Then enter the name part Ismail also invited foreign Shiites living in places where they were persecuted by the Sunni majority to move to Iran, promising them land and protection. While Safi al-Dins origins are lost to history, it is generally believed that he came from a family of Azeri-speaking Kurds, although even this is uncertain. Europeans imported some of the highest volumes of Safavid textiles. While used primarily in mosques and shrines, fragments of these mirror mosaics can still be seen in the outdoor portals of the Chehel Sotoun palace, as well as on the columns of the Ali Qapu palace. Soon after the Safavids rose to power, they established Twelver Shiism (the largest branch of Shia, Safavid art and architecture reflected this adoption of a Shia identity. 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. With his new army behind him, Abbas undertook to gain back the territories lost to the Uzbeks and Ottomans. Nadir Shah defeated the Afghans in the Battle of Damghan, in 1729. Shiisms rise created a new religious hierarchy in Iran. The carpets of Ardebil were commissioned to commemorate the Safavid dynasty. Bureaucracy and landed class who were considered the middle classes. 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: This fusion of artistic styles is best glimpsed in the story of. Has data issue: false In 1402, Iran had come under the power of the notoriously ruthless Timur (Tamerlane), a descendant of Genghis Khan. Many of these are now symbols of Iranian nationhood. Complex, ornate palaces. After becoming the Safaviyeh leader in 1447, Sheikh Junayda descendant of Sheikh Safi Al-Dintransformed it into a revolutionary Shi'a movement with the goal of seizing power in Iran. He captured Tabrz from the Ak Koyunlu and became shah of Azerbaijan (1501) and Persia (1502). Known as, Muqarnas and mirror mosaics, outdoor portal, Chehel Sotoun (photo: Amir Pahaei, CC BY-SA 4.0). This group became known as the Shia. 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. The emergence of the Safavids marked the first time the region was ruled by Persian kings since the. then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution: Use the information below to generate a citation. Shiism was not officially tolerated by the Sunni caliphs of the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires because of its perceived challenge to their rule. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. Outside of Iran, Safavid art was the portal to the wider world of Persian art and architecture when art historians first began studying Islamic art in the early nineteenth century. To establish political provenance, the Safavid rulers claimed to be descended from Imam Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and his wife Fatimah, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, through the seventh Imam Musa al-Kazim. The Habsburg emperor Charles V, concerned by the Ottomans progression toward Vienna, approached first Ismail and then Tahmasp about an alliance. Given the sects government sponsorship, the Shia ulama were often able to act as intermediaries between the people and the government. 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. citation tool such as, Authors: Ann Kordas, Ryan J. Lynch, Brooke Nelson, Julie Tatlock, Book title: World History Volume 2, from 1400. In the following centuries, this religious schism would both cement Iran's internal cohesion and national feelings and provoke attacks by its Sunni neighbors. Isfahan bears the most prominent samples of the Safavid architecture, all constructed in the years after Shah Abbas I permanently moved the capital to that city in 1598: The Imperial Mosque, Masjid-e Shah, completed in 1630, the Imami Mosque,Masjid-e Imami, the Lutfullah Mosque and the Royal Palace. Twelvers hold that the twelfth and final imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, went into mystical hiding in the ninth century and will return, along with Jesus, to defeat evil on earth and herald the Day of Judgment. 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. 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. The Safavids generally ruled over a peaceful and prosperous empire. The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah Abbas I (CC BY-SA 4.0), The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah Abbas I (. 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. 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. The Safavid Empire dates from the rule of Shah Ismail (ruled 1501-1524). Despite near-constant war, during this time Iran reached new cultural and economic heights. To populate his new capital, Abbas ordered several different populations to settle in it, including Armenians, Jewish people, Circassians, and other Caucasian peoples, many of whom had been displaced during his war against the Ottomans in their homelands. He wholeheartedly adopted the use of gunpowder. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Royal and elite women often funded the construction or maintenance of caravansaries, demonstrating the value of trade to both the state and individual wealth. Here, Bihzad helped establish the birth of a new Safavid aesthetica hybrid of the colorful expressionism and naturalistic rendering of the dynasties that preceded the Safavids. The Safavids unified much of Iran under single political control. As Tahmasps royal studio was to painting, Abbass capital at Isfahan was to architecture. 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. In 1514, the Ottoman Sultan Selim I invaded western Armenia, causing the ill-prepared Safavid army to retreat. The Common people were the lowest class on the pyramid in which they mainly consisted of farmers and herders. Junayds son Haydar created a solid political and military framework by establishing a Safavid military order known as the Qizilbash, after their distinctive red hats (qizil means red in Azeri). [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 . Despite falling revenues and military threats, later shahs were said to have had lavish lifestyles. 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. Over the course of the 1730s, Nader Afshar, one of the Safavid vassals, established himself as a strong military ruler. The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo 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. He also made Efahn the capital of Persia and fostered commerce and the arts, so that Persian artistic achievement reached a high point in his reign . He ordered all Irans Sunni Muslims to become Shiites. As Vladimir Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Qezelbash "were no party to the national Persian tradition." The Silk Road, which led through northern Iran to India, revived in the sixteenth century. During the period of Mongol rule over Iran and the Caucasus, the distinction between Shia and Sunni became less important than it had been. The net result of these various Safavid theories of kingship was absolutism. Never was the Divine Right of Kings more fully developed than by the Safavid shahs. In the previous century, Russia Muscovy had deposed two western Asian khanates of the Golden Horde and expanded its influence into the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia. It seems that the Safavid family left its homeland and moved to Azarbaijan (modern northwestern Iran) in the twelfth century. 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 today's northwestern Iran. The main types of buildings constructed during this time were mosques, palaces, markets, shrines and caravansaries (structures used to shelter travelers during long journeys). The dedication of the Persian Building at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exhibition, October 6, 1926. Direct link to hdarwish825's post what succession rules was. The art of the Safavids is simply magnificent. 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. 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. It was perhaps to perpetuate the distinction of Persian from Arabic culture that attracted the Iranians towards Shi'a Islamthe heartland and sacred sites of Sunni Islam would always be in the Arabian peninsula. of your Kindle email address below. The patterns on Tahmasps robe have been embellished with gold. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The Shia movement originated with a dispute over Muhammads successor after his death in 632. 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. afavid dynasty, (15021736) Persian dynasty. Their capitals were Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan. The Safavid shahs were wary of groups that sought to exert too much power over them and the government. In 1736, Nader deposed the infant Abbas III and crowned himself shah, bringing the Safavid Empire to an end and establishing the short-lived Afsharid dynasty. The article analyses the social and political structure of the Safavid Empire. Culture flourished under Safavid patronage. Using traditional forms and materials, Reza Abbasi (15651635) introduced new subjects to Persian paintingsemi-nude women, youths, lovers. Fine silks. 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. They sustained one of the longest running empires of Iranian history, lasting from 1501 to 1736. 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). Some Safavid ceramic artists went so far as to place a fake Chinese workshop stamp on the back of their products to increase their value. Abbas I was particularly lenient toward the Armenian Christian population of Isfahan, due to their participation in the lucrative manufacture and export of silk. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. While strongly influenced by Persian miniatures, Mughal miniatures tended to represent a more realistic depiction of animals and humans. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. In practice, however, there were well defined limits to this absolutism, even when the shah was a strong and capable ruler. Our mission is to improve educational access and learning for everyone. By the end of this section, you will be able to: To the east of the lands of the Ottomans, another Islamic empire emerged at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Safavid concept of kingship, combining territorial control with . Haydar declared a religious war against the Christian residents of the Caucasus, but in order to reach them, he had to pass through the territory of the Shirvanshahs, who were allied with his enemies. The art of the Safavids is simply magnificent. The Sunni scholars, called Ulama (from alim, knowledge), were either killed or exiled. Junayd believed the Safavids should use their popular religious mandate to seek military and political power for themselves, and he found Shia doctrine more appropriate for his vision. The reflective light symbolized the presence and light of God, who was conceived as a mirror of the divine realm. At the height of their reign, the Safavids controlled not . The country was repeatedly raided on its frontiersKerman by Baluchi tribesmen in 1698, Khorasan by Afghans in 1717, constantly in Mesopotamia by peninsula Arabs. Ismail I, despite his heterodox Shi'a beliefs, which were not compatible with orthodox Shi'ism (Momen, 1985) patronized Shi'a religious leaders, granting them land and money in return for loyalty. Updates? During his reign, the official language at the royal court was Azerbaijanian. To save content items to your account, 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. In the meantime, the navy-less Safavids lost the island of Hormuz to the Portuguese in 1507. At the height of their reign, the Safavids controlled not only Iran, but also the countries we now know as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Second, it brought the royal workshops closer to the silk route, making it easier for the Safavids to control the sale of Persian silk. Due to his fear of assassination, Shah Abbas either put to death or blinded any member of his family who aroused his suspicion. 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). For instance, the Qajar dynasty (17891925), the first major dynasty to succeed the Safavids, continued the tradition of Safavid book arts, painting, and architecture. This system brought the brightest and most talented into government service while preventing the development of an entrenched and unchecked aristocracy. Other exports were horses, goat hair, pearls, and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as a specie in India. inch), 153940 C.E., Tabriz, Kashan, Isfahan or Kirman, Iran (now at the Victoria & Albert Museum; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Find out more about saving to your Kindle. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Buwayhids, who were of Zeydi a branch of Shi'ism ruled in Fars, Isfahan, and Baghdad. Miniatures were an important form of Persian art long before Islam appeared; Persian artists were prized at the court of the Abbasids, and artistic styles derived from their work, such as the nonfigurative elements used in the borders of miniatures, were later used to decorate manuscripts of the Quran. Their demise was followed by a period of unrest. In the east, the Mughal dynasty of India had expanded into Afghanistan at the expense of Iranian control, taking Kandahar and Herat. 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 Qezelbash 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. By the time the seventeen-year-old Abbas was crowned shah in 1588, Iran was in chaos. 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. For the purposes of this chapter the period to be covered runs from 907/1501 to 1148/1736, one of the most remarkable ages in Iran's history. The Safavids declared Shia Islam the state religion of Iran in the early 1500s, and it remains so to this day, encompassing about 10 percent of the worldwide Muslim population. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. While silk had always been a highly sought after Persian commodity, dating back to ancient times, the Safavid era produced one of the most lucrative silk industries of the early modern world. Another famous manuscript is the Khamsa by Nezami executed in 1539-43, by Aqa Mirak and his school in Isfahan. Except where otherwise noted, textbooks on this site How are their styles similar? The Safavid Empire was established in an Iran that had been long fragmented. 20th and Pattison, Philadelphia (source), The dedication of the Persian Building at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exhibition, October 6, 1926. Creative Commons Attribution License 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. The fourth vakil was murdered by the Qezelbash, and the fifth was put to death by them. Safavid Iran was one of the Islamic "gunpowder empires", along with its neighbours, the Ottoman and Mughal empires. Christians elsewhere in the Safavid realm, however, were given considerable freedom to build churches and honor their own customs and beliefs. The Safavid dynasty descended from diverse and mixed ethnic origins, and there is some disagreement among scholars as to whether they were of Azeri or Persian background. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The epic called the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a stellar example of manuscript illumination and calligraphy, was made during Shah Tahmasp's reign. 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. His grandfather had acquired over thirty thousand enslaved people employed as civil servants and palace administrators; turning to the Caucasus region again, Abbas decided to also create an enslaved soldier corps like the Ottoman Janissaries. Published online by Cambridge University Press: By agreement, the Safavids would attack the Ottomans whenever the Ottomans attacked the Habsburgs to divide the Ottoman army between two fronts of battle and thereby weaken it. They sought to control these populations by enslaving or deporting their members, and nobles were often requested to convert to Shiism. There had been, however, Shi'a communities in some cities like Qom and Sabzevar as early as eighth century. This led inevitably to an assumption of kingly infallibility. Royal manuscripts provide a glimpse into the fusion of regional styles used in early Safavid art. In these paintings, artists used mineral-based dyes, which produced brilliant and long-lasting colors (Figure 4.26). The Safavids (Persian: ) were a native Iranian dynasty from Azarbaijan that ruled from 1501 to 1736, and which established Shi'a Islam as Iran's official religion and united its provinces under a single Iranian sovereignty in the early modern period. 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.
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