Shiite Islam and Safavid Dynasty
Overview
Shiite Islam and the Safavid Dynasty
Learning Objectives
- Identify the historical significance of the conversion of Iran to a Shiite Islamic state under the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1722).
- Assess the contributions of the Safavid Dynasty to the early modern world.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Ismail: founding ruler of the Safavid empire
Safavid Dynasty: dynasty of Turkic tribal leaders who ruled Persia from the sixteenth into the eighteenth centuries
Abbas: ruler at the apex of Safavid power
Isfahan: Safavid capital city
In 1501 Shah Ismail influenced the course of southwest Asian history by establishing a new dynasty over Persia and rechristening the state Iran. The Safavid Dynasty, or empire, was one of three Muslim land-based empires in southwest Asia; the other two were the Ottoman empire, with Anatolia as its base, and the Mughal empire, which controlled India. These empires—also known as the “gunpowder empires”—rose, peaked, and declined between the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries, against the backdrop of the rise of the West. By the eighteenth century major Western powers had eclipsed these three empires, both economically and technologically.
The Safavids
The Safavids were a hereditary dynasty of Turkic tribal leaders who established their autonomy during fourteenth century with the decline of the Persian Khanate—which was one of the successor empires to Genghis Khan’s thirteenth-century trans-Asian empire. The decline of the Persian Khanate was part of the larger downfall of these Mongol empires across Asia, leaving a power vacuum in west Asia that was temporarily filled with various tribal confederations. The name of the Safavid dynasty comes from the first Safavid leader: Safi al-Din. Toward the end of increasing their power subsequent Safavid leaders intermarried into the tribal elites of various west Asian peoples, including Circassians, Pontic Greeks of Anatolia, Georgians, and Turkmens—which was one of a number of Turkic groups.
Shah Ismail and Shiism
The Safavid conquest of Persia was the product of a family struggle followed by a conventional campaign of territorial conquest. Ismail, a younger son of the late fifteenth-century Safavid shah, established himself as the dynastic leader in a successful struggle with other members of his extended family. He then installed the Safavid dynasty over Persia during the early sixteenth century. In 1501 his forces took control of Azerbaijan, and over the rest decade he expanded and consolidated his empire through a succession of conquests across Persia.
In the context of Persian history, the Safavid Dynasty was one in a succession of dynasties, going back to the Achaemenid Dynasty, which ruled over Persia. While accepting the Persian cultural base, the Safavid Dynasty took Persian civilization in a new direction by embracing Shiism, and, in the process, diverging from the Sunni majorities among the Muslims of the Mughal and the Ottoman empires. This is significant because Shiites and Sunnis disagree over a number of issues concerning Islamic doctrine, as well as the selection of the Islamic leader known as the caliph. As the founder of the Safavid Dynasty Ismail initiated this process of embracing Shiism with his conquest of Persia. Ottoman Sultan Selim I invaded the northwestern corner of the Safavid empire in 1514, culminating in the Ottoman victory over Safavid forces at Tabriz. Although Selim could not maintain control of this part of the Safavid realm, the animosity between these two empires continued, punctuated by formal hostilities until the end of the Safavid Dynasty. This Safavid Shiite divergence metastasized into a violent religious and political division that manifested itself in numerous wars that exist to the present, including the 1980 – 88 Iran-Iraq War.
Shah Abbas the Great
The Safavid Dynasty reached the zenith of its power during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great. He centralized and strengthened the Safavid government and military, allowing the latter to compete more effectively with the Ottoman empire. When he came to power, Abbas restored the declining Safavid empire and took steps to increase Safavid power, relative to Mughal and Ottoman power. He initiated military campaigns against both powers during the early seventeenth century, regaining some of the territory previously lost by the Safavid empire. These campaigns, along with a strike against the Portuguese at Hormuz increased the Safavid presence along the Persian Gulf.
To improve commerce and security across his empire Abbas also commissioned a network of roads with caravanserai constructed about every twenty miles. Caravanserai were secure facilities were caravans could stay overnight. At Abbas’s instruction government officials also worked with merchant groups to encourage trade, which was challenged by Persian geography at the time.
Isfahan
Every empire that aspires to be a great empire needs a great capital city. Such a capital city not only serves as the center of government but also as the focus of the empire, the source of culture and political power, and the symbol of the empire’s stability, power, and growth. Isfahan was that capital city for the Safavid empire, and, in this role, was comparable to Istanbul/Constantinople in the Ottoman empire and Agra in the Mughal empire.
As a settlement, the roots of Isfahan go back about four thousand years. During the Achaemenid dynasty, about 2500 years ago, Isfahan emerged as a small city; it subsequently served as a regional center through a succession of imperial periods in Persian history, including during Parthian, Sassanid, Abbasid, and Timur’s rule. Isfahan was known for its ethnic diversity.
Shah Abbas made Isfahan the capital city of his Safavid empire in 1598. Abbas and his successors sponsored numerous projects in the city. These projects embodied both Islamic and Persian features in their design and construction. Of the Safavid rulers Abbas I had the most ambitious plans for Isfahan, matching his ambitions for his empire. Initially he intended to renovate portions of the existing city, but in order to avoid opposition, he later decided instead to add on to it with new construction in the south. Two main features of Abbas’s “new” city to the south were the Maidan-I Naqsh-I Jahan—the center of the “new” city—and the Chahar Bagh Avenue, which ran through the “new” portions of Isfahan to the old. In 1647 Shah Abbas II, grandson of Shah Abbas I, had the Chihil Sutun palace completed.
During the Safavid period the city grew with the arrival of thousands of migrants from the Caucasus, who were welcomed by Safavid rulers, including Abbas. These migrants made the city more ethnically and culturally diverse. Diversity was a characteristic of a number of imperial dynasties in Persian history, including the Achaemenid Dynasty. Eventually, by one count, Isfahan could boast 600,000 residents, 1802 caravanserais, 162 mosques, 273 public baths, 48 colleges and academies, and an indeterminable number of coffeehouses.
Isfahan remained the urban center of the Safavid empire until its downfall. In this capacity it attracted the interest of European travelers, as an extension of their grand tours. The “Grand Tour” occurred during the so-called early modern period and was a ritual of wealthy Europeans, mostly the nobility. European travelers from the period after the Thirty Years War to the beginning of the French Revolution—a period of relative stability in Europe—toured European cities, along with sites in Asia, for the purposes of exposure and education. The Grand Tour was the predecessor to the mass tourism that grew out of the mass production of the Industrial Revolution.
Decline and Fall of the Safavid Empire
When considering questions concerning the fall of any empire, civilization, and/or culture, such questions can be phrased in terms of why a civilization fell or why it lasted as long as it did. In the early eighteenth century, the Safavid Dynasty became the first of the so-called gunpowder empires to collapse. A number of factors contributed to the Safavid empire lasting into the early eighteenth century, including Shiism as a unifying force, adequate government administration, commercial prosperity, internal tranquility, and the absence of acute and existential foreign threats, including the Mughal and Ottoman empires. From a more pessimistic perspective a number of factors contributed to the decline and collapse of the Safavid Dynasty. The Safavid Dynasty did not create the financial infrastructure necessary for economic development. In addition, it did not keep up with the innovations in military and maritime technology being made by various European powers. These European powers had embraced earlier technological advances and inventions from Asia and had improved upon them. In general terms these factors also contributed to the downfall of the Mughal and the Ottoman empires. Relative to the Mughal and the Ottoman empires, the Safavid empire fell behind in terms of trade and experienced an outflow of silver, along with growing domestic instability.
In the early 1720s, Afghans overran the Safavid empire, capturing Isfahan, bringing down the Safavid dynasty in 1723. Temporarily restored in the 1730s by Nadir Khan, an adventurer-conqueror, this reincarnation died with Khan in 1747.
The Safavid empire vividly illustrated the weaknesses of the three so-called gunpowder empires in the face of early modern European technologic advances and economic and imperial expansion. The fate that befell the Safavid empire occurred in slower motion compared to the Mughal empire later in the eighteenth century, as well as to the Ottoman empire during the early twentieth century in the aftermath of the First World War. Arguably the Safavid dynasty left as its most momentous legacy its sponsorship of Shiism Islam.
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