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a dynasty that flourished from 1502 to 1736 in the Middle East; rulers of the Safavid state. The dynasty was founded by Ismail, a son of a sheikh of the Safavid order, a dervish order, who became Shah Ismail I of Persia (Iran) after defeating the Ak-Koyunlu tribes and their allies. The Safavid state comprised Iran, Azerbaijan, part of Armenia, most of what is now Afghanistan, and, at times, Iraq and other territories. Until the late 16th century, the Safavid shahs were supported by the nobility and home guard of the Kizilbash tribes, which were of Turkic Azerbaijani origin. Initially the Safavid state was centered in Azerbaijan. Its capital was at Tebriz until 1555, when it was moved to Qazvin; beginning in 1597–98, Isfahan served as the state’s capital. The most common unit of land distribution was the toyul. The state religion was the Imamite sect of Shiism, a branch of Islam.

Rising taxes in the Safavid state led to popular uprisings, including rebellions in Gilan (1570–71) and Tebriz (1571–73). The Safavids waged long wars against the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbek khans. As a result of feudal internecine conflicts, beginning after Tahmasp I (reigned 1524–76), the state broke up into a number of independent domains. Taking advantage of these conditions, the Ottoman Empire captured the state’s northwestern areas and the Uzbek khans captured Khorasan. Threatened with total dismemberment of the state, most of the Kizilbash nobility joined in support of Shah Abbas I (reigned 1587–1629), who was also supported by Kurdish and Lur feudal lords and by the secular elite and religious leaders of Iran and Transcaucasia.

The economic reason for the revival of the Safavid state was the growth of the shah’s domain, which by the 1670’s included entire regions, such as Gilan and Mazanderan. Revenues from the domain were used to maintain the standing army created under Abbas, as well as the court and state officials. Winning a series of victories over the Turks and Uzbeks, Abbas recovered Azerbaijan, Khorasan, and, temporarily, Iraq, all of which had been lost by his predecessors. As a result of reforms of the tax system, state administration, and the military, the Safavid state grew stronger and enjoyed a relative economic upsurge. The Safavids maintained active diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia and other European and Asian countries.

However, by the 18th century, the Safavid state fell into an economic and political decline. Among the factors that contributed to the decline were increased feudal exploitation, particularly exploitation by state officials of the shah’s domain, increased taxation, particularly in the late 17th century, and the practice of apportioning toyuls from the shah’s domain, beginning in the mid-17th century. The unceasing popular uprisings prevalent in the 17th century, for example, in Gilan (1629) and Qazvin (1632), intensified in the 18th century. Considerable lands were lost: Isfahan was captured in 1722 by Afghan tribes that had revolted in 1709, Transcaucasia and western Iran were occupied by Turkey, and the state’s Caspian regions were ceded to Russia by Shah Tahmasp II (reigned 1722–32). Finally, in a successful struggle against the Afghans and Turks, the Safavid military commander Nadir overthrew the Safavid dynasty in 1736.


Petrushevskii, I. P. Ocherkipo istorii feodal’nykh otnoshenii v Azerbaidzhane i Armenii v XVI-nach. XIX vv. Leningrad, 1949.
Efendiev, O. A. Obrazovanie azerbaidzhanskogo gosudarslva sefevidov v nach. XVI v. Baku. 1961.
Novosel’tsev, A. P. “Iz istorii klassovoi bor’by v Azerbaidzhane i Vostochnoi Armenii v XVII-XVIII vv.” In the collection Istoricheskie zapiski, vol. 67. Moscow, 1960.
Kutsiia, K. K. “Iz istorii sotsial’nykh dvizhenii v gorodakh Sefevidskogo gosudarstva.” In Narody Azii i Afriki, 1966, no. 2.
Papazian, A. D. Agrarnye otnosheniia v Vostochnoi Armenii v XVI-XVII vv. Yerevan, 1972.
Röhrborn, K. M. Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16 und 17 Jahrhundert. Berlin, 1966.


References in periodicals archive ?
Combining sacrality and authority in monarchs was a cumulative development that drew upon both ancient Near Eastern and Central Asian ideas--to which the Mughals and Safavids eventually became heirs--as analyzed by Samuel K.
Under the Safavids, the Shah and the mullahs alike, Tehran has vied for regional domination.
The Ottomans and Safavids would no doubt recognize the motivation of their successors and would welcome their efforts.
It took a while before the rise of the Safavids, many jurists and scholars even have to leave the country and emigrate (as Flower, 2005: 223).
In classical states, communities did not have any problem attaching or subscribing themselves to a dynasty -- Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Safavid or Ottoman.
The gallery has been divided into four sections representing the four great dynasties namely the Ghaznavids, Timurids, Mughals and Safavids.
lu read well before formulating his theory of Neo-Ottomanism, tells that Sultan Suleiman I (Suleiman the Magnificent) defeated the Safavids and advanced into the Levant, where he also defeated the Mamluks at the battle of Marj Dabek, then headed to Egypt and conquered all the lands of the Arabs.
Khamenei wants to revive the Safavid empire, irrespective whether or not the Safavids' Shi'ite theocracy was a failure" (see the background in rim6IranSafawidsHistoryJun28-04 and more recent developments in news23IrnWuF-FateJun6-11 & news19IrnSplitNov7-11).
The Shiite Safavids were thus kept out of Arab territory - and the coveted Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala - while the Sunni Ottomans gained complete sway over the Arab heartlands of what are now Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Jihadi (holy warrior) website Honein, a Neo-Salafi forum for al-Qaeda, equates Assad's regime to the Safavids, a Shi'ite Turkoman/Persian which had a theocracy ruling much of the GME from the 16th to the 18th centuries AD (see rim6IranSafawidsHistoryJun28-04).
The sixth article, "Pride and Prejudice: The Invention of a 'Historiography of Science' in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires by European Travellers and Writers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," continues in its thematic concerns with the previous article, but the focus here shifts to the question of the relative subordination of the Ottomans and the Safavids in the European historiography of Islamic science as opposed to the Arabs.
In seven chapters as many scholars describe as many empires: the Mongols (1206-1405), China under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the Khmer (802-1566), the Ottomans (1281-1922), the Safavids (1501-1722), India under the Mughals (1526-1858), and Japan after the Meiji restoration (1868-1945).