Safavid dynasty

Safavid dynasty, (1501–1736), ruling dynasty of Iran whose establishment of Twelver Shiʿism as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic and linguistic elements of the country. The Safavids were descended from Sheikh Ṣafī al-Dīn (1253–1334) of Ardabīl, head of the Sufi order of Ṣafaviyyeh (Ṣafawiyyah). Although the early Ṣafavī order was originally Sunni, following the jurisprudence of the Shāfiʿī school, it gravitated toward Shiʿism over time, perhaps pulled along by the popular veneration of ʿAlī. By the time of the order’s fourth leader, Sheikh Junayd, it had become explicitly Shiʿi.

The Mongol invasions that began in the 13th century drastically reconfigured the Islamic world. Not only did the invasions bring about the end of the Abbasid empire and leave the centre of eastern Islamdom fractured, but the arrival of new Turkic peoples and dynasties throughout much of Islamdom shifted the axes of power into the hands of Turkic clans. The Ṣafavī order at Ardabīl, however, was distant enough from any political centre to remain neutral, allowing the Persian mystics to build a strong following of their own.

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Islamic world: Ṣafavids

By the time of Ismāʿīl I, the order’s sixth head, the Ṣafavīs commanded enough support from the Kizilbash—local Turkmens and other disaffected heterodox tribes—to enable him to capture Tabrīz from the Ak Koyunlu (Turkish: “White Sheep”), an Uzbek Turkmen confederation. In July 1501 Ismāʿīl was enthroned as shah, although his area of control was initially limited to Azerbaijan. In the next 10 years he subjugated the greater part of Iran and annexed the Iraqi provinces of Baghdad and Mosul. Despite the predominantly Sunni character of this territory, he proclaimed Shiʿism the state religion and enforced its creed and prayers in the mosques of his dominion.

In August 1514 Ismāʿīl was seriously defeated at Chāldirān by his Sunni rival, the Ottoman sultan Selim I. Thereafter, the continuing struggle against the Sunnis—the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeast—cost the Safavids Kurdistan, Diyarbakır, and Baghdad, while Tabrīz was continuously under threat. Iran weakened appreciably during the reign of Ismāʿīl’s eldest son, Shah Ṭahmāsp I (1524–76), and persistent and unopposed Turkmen forays into the country increased under his incompetent successors.

In 1588 ʿAbbās I was brought to the throne. Realizing the limits of his military strength, ʿAbbās made peace with the Ottomans on unfavourable terms in 1590 and directed his onslaughts against the Uzbeks. Meeting with little success, ʿAbbās engaged in a major army reform. The strength of the Kizilbash was reduced, while the use of firearms was expanded. Three bodies of troops were formed, all trained and armed in an early modern manner and paid out of the royal treasury: the ghulāms (slaves), the tofangchīs (musketeers), and the topchīs (artillerymen). With his new army, ʿAbbās defeated the Turks in 1603, forcing them to relinquish all the territory they had seized, and captured Baghdad. He also expelled (1602, 1622) the Portuguese traders who had seized the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf early in the 16th century.

Shah ʿAbbās’s remarkable reign, with its striking military successes and efficient administrative system, raised Iran to the status of a great power. Trade with the West and industry expanded, communications improved. He moved the capital to Eṣfahān and made it the centre of Safavid architectural achievement, manifest in the mosques Masjed-e Shāh (renamed Masjed-e Emām after the 1979 Iranian Revolution), Masjed-e Sheikh Loṭfollāh, and other monuments including the ʿAlī Qāpū, the Chehel Sotūn, and the Meydān-i Shāh. Despite the Safavid Shiʿi zeal, Christians were tolerated and several missions and churches were built.

After the death of Shah ʿAbbās I (1629), the Safavid dynasty lasted for about a century, but, except for an interlude during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās II (1642–66), it was a period of decline. Eṣfahān fell to the Ghilzai Afghans of Kandahār in 1722. Seven years later Shah Ṭahmāsp II recovered Eṣfahān and ascended the throne, only to be deposed in 1732 by his Afshārid lieutenant Nadr Qolī Beg (the future Nādir Shāh).