Safavid dynasty

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The Safavid dynasty (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx,<ref>*Template:Cite book

p. 17: dudmān-i safavīa
p. 18: khāndān-i safavīa
p. 19: sīlsīla-i safavīa
p. 79: sīlsīla-i alīa-i safavīa</ref> Template:IPA) was the ruling dynasty of Safavid Iran, and one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Their rule is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history,<ref name="Iranica">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> as well as one of the gunpowder empires.<ref>Streusand, Douglas E., Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Boulder, Col : Westview Press, 2011) ("Streusand"), p. 135.</ref> The Safavid Shah Ismail I established the Twelver denomination of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of the Persian Empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam.<ref name="savoryeiref">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safavid Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Iranian Azerbaijan region.<ref name="Matthee 2021">Template:Cite book</ref> It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin,<ref>
Matthee, Rudi. (2005). The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900. Princeton University Press. p. 18; "The Safavids, as Iranians of Kurdish ancestry and of nontribal background (...)".
Savory, Roger. (2008). "EBN BAZZĀZ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 1. p. 8. "This official version contains textual changes designed to obscure the Kurdish origins of the Safavid family and to vindicate their claim to descent from the Imams."
Amoretti, Biancamaria Scarcia; Matthee, Rudi. (2009). "Ṣafavid Dynasty". In Esposito, John L. (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford University Press. "Of Kurdish ancestry, the Ṣafavids started as a Sunnī mystical order (...)"</ref> but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman,<ref>
Roemer, H. R. (1986). "The Safavid Period" in Jackson, Peter; Lockhart, Laurence. The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge University Press. pp. 214, 229
Blow, David (2009). Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who Became an Iranian Legend. I.B.Tauris. p. 3
Savory, Roger M.; Karamustafa, Ahmet T. (1998) "ESMĀʿĪL I ṢAFAWĪ". Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol. VIII, Fasc. 6, pp. 628–636
Ghereghlou, Kioumars (2016). "ḤAYDAR ṢAFAVI". Encyclopaedia Iranica</ref> Georgian,<ref>Aptin Khanbaghi (2006) The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval and Early. London & New York. IB Tauris. Template:ISBN, pp. 130–1</ref> Circassian,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and Pontic Greek<ref name="Anthony Bryer 1975">Anthony Bryer. "Greeks and Türkmens: The Pontic Exception", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 29 (1975), Appendix II "Genealogy of the Muslim Marriages of the Princesses of Trebizond"</ref> dignitaries; nevertheless, for practical purposes, they were not only Persian-speaking, but also Turkish-speaking and Turkified.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Harvnb "Ismāʿīl – who evidently knew both Persian and what has been described as a Southern Turkic dialect"</ref> From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region,<ref>"Why is there such confusion about the origins of this important dynasty, which reasserted Iranian identity and established an independent Iranian state after eight and a half centuries of rule by foreign dynasties?" RM Savory, Iran Under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980), p. 3.</ref> thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a national state officially known as Iran.<ref>Alireza Shapur Shahbazi (2005), "The History of the Idea of Iran", in Vesta Curtis ed., Birth of the Persian Empire, IB Tauris, London, p. 108: "Similarly the collapse of Sassanian Eranshahr in AD 650 did not end Iranians' national idea. The name "Iran" disappeared from official records of the Saffarids, Samanids, Buyids, Saljuqs and their successor. But one unofficially used the name Iran, Eranshahr, and similar national designations, particularly Mamalek-e Iran or "Iranian lands", which exactly translated the old Avestan term Ariyanam Daihunam. On the other hand, when the Safavids (not Reza Shah, as is popularly assumed) revived a national state officially known as Iran, bureaucratic usage in the Ottoman empire and even Iran itself could still refer to it by other descriptive and traditional appellations".</ref>

The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736 and 1750 to 1773) and, at their height, controlled all of what is now Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus including Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts.<ref name="Iranica"/> The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by establishing Twelver Shi'ism as the state religion of Iran, as well as spreading Shi'a Islam in major parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia.<ref name="Iranica"/><ref name="savoryeiref"/>

Genealogy

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Template:AnchorThe Safavid Kings themselves claimed to be sayyids,<ref>In the pre-Safavid written work Safvat as-Safa (oldest manuscripts from 1485 and 1491), the origin of the Safavids is tracted to Piruz Shah Zarin Kolah who is called a Kurd from Sanjan, while in the post-Safavid manuscripts, this portion has been excised and Piruz Shah Zarin Kollah is made a descendant of the Imams. R Savory, "Ebn Bazzaz" in Encyclopædia Iranica). In the Silsilat an-nasab-i Safawiya (composed during the reign of Shah Suleiman, 1667–94), by Hussayn ibn Abdal Zahedi, the ancestry of the Safavid was purported to be tracing back to Hijaz and the first Shiʻi Imam as follows: Shaykh Safi al-din Abul Fatah Eshaq ibn (son of) Shaykh Amin al-Din Jabrail ibn Qutb al-din ibn Salih ibn Muhammad al-Hafez ibn Awad ibn Firuz Shah Zarin Kulah ibn Majd ibn Sharafshah ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Seyyed Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Seyyed Ja'afar ibn Seyyed Muhammad ibn Seyyed Isma'il ibn Seyyed Muhammad ibn Seyyed Ahmad 'Arabi ibn Seyyed Qasim ibn Seyyed Abul Qasim Hamzah ibn Musa al-Kazim ibn Ja'far As-Sadiq ibn Muhammad al-Baqir ibn Imam Zayn ul-'Abedin ibn Hussein ibn Ali ibn Abi Taleb Alayha as-Salam. There are differences between this and the oldest manuscript of Safwat as-Safa. Seyyeds have been added from Piruz Shah Zarin Kulah up to the first Shiʻi Imam and the nisba "Al-Kurdi" has been excised. The title/name "Abu Bakr" (also the name of the first Caliph and highly regarded by Sunnis) is deleted from Qutb ad-Din's name. ُSource: Husayn ibn Abdāl Zāhedī, 17th cent. Silsilat al-nasab-i Safavīyah, nasabnāmah-'i pādishāhān bā ʻuzmat-i Safavī, ta'līf-i Shaykh Husayn pisar-i Shaykh Abdāl Pīrzādah Zāhedī dar 'ahd-i Shāh-i Sulaymnān-i Safavī. Berlīn, Chāpkhānah-'i Īrānshahr, 1343 (1924), 116 pp. Original Persian: شیخ صفی الدین ابو الفتح اسحق ابن شیخ امین الدین جبرائیل بن قطب الدین ابن صالح ابن محمد الحافظ ابن عوض ابن فیروزشاه زرین کلاه ابن محمد ابن شرفشاه ابن محمد ابن حسن ابن سید محمد ابن ابراهیم ابن سید جعفر بن سید محمد ابن سید اسمعیل بن سید محمد بن سید احمد اعرابی بن سید قاسم بن سید ابو القاسم حمزه بن موسی الکاظم ابن جعفر الصادق ابن محمد الباقر ابن امام زین العابدین بن حسین ابن علی ابن ابی طالب علیه السلام.</ref> family descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although many scholars have cast doubt on this claim.<ref>R.M. Savory, "Safavid Persia" in: Ann Katherine Swynford Lambton, Peter Malcolm Holt, Bernard Lewis, The Cambridge History of Islam, Cambridge University Press, 1977. p. 394: "They (Safavids after the establishment of the Safavid state) fabricated evidence to prove that the Safavids were Sayyids."</ref> There seems now to be a consensus among scholars that the Safavid family hailed from Iranian Kurdistan,<ref name="savoryeiref"/> and later moved to Iranian Azerbaijan, finally settling in the 11th century CE at Ardabil. Traditional pre-1501 Safavid manuscripts trace the lineage of the Safavids to the Kurdish dignitary, Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah.<ref name="R.M.">RM Savory. Ebn Bazzaz. Encyclopædia Iranica</ref><ref>F. Daftary, "Intellectual Traditions in Islam", I.B. Tauris, 2001. p. 147: "But the origins of the family of Shaykh Safi al-Din go back not to Hijaz but to Kurdistan, from where, seven generations before him, Firuz Shah Zarin-kulah had migrated to Adharbayjan"</ref>

According to historians,<ref>Tamara Sonn. A Brief History of Islam, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 83, Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="csatoetal">É. Á. Csató, B. Isaksson, C Jahani. Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case Studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic, Routledge, 2004, p. 228, Template:ISBN.</ref> including Vladimir Minorsky<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Roger Savory, the Safavids were Turkish speakers of Iranian origin:<ref>Roger M. Savory. "Safavids" in Peter Burke, Irfan Habib, Halil İnalcık: History of Humanity-Scientific and Cultural Development: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Taylor & Francis. 1999, p. 259.</ref>

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By the time of the establishment of the Safavid empire, the members of the family were Turkicized and Turkish-speaking,<ref>Template:Iranica, "The origins of the Safavids are clouded in obscurity. They may have been of Kurdish origin (see R. Savory, Iran Under the Safavids, 1980, p. 2; R. Matthee, "Safavid Dynasty" at iranica.com), but for all practical purposes they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified."</ref> and some of the Shahs composed poems in their then-native Turkish language. Concurrently, the Shahs themselves also supported Persian literature, poetry and art projects including the grand Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp,<ref>John L. Esposito, The Oxford History of Islam, Oxford University Press US, 1999. pp 364: "To support their legitimacy, the Safavid dynasty of Iran (1501–1732) devoted a cultural policy to establish their regime as the reconstruction of the historic Iranian monarchy. To the end, they commissioned elaborate copies of the Shahnameh, the Iranian national epic, such as this one made for Tahmasp in the 1520s."</ref><ref>Ira Marvin Lapidus, A history of Islamic Societies, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 2nd ed., p. 445: To bolster the prestige of the state, the Safavid dynasty sponsored an Iran-Islamic style of culture concentrating on court poetry, painting, and monumental architecture that symbolized not only the Islamic credentials of the state but also the glory of the ancient Persian traditions."</ref> while members of the family and some Shahs composed Persian poetry as well.<ref>Colin P. Mitchell, "Ṭahmāsp I" in Encyclopædia Iranica. "Shah Ṭahmāsp's own brother, Sām Mirzā, wrote the Taḏkera-yetoḥfa-ye sāmi, in which he mentioned 700 poets during the reigns of the first two Safavid rulers. Sām Mirzā himself was an ardent poet, writing 8,000 verses and a Šāh-nāma dedicated to his brother, Ṭahmāsp (see Sām Mirzā, ed. Homāyun-Farroḵ, 1969)."</ref><ref>See: Willem Floor, Hasan Javadi (2009), The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan by Abbas Qoli Aqa Bakikhanov, Mage Publishers, 2009. (see Sections on Safavids quoting poems of Shah Tahmasp I)</ref>

The authority of the Safavids was religiously based, and their claim to legitimacy was founded on being direct male descendants of Ali,<ref>Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London : Harvard University Press, 2002. p. 143: "It is true that during their revolutionary phase (1447–1501), Safavi guides had played on their descent from the family of the Prophet. The hagiography of the founder of the Safavi order, Shaykh Safi al-Din Safvat al-Safa written by Ibn Bazzaz in 1350-was tampered with during this very phase. An initial stage of revisions saw the transformation of Safavi identity as Sunni Kurds into Arab blood descendants of Muhammad."</ref> the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, and regarded by the Shiʻa as the first Imam.

Furthermore, the dynasty was from the very start thoroughly intermarried with both Pontic Greek as well as Georgian lines.<ref>From Maternal side: Chatrina daughter of Theodora daughter of John IV of Trebizond son of Alexios IV of Trebizond son of Manuel III of Trebizond son of Alexios III of Trebizond son of Irene Palaiologina of Trebizond. From Paternal side: Shaykh Haydar son of Khadijeh Khatoon daughter of Ali Beyg son of Qara Yuluk Osman son of Maria daughter of Irene Palaiologina of Trebizond.</ref> In addition, from the official establishment of the dynasty in 1501, the dynasty would continue to have many intermarriages with both Circassian as well as again Georgian dignitaries, especially with the accession of Tahmasp I.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Self-identification and worldview

The identity created by the Safavid monarchs and the Persian-speaking urban elites who backed them was based on religion. The Safavids portrayed themselves as the rightful successors of the Twelve Imams in Shia Islam and reinforced this claim by inventing a genealogical link to the third Shia Imam, Husayn ibn Ali, through his supposed marriage to Shahrbanu, the daughter of last Sasanian ruler Yazdegerd III. The Safavids also drew inspiration from earlier times, both historical and mythological. The historical component was the Turco-Mongol tradition, which the Safavids considered themselves the inheritor of. The 14th century warlord Timur influenced their self-image. In his autobiography, Shah Tahmasp I mentioned that he often read the Tarikh-e Teymur. This romanticized past was given renewed attention once the Safavids abandoned their role as warriors.Template:Sfn

The mythological component was references to pre-Islamic kings and heroes. Zahhak, Fereydun and Jamshid were amongst the figures that Shah Ismail I compared himself to in his poetry. His two sons Sam and Rostam, had traditional Persian names. When Shah Soltan Hoseyn was crowned shah in 1694, Jamshid and Kay Kawad were amongst the pre-Islamic figures mentioned in the khotba speech by the sheykh al-islam of Isfahan, Mohammad Baqer Majlesi. The Tohfat al-alam, a paean to Shah Soltan Hoseyn composed about ten years after his coronation, contains similar themes. Although many dynasties in Iran remembered only fractions of the past, they still aimed to claim a connection to it, a tradition the Safavids continued. The Dutch Iranologist Rudi Matthee adds "Yet that does not mean that the Safavids were engaged in a systematic and comprehensive mining of the past with the intention of "retrieving" an authentic identity".Template:Sfn

The identity of the Safavids was broad in certain aspects, consistent with premodern custom. The Safavid dynasty was likely of Kurdish origin, while Shah Ismail I had Pontic Greek descent and spoke a variant of Azerbaijani Turkic.Template:Sfn Both Rudi Matthee and English–American Iranologist Dick Davis agree that "pure identity was not part of Iran's early, multi-ethnic and imperial consciousness and emerged only in Sasanian times". The Safavids still set themselves apart from others, mainly judging by perceived levels of civilization. Those considered barbarians were not only outsiders but also certain neighboring Muslims, including Arabs, Turks, and Kurds. Texts in Persian portrayed them all as primitive, unpredictable and unreliable. The Safavids considered the truly uncivilized groups to include the Turkmens, Lezgins, Kipchaks, and Uzbeks. This grouping also included the Russians, whom the Iranians reportedly called the "Uzbeks of Europe". The Safavid outlook on civilization also included Western Europeans, albeit they were rarely mentioned in Persian texts. These texts make little mention of Europe (Farangestan) as a competitor, threat, or point of comparison, even long after the Safavid dynasty.Template:Sfn

Legitimacy in the Safavid chronicles revolved around support for the shah and his associates, not adherence to the Muslim divine order or ties to the land. In this system, loyalty became the key and nearly exclusive condition for inclusion.Template:Sfn The clerical elite in Iran justified this perspective in religious terms, seeing the dynasty and its shah as essential to upholding and safeguarding the divine order.Template:Sfn

Safavid Shahs of Iran

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Ismail I 1501–1524
Tahmasp I 1524–1576
Ismail II 1576–1578
Mohammad Khodabanda 1578–1587
Abbas I 1587–1629
Safi 1629–1642
Abbas II 1642–1666
Suleiman I 1666–1694
Soltan Hoseyn 1694–1722
Tahmasp II 1722–1732
Abbas III 1732–1736

Mothers of Safavid Shahs

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Culture

The Safavid family was a literate family from its early origin. There are extant Tati and Persian poetry from Shaykh Safi ad-din Ardabili as well as extant Persian poetry from Shaykh Sadr ad-din. Most of the extant poetry of Shah Ismail I is in Azerbaijani pen-name of Khatai.<ref name="Mino">V. Minorsky, "The Poetry of Shāh Ismā‘īl I", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 10/4 (1942): 1006–53.</ref> Sam Mirza, the son of Shah Ismail as well as some later authors assert that Ismail composed poems both in Turkish and Persian but only a few specimens of his Persian verse have survived.<ref name="ismailsafaviiranica">"Ismail Safavi" Encyclopædia Iranica</ref> A collection of his poems in Azeri were published as a Divan. Shah Tahmasp who has composed poetry in Persian was also a painter, while Shah Abbas II was known as a poet, writing Azerbaijani verses.<ref>E. Yarshater, Template:Usurped, vii., Persian language of Azerbaijan", Encyclopædia Iranica, v, pp. 238–45, Online edition.</ref> Sam Mirza, the son of Ismail I was himself a poet and composed his poetry in Persian. He also compiled an anthology of contemporary poetry.<ref>Emeri "van" Donzel, Islamic Desk Reference, Brill Academic Publishers, 1994, p. 393.</ref>