. Tabriz was the center of this industry. The carpets of Ardabil were commissioned to commemorate the Safavid dynasty. The elegantly baroque yet famously misnamed 'Polonaise' carpets were made in Iran during the seventeenth century.
Using traditional forms and materials, Reza Abbasi (1565–1635) introduced new subjects to Persian painting — semi-nude women, youth, lovers. His painting and calligraphic style influenced Iranian artists for much of the Safavid period, which came to be known as the Isfahan school. Increased contact with distant cultures in the 17th 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). The epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a stellar example of manuscript illumination and calligraphy, was made during Shah Tahmasp's reign. (This book was written by Ferdousi in the 1000AD for Sultan Mahmood Ghaznawi) Another manuscript is the Khamsa by Nezami executed 1539-43 by Aqa Mirak and his school in Isfahan.
Isfahan bears the most prominent samples of the Safavid architecture, all constructed in the years after Shah Abbas I permanently moved the capital there in 1598: the Imperial Mosque, Masjid-e Shah, completed in 1630, the Imami Mosque,Masjid-e Imami, the Lutfullah Mosque and the Royal Palace.
Poetry stagnated under the Safavids; the great medieval ghazal form languished in over-the-top lyricism. Poetry lacked the royal patronage of other arts and was hemmed in by religious prescriptions.
The Safavid era gave way to a flowering of philosophy in Iran with such figures Mulla Sadra of Shirza, Shaikh Bahai and Mir Damad. According to Professor Richard Nelson Frye: They were the continuers of the classical tradition of Islamic thought, which after Averroes died in the Arab west. The Persians schools of thought were the true heirs of the great Islamic thinkers of the golden age of Islam, whereas in the Ottoman empire there was an intellectual stagnation, as far as the traditions of Islamic philosophy were concerned. One of the most renowned Muslim philosophers, Mulla Sadra, 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. Iskander Beg Monshi’s History of Shah Abbas the Great written a few years after its subject's death, achieved a nuanced depth of history and character.
Political legacy
Safavids patronized Iranian culture in the manner of their predecessors, with the difference that they were of Iranian stock. It was Safavids who made Iran the spiritual bastion of Shi’ism against the onslaughts of orthodox Sunni Islam, and the repository of Persian cultural traditions and self-awareness of Iranianhood. and acting as a bridge to modern Iran. The founder of the dynasty, Shah Isma'il adopted the title of "Persian Emperor" Pādišah-ī Īrān, with its implicit notion of an Iranian state stretching from the Afghanistan as far as Euphrates, and from the Oxus to the southern Territories of Persian Gulf.
Decline of the Safavid state
In addition to fighting its perennial enemies, the Ottomans and Uzbeks, as the 17th century progressed Iran had to contend with the rise of two more neighbors. Russian Muscovy in the previous century had deposed two western Asian khanates of the Golden Horde and expanded its influence into the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia. In the east, the Mughal dynasty of India had expanded into Afghanistan at the expense of Iranian control, taking Kandahar.
Furthermore by the 17th century, trade routes between East and West had shifted away from Iran, causing a loss of commerce and trade. Moreover, Shah Abbas's conversion to a ghulam-based military, though expedient in the short term, had, over the course of a century, weakened the country's strength by requiring heavy taxation and control over the provinces.
Except for Shah Abbas II, the Safavid rulers after Abbas I were ineffectual. The end of his reign, 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. Despite falling revenues and military threats, later shahs had lavish lifestyles. Suleiman I is said to have spent eight years straight in his harem; Shah Soltan Hosein drank without end. The shahs imposed heavy taxes that discouraged investment and encouraged corruption among officials.
The country was repeatedly raided on its frontiers — Kerman by Baluchi tribesmen in 1698, Khorasan by Afghans in 1717, constantly in Mesopotamia by peninsula Arabs. Shah Sultan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in eastern Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. In response, a Ghilzai Pashtun chieftain named Mir Wais Khan began a rebellion against the Georgian governor, Gurgin Khan, of Kandahar and defeated a Safavid army. Later, in 1722 an Afghan army led by Mir Wais' son Mahmud marched across eastern Iran, besieged, and sacked Isfahan and proclaimed Mahmud 'Shah' of Persia (see the Hotaki dynasty).
The Afghans rode roughshod over their conquered territory for a dozen years but were prevented from making further gains by Nadir Shah, a former slave who had risen to military leadership within the Afshar tribe in Khorasan, a vassal state of the Safavids. Nadir Shah defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Damghan, 1729. He had driven out the Afghans, who were still occupying Persia, by 1730. In 1738, Nadir Shah reconquered Eastern Persia, starting with Qandahar; in the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul, and Lahore, later conquering as far as east as Delhi, but not fortifying his Persian base and exhausting his army's strength. 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.
Immediately after Nadir Shah's assassination in 1747, the Safavids were re-appointed as shahs of Iran in order to lend legitimacy to the nascent Zand dynasty. 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.
Safavid Shahs of Iran
- Ismail I 1501–1524
- Tahmasp I 1524–1576
- Ismail II 1576–1578
- Mohammed Khodabanda 1578–1587
- Abbas I 1587–1629
- Safi 1629–1642
- Abbas II 1642–1666
- Suleiman I 1666–1694
- Sultan Hoseyn I 1694–1722
- Tahmasp II 1722–1732
- Abbas III 1732–1736
- Suleiman II 1749–1750
- Ismail III 1750–1760
References & Notes
- "... Although many languages and dialects are spoken in the country, and different forms of social life, the dominant influence of the Persian language and culture has created a solidarity complex of great strength. Likewise the Baluch, Turkmen, Armenians and Kurds, although with bonds to their kinsmen on the other side of borders, are conscious of the power and richness of Persian culture and willing to participate in it. ..." Encyclopaedia Iranica. R. N. Frye. Peoples of Iran.
- "Why is there such confusion about the origins of this important dynasty, which reasserted Iranian identity and established an independent Iranian state after eight and a half centuries of rule by foreign dynasties?" R.M. Savory, Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980), Page 3
- R.M. Savory, "Ṣafawids", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition, 2006: "... the Safawids restored Persian sovereignty over the whole of the area traditionally regarded as the heartlands of Persia for the first time since the Arab conquest of Persia During the whole of that time, only once, during what Minorsky termed "Iranian intermezzo", did a dynasty of Persian origin prevail over much of Iran For the rest, Persia was ruled by a succession of Arab caliphs, and Turkish and Mongol sultans and khans ..."
- "... The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan (q.v.) are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. A massive migration of Oghuz Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries not only Turkified Azerbaijan but also Anatolia. The Azeri Turks are Shiites and were founders of the Safavid dynasty ...". Encyclopaedia Iranica. R. N. Frye. Peoples of Iran.
- "The origins of the Safavids are clouded in obscurity. They may have been of Kurdish origin (see R. Savory, Iran Under the Safavids, 1980, p. 2; R. Matthee, "Safavid Dynasty" at iranica.com ), but for all practical purposes they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified." Encyclopaedia Iranica. Iran. The Safavids (1501-1722)
- Roger M. Savory, Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Safawids", Online Edition, 2005
- Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, Vol. XII, p. 873, original German edition, " Persien (Geschichte des neupersischen Reichs)", (LINK)
- ^ Encyclopaedia Iranica. R. N. Frye. Peoples of Iran.
- Encyclopedia Iranica. R.M. Savory. Esmail Safawi
- The writer Ṛūmlu documented the most important of them in his history.
- V. Minorsky. "The Poetry of Shah Ismail", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 10. No. 4, 1942
- E. Yarshater, "Language of Azerbaijan, vii., Persian language of Azerbaijan", Encyclopaedia Iranica, v, pp. 238-245, Online Edition, (LINK)
- R. N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, Phoenix Press, 2000, page 234
- Hillenbrand R., Islamic art and Architecture, London (1999), p228 – ISBN 0-500-20305-9
- ’’ibid’’, p228.
Literature
- Persian Historiography and Geography: Bertold Spuler on Major Works Produced in Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India and Early Ottoman Turkey, M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2003, ISBN 9971-77-488-7.
- Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk: A Manual of Later Safavid Administration. Annotated English Translation, Comments on the Offices and Services, and Facsimile of the Unique Persian Manuscript, M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Kuala Lumpur, ISTAC, 2002, ISBN 983-9379-26-7.
- From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century, M. Ismail Marcinkowski, Singapore, Pustaka Nasional, 2005, ISBN 9971-77-491-7.
- Adam Olearius, "The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors", Translated by John Davies (1662), (excerpts)
External links
- Encyclopedia Iranica
- History of the Safavids from Iran Chamber
- List of Persian Shahs
- BBC History of Religion
- Iranian Culture and history Site
- Artistic and cultural history of the Safavids from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- History of Safavid Art
- A Study of the Migration of Shi'i Works from Arab Regions to Iran at the Early Safavid Era.
- Why is Safavid history important? (Iran Chamber Society)
- BBC: The Safavid Empire.