political structure of the safavid empire

The three Islamic empires of the early modern period - the Mughal, the Safavid, and the Ottoman - shared a common Turko-Mongolian heritage. Sultan Muhammad, The Court of Gayumars, Shahnameh for Shah Tahmasp I, c. 152425, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper, 45 x 30 cm, folio 20v (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). The Shia movement originated with a dispute over Muhammads successor after his death in 632. In response, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II deported the Shiites of his empire from Anatolia to other regions where they would be unable to heed the Safavid call. Creative Commons Attribution License However, beneath the shah and the powerful elites, the Safavid hierarchy was unique for its time in being largely based on merit; worth and talent, not status or birth, were the keys to upward mobility. It became more identifiably Shi'a in its orientation around the year 1400. His native language was Old Tati (zar), an extinct Iranian dialect of the north closely related to Persian. Sunni clerics and theologians were given the choice of conversion or exile. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license), The Safavid Empire was as ethnically diverse as the Ottoman Empire. Sunnis respect Ali and all the Twelve Imams, but they do not believe the Twelve alone were divinely chosen to lead the Muslim community. The remaining 5 percent of Shia are Zaydis or Seveners, a sect established by Zayd, the great-grandson of Ali, who disagree with Twelvers over the identity of the seventh imam. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. The epic called the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a stellar example of manuscript illumination and calligraphy, was made during Shah Tahmasp's reign. Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. For this reason, most Shia movements developed far outside the control of these caliphates, in places like Morocco, Yemen, Iran, and central Asia. Corrections? For this reason, many silks used floral and vegetal motifs that appealed to both Persian and foreign markets. Thus, the end of his reign, 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. afavid dynasty, (1502-1736) Persian dynasty. The Safavid Empire at its 1512 borders. In fact, from Sheikh Junayd to Sheikh Ismail Ithe founder of the Safavid Empireall ruling Sheikhs of the Safavids had Turcoman mothers. According to many historians, the Safavid empire marked the beginning of modern Persia. 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. As a result, he signed a peace treaty in 1590 that gave nearly half his territory, including the former capital of Tabriz, to the Ottomans. Safavid Empire Flashcards | Quizlet Isfahan Define Anarchy Lawless and disorder; no one leader, no government Define Orthodoxy Traditional (not flexible) manner to follow a religion Define Shah King of the Safavid empire Define warfare in the Safavid Empire .They had a system similar to the janissaries. The borders of Iran were secure at the end of Tahmasps reign, but his son and grandson were ineffective leaders who failed to keep the Qizilbash rivalries from once again destabilizing the country, which led to yet more incursions by Ottoman and Uzbek forces. citation tool such as, Authors: Ann Kordas, Ryan J. Lynch, Brooke Nelson, Julie Tatlock, Book title: World History Volume 2, from 1400. Prior to the rise of the Safavids, the region was broken up into a mosaic of autonomous states, all governed by local rulers. As an empire, the Safavids succeeded in placing the nomadic people groups of the region under their. Before the principal phases in the development of the Safavid administrative system are discussed in detail, a brief outline of the Safavid administrative and social structure may be helpful. Their capitals were Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Under them a political system emerged in which political and religious boundaries over-lapped. 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. inch), 153940 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (now at the Victoria & Albert Museum; photo: Scenes from popular stories and floral motifs were applied just as easily to the pages of books as they were to walls of palaces and, most commonly, to designs woven into silk and velvet textiles. Given the sects government sponsorship, the Shia ulama were often able to act as intermediaries between the people and the government. Despite near-constant war, during this time Iran reached new cultural and economic heights. In 1738, Nadir Shah reconquered Afghanistan starting with the city of Kandahar. Render date: 2023-04-30T14:46:17.907Z 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. Originally, the Safaviyeh was a spiritual, less denominational response to the upheavals and unrest in northwest Iran/eastern Anatolia in the decades following the Mongol invasion. The princes had Turcoman, Persian, Kurdish, and even Armenian, Indian, Afghan, or Georgian mothers. 1 - Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires - Cambridge Core Abbas I also supported direct trade with Europe, particularly England and The Netherlands, which sought Iranian carpets, silk, and textiles. The silk industry of early modern Iran was one of the cornerstones of the Safavid economy. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. [6] It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin, [7] but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman, [8] Georgian, [9] Circassian, [10] [11] and Pontic Greek [12] dignitaries, nevertheless they . While Naqsh-e Jahan Square provided a focus, the city also featured a broad tree-lined avenue called the Chahar Bagh, stretching over four kilometers from the square to a royal country estate (Figure 4.28). Exquisitely detailed miniatures. The Ardabil Carpet, Maqsud of Kashan, Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. After waging war against the Uzbeks, Abbas realized that fighting the Ottomans with the country in upheaval would be nearly impossible. Find out more about saving to your Kindle. The entry of European ships to the Indian Ocean trade cut off much of Irans direct access to Africa and South Asia. By the seventeenth century, trade routes between East and West had shifted away from Iran, causing a decline in commerce and trade. Although the Safavids were eventually able to reestablish authority, they never achieved their earlier level of control. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Safavid Army - Military History - Oxford Bibliographies - obo 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. 1999-2023, Rice University. The emergence of the Safavids marked the first time the region was ruled by Persian kings since the. Two distinct schools of painting developed: the Turkmen school in western Iran and the Timurid school based in Herat (in todays Afghanistan). In spite of all this, however, the general population of Iran remained mostly Sunni until the Safavid period. Except where otherwise noted, textbooks on this site The Ardabil Carpet, Maqsud of Kashan, Persian: Safavid Dynasty, silk warps and wefts with wool pile (25 million knots, 340 per sq. 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. What was the Safavid Empire's political contributions to the world With the capture of Tabriz, the Safavid dynasty officially began. Never was the Divine Right of Kings more fully developed than by the Safavid shahs. Sunnis who resisted conversion but remained in Iran faced death. (credit: Shah Tahmasp in the mountains by Freer Gallery of Art/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain), This Persian miniature produced in the studio of Shah Tahmasp depicts the Feast of Sada, a mythical event that celebrates the discovery of fire. (c) - PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE SAFAVID PERIOD - Cambridge Core It seems that the Safavid family left its homeland and moved to Azarbaijan (modern northwestern Iran) in the twelfth century. 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. Tabriz was taken but the Ottoman army refused to follow the Safavids into the Persian highlands and by winter, retreated from Tabriz. The dedication of the Persian Building at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exhibition, October 6, 1926. The Safavids generally ruled over a peaceful and prosperous empire. He ordered all Irans Sunni Muslims to become Shiites. Tahmasp also moved his capital from Tabriz to Qazvin, closer to the Caspian Sea and at less risk of capture or siege by Ottoman forces. As Tahmasps royal studio was to painting, Abbass capital at Isfahan was to architecture. The Afghans rode roughshod over their conquered territory for a dozen years, but were prevented from making further gains by Nadir Shah Afshar, a former slave who had risen to military leadership within the Afshar tribe in Khorasan, a vassal state of the Safavids. The Ottomans pushed further and on August 23, 1514, managed to engage the Safavids in the Battle of Chaldiran west of Tabriz. (credit: The Feast of Sada, Folio 22v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp by Ferdowsi/Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Arthur A. Houghton Jr., 1970 /Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain), This miniature created in the Mughal Empire in 1594 shows a scene from the, https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/1-introduction, https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/4-3-the-safavid-empire, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, Identify the factors that contributed to the rise of the, Discuss the similarities and differences between, Describe the political structure of the Safavid Empire. Second, it brought the royal workshops closer to the silk route, making it easier for the Safavids to control the sale of Persian silk. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. This was a strategic move that accomplished two things. After Ismails death in 1524, ten years of internal strife followed as rival Qizilbash factions fought for dominance and the right to be regent to Ismails ten-year-old heir Tahmasp. A soup kitchen distributed free food to the needy, and occasionally the square was cleared for polo games, public ceremonies, and festivals. The Ottoman and Safavid Empires: Comparison Essay He was a disciple of the famed Sufi Grand Master Sheikh Zahed Gilani (12161301) of Lahijan. The Safavids unified much of Iran under single political control. To save content items to your account, It is axiomatic that such a ruler would command instant and unquestioning obedience from his subjects. The conversion efforts of the Safavids have left long legacies in the Islamic world. They invested a great deal of their capital into the building and decoration of shrines of Shia saints. While strongly influenced by Persian miniatures, Mughal miniatures tended to represent a more realistic depiction of animals and humans. The Safavids ultimately succeeded in establishing a new Persian national monarchy. Arthur Upham Pope, a former Professor of aesthetics at Berkeley, and his wife Phyllis Ackerman, a specialist in Islamic textiles, were part of this movement that opened doors to the arts of Iran. Later Safavid shahs continued to expand Isfahan, adding buildings, avenues, and bridges and commissioning structures in other cities based on the style cultivated in the capital. 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. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia: Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed. 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. -This caused tension between the Safavid Empire and Ottoman Empires, which was a Sunni empire. New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article Thus, Abbas I was able to break the dependence on the Qizilbash for military might and centralized control. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. However, several scholars went one step further and extended the familys history back to the biblical Adam. Due to his fear of assassination, Shah Abbas either put to death or blinded any member of his family who aroused his suspicion. Started in the Safavid period, mirror mosaics became an enduring Persian decorative motif that was used by the subsequent dynasties. The Safavids began not as a political dynasty, but as the hereditary leaders of a Sufi order based in the city of Ardabil, located in todays northwestern Iran. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. Detail, Sultan Muhammad, The Court of Gayumars, Shahnameh for Shah Tahmasp I, c. 152425, opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper, 45 x 30 cm, folio 20v (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; photo: Brilliantly painted manuscripts. "useRatesEcommerce": false 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. Chardin declares emphatically that outside court circles there was no arbitrary exercise of power by the shah, and both Chardin and Malcolm assert that the awe in which the shah was held by the court and the nobility was the primary reason for the relative security and freedom from oppression enjoyed by the lower classes. then you must include on every physical page the following attribution: If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written As the spiritual heir of Sheikh Zahed, Safi Al-Din transformed the inherited Zahediyeh Sufi Order into the Safaviyeh Order. In the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul, and Lahore. However, Safi al-Dins great-grandson Junayd made several changes to the orders doctrine, adopting specifically Shia ideas. Like that of many Sufi orders, their ideology incorporated elements of both Sunni and Shia doctrines to proclaim a universal message and attract followers from both sects. The Safavid empire was founded by the Safavids.They became a centralized government. Shah Abbas II was known as a poet, writing Turkic verse with the pen name of Tani. 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 order in Ardabil was founded in the thirteenth century by the Sufi master Zahed Gilani, and little is known about its beliefs and practices in its earliest stages. Abbas I reformed the military and civil service and built a showpiece capital city, Isfahan, which remains one of the masterworks of Persian Islamic art and architecture. 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, When the Safavid state weakened in its later years, the ulama were able to step in and use their newly acquired wealth to benefit their communities. The Safavids, an introduction (article) | Khan Academy At its zenith, during the long reign of Shah Abbas I, the empire's reach comprised Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Iranian ceramics became highly valued for export because of their remarkable similarity in style and quality to treasured Chinese porcelain, with even more intricately painted decorations. It did not last forever, however. He wholeheartedly adopted the use of gunpowder. Using traditional forms and materials, Reza Abbasi (15651635) introduced new subjects to Persian paintingsemi-nude women, youths, lovers. Silk was akin to gold in this era, and Safavid silk was renowned for both the high quality of its raw silk, as well as the exquisite designs of their embroidered textiles. In 1598, Abbas moved his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan in the central Iranian plateau, far from the constantly shifting borders with the Ottomans and Uzbeks and closer to the Persian Gulf and the newly arrived traders of the British and Dutch East India Companies. The Safavid concept of kingship, combining territorial control with . The capture of Baghdad by Ismail I in 1509, was only followed by its loss to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534. The Safavid Empire was established in an Iran that had been long fragmented. The Art of the Safavids before 1600 on The Metropolitan Museum of Arts Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Safavid Period at the National Museum of Asian Art. 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. When Ismail crowned himself Shah in 1501, most of Irans population was Sunni. Our mission is to improve educational access and learning for everyone. Through this alliance many members of the ulama became landowners themselves, creating a religious aristocracy that gave them a level of political independence. The article analyses the social and political structure of the Safavid Empire. In 1522, the Safavid royal library of Shah Tahmasp produced the most exquisitely illustrated Shahnameh of all time, now known as the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp. Royal manuscripts such as this were highly collaborative enterprises that brought together miniaturists, illuminators, calligraphers, poets, scribes, and gold sprinklers. 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. Various groups of Persian-speaking peoples lived in the Iranian plateau and were usually described as Tajik.. In this period, handicrafts such as tile making, pottery, and textiles developed and great advances were made in miniature painting, bookbinding, decoration, and calligraphy. Culture flourished under Safavid patronage. The Safavid family later claimed that Safi al-Din was descended from the Prophet through Muhammads daughter Fatima and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib. He was declared Shah of Iran in 1502. PDF Safavid Dynasty 1501-1736 (official end in 1760) Although at first he was able to negotiate safe passage for his army, the Shirvanshahs, already uneasy about Haydars growing power, used his eventual attack on one of their cities as an excuse to declare war on the Safavids. (credit: Abbas I of Persia by Unknown/TRAJAN 117/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain), The Shah Mosque, built by Abbas I, is located on the south side of, In this image from a Persian history of his reign written about 1650, the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail (dressed in white) stands on the steps of a mosque prior to his coronation, having the sermon read in the name of the Twelve Imams and effectively declaring Shiism to be the state religion of Iran in 1501. He used Persian as the language of government and composed poetry in Azeri, contributing to its development as a literary language. To further legitimize his power, Ismail I also added claims of royal Sassanian heritage after becoming Shah of Iran to his own genealogy. Shi'a's sacred sites were much closerin Iraq, captured by the Safavids in 1623 (but surrendered again to the Ottomans in 1639). Safavid Iran - Wikipedia Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. They embarked on a military campaign, winning victory after victory until, in July 1501, Ismail entered the Shirvanshah capital of Tabriz and declared himself shah, or emperor, of all Iran (Figure 4.20). Not only had Ismails forces occupied the empires border cities, but he had begun recruiting for his army among the ethnic Turkish tribes of eastern Anatolia and encouraging the Shia Muslims in Ottoman lands to revolt against their Sunni rulers. Nevertheless, Safavid rulers were aggressive toward the Armenians, Georgians, and other Christians in the Caucasus region, whom they considered potentially rebellious. The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Azerbaijan region. Shah ljeitthe sultan of Ilkhanate converted to Twelver Shiism in thirteenth century. As the Safavid order developed, its members intermarried with other Turkic groups such as the Turcomen, Lar, and Bakhtiyari, and with Georgian, Armenian, and Pontic Greek Christians within their lands and bordering territories. This came after a wave of New York exhibitions dedicated to Persian art and culture in 1934, during the millenary celebration of the birth of Firdausi (the author of the previously discussed. (PDF) The Rise of the Safavids as a Political Dynasty: The Revolution During the fifteenth century, the Ottomans expanded across Anatolia and centralized control by persecuting Shi'ism. The dynasty declined in the century following his reign, pressed by the Ottoman Empire and the Mughal dynasty, and fell when a weak shah, ahmsp II, was deposed by his general, Ndir Shah. In their view of Islam, any pious man who followed the example of Muhammad could lead the Muslim community. Like Europe, it has a long history of big empires and small states. The best artists from across the empire traveled to work at the royal workshop in Tabriz, a city in northwestern Iran that was the first capital of the Safavid dynasty. The Safavid era witnessed a political, religious and military reorganisation and unification of which Iran as it stands today is in no small degree the legacy. As the Safavids continued to push westward into Ottoman territory, Bayezids son Selim I responded by invading Iranian Azerbaijan, laying waste to Tabriz in 1514 and attempting to destroy the Qizilbash. Abbs I (r. 15881629) brought the dynasty to its peak; his capital, Efahn, was the centre of afavid architectural achievement. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 (Azeri is a Turkic language.) Constant wars with the Ottomans made Shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz, into the interior city of Qazvin in 1548. 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. 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. 20th and Pattison, Philadelphia (, The Safavids established an artistic identity that resonated with the dynasties that came after. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo In the fifteenth century, the Safaviyeh gradually gained political and military clout in the power vacuum precipitated by the decline of the Timurid dynasty. The Safavid Empire was less ethnically diverse than the Ottoman Empire. The Qizilbash were largely Turcoman, another Turkic group with its own language. We do know that Zahed appointed his son-in-law and disciple Safi al-Din Ardabili to succeed him, which angered his family and some of his followers. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The Qizilbashi tribes were essential to the military of Iran until the rule of Shah Abbas Itheir leaders were able exercise enormous influence and participate in court intrigues (assassinating Shah Ismail II, for example). How did the Safavid Empire rise to power AP world history? The Safavids, an introduction - Smarthistory Then two Englishmen, Robert Sherley and his brother Anthony, helped Abbas I to reorganize the Shah's soldiers into a partially paid and well-trained standing army similar to the European model (which the Ottomans had already adopted). Shah Ism'l I, who established the Safavid dynasty in 907/15012, considered himself to be the living emanation of the godhead, the Shadow of God upon earth, and the representative of the Hidden Imm by virtue of direct descent from the Seventh Imm of the Twelver (Ithn'ashariyya) Sh'a, Ms al-Kzim. The Middle Ages had seen a series of invasions of Iran by Turks, Mongols, and others. 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.
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