The Safavids and the new Iran (1501-1736)

Part oneFrom a Sufi order to a dynasty

For most of its Islamic history Iran was mainly Sunni. Its scholars wrote many of the great works of Sunni learning, and cities such as Isfahan and Nishapur drew students from across the Muslim world. After the Timurid empire declined in the fifteenth century, Iran was open to whoever could take it.

The Safavids began as a Sufi order based at Ardabil in north-west Iran. Over the fifteenth century the order became a fighting force. Its followers, mostly Turkmen tribesmen from Anatolia and Azerbaijan, were called the Qizilbash, the "red heads", after their red caps. The order also took on a strongly Shia character, and some followers came to see their leader in almost divine terms.

In 1501 the order's young leader, Ismail, still in his teens, took Tabriz and was crowned shah. He declared Twelver Shi'ism the religion of the state. In the main cities the change was enforced by force. Sunni scholars who would not accept it left for India, Central Asia and the Ottoman lands. Public cursing of the first three caliphs, whom Sunnis hold in the highest honour, was imposed, and in later peace talks the Ottomans asked again and again for it to stop. Most of the Sufi orders, which were Sunni, were suppressed as well.

Part twoChaldiran and a long rivalry

Ismail won battle after battle until 1514. That year the Ottoman sultan Selim I, alarmed by Qizilbash risings in Anatolia, marched east and met him at Chaldiran. The Ottoman muskets and cannon beat the Safavid cavalry in a single day, and Selim entered Tabriz. Ismail lost his name for being unbeatable and took little part in government until his death in 1524. The Safavids learned the lesson and took up firearms themselves.

The two empires fought on and off for more than a century, over eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus and Iraq. Baghdad changed hands more than once. The frontier that finally settled between them is close to the border between Turkey and Iraq and Iran today.

Inside Iran the conversion changed character over time. The Safavids invited Shia scholars from Iraq and from Jabal Amil in what is now Lebanon, and teaching and debate took the place of the sword. Shrines such as that of Imam Ali al-Rida at Mashhad, already visited by Sunnis and Shia alike, received rich gifts, and the yearly mourning for Husayn's death at Karbala grew into an important public occasion. By the end of the seventeenth century most of Iran was Shia, while Sunnis remained strong on the edges, among the Kurds in the west and the Afghans and Baluch in the east.

Part threeShah Abbas and Isfahan

The greatest Safavid ruler was Shah Abbas I, who reigned from 1588 to 1629. He took the throne in a time of disorder, with Ottomans in the west and Uzbeks in the east. He built a new standing army of soldiers loyal to him alone, many of them Georgians and Armenians from the Caucasus, to balance the power of the Qizilbash chiefs, and he equipped it with muskets and cannon. With it he won back Tabriz, Baghdad for a time, and the lands lost to the Uzbeks.

In about 1598 he moved his capital to Isfahan and rebuilt it. At its centre he laid out a vast square, the Naqsh-e Jahan, the "image of the world", lined with arcades of shops. On its sides rose the royal mosque, the mosque of Shaykh Lutfallah with its famous tiled dome, the gate to the palace and the entrance to the great bazaar. Merchants came from Europe, India and China, and the silk trade made the city rich. Persians later said "Isfahan is half the world." Isfahan also became home to a school of scholars and philosophers, among them Mulla Sadra and Muhammad Baqir Majlisi.

Part fourThe fall

A century after Abbas, the state was weak. Sultan Husayn, who ruled from 1694, was pious and gentle but left government to quarrelling ministers. In Qandahar a harsh governor drove the Sunni Afghans of the Hotak clan into revolt in 1709. In 1722 their leader, Mahmud Hotak, marched on Isfahan with a small, fast army of horsemen, beat a much larger Safavid force outside the city and besieged it. After six months of hunger, Sultan Husayn came out and handed his crown to Mahmud.

The Ottomans and the Russians seized Iran's western and northern provinces. Then a soldier of humble birth, Nader, took up the cause of the Safavid prince Tahmasp, drove out the Afghans and the Ottomans, and won back nearly everything that had been lost. In 1736, at a great assembly on the plain of Moghan, Nader set the Safavids aside and was crowned shah himself.

Persians said of Shah Abbas's capital that Isfahan was half the world.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Hikma HistoryWhy Is Iran Shia? (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Ardabil
• Tabriz
• Chaldiran
• Qazvin
• Isfahan
• Mashhad
• Baghdad
• Qandahar

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter