Safavid dynasty

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Not to be confused with Saffarid dynasty.

Safavid dynasty
دودمان صفوی,
Safavid flag after 1576
CountrySafavid Iran
Foundedc. 1501
FounderIsmail I (1501–1524)
Final rulerAbbas III (1732–1736)
TitlesShahanshah of Iran
TraditionsTwelver Shi'ism
Dissolutionc. 1736

The Safavid dynasty (

Kurdish origin,[7] but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman,[8] Georgian,[9] Circassian,[10][11] and Pontic Greek[12] dignitaries, nevertheless, for practical purposes, they were Turkic-speaking and Turkified.[13] From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region,[14] thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a national state officially known as Iran.[15]

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

patronage for fine arts.[3] The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by establishing Twelver Shīʿīsm as the state religion of Iran, as well as spreading Shīʿa Islam in major parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia.[3][5]

Genealogy and identity

See also:
List of the mothers of the Safavid Shahs

The Safavid Kings themselves claimed to be sayyids,[16] family descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although many scholars have cast doubt on this claim.[17] There seems now to be a consensus among scholars that the Safavid family hailed from Iranian Kurdistan,[5] 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.[18][19]

According to historians,[20][21] including Vladimir Minorsky[22] and Roger Savory, the Safavids were Turkish speakers of Iranian origin:[23]

From the evidence available at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigenous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry as it is sometimes claimed. It is probable that the family originated in Persian Kurdistan, and later moved to Azerbaijan, where they adopted the Azari form of Turkish spoken there, and eventually settled in the small town of Ardabil sometimes during the eleventh century.

By the time of the establishment of the Safavid empire, the members of the family were Turkicized and Turkish-speaking,[24] 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,[25][26] while members of the family and some Shahs composed Persian poetry as well.[27][28]

The authority of the Safavids was religiously based, and their claim to legitimacy was founded on being direct male descendants of Ali,[29] 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.[30] 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.[10][11]

Safavid Shahs of Iran

Safavid dynasty timeline
See also: List of Safavid monarchs

Mothers of Safavid Shahs

Main article:
List of the mothers of the Safavid Shahs

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.[31] 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.[32] 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.[33] 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.[34]

  • Safavid dynasty art

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-964-00-0818-8
    .
    • p. 17: dudmān-i safavīa
    • p. 18: khāndān-i safavīa
    • p. 19: sīlsīla-i safavīa
    • p. 79: sīlsīla-i alīa-i safavīa
  2. ^ "SAFAVID DYNASTY". Encyclopædia Iranica.
  3. ^
    ISSN 2330-4804. Archived
    from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
  4. ^ Streusand, Douglas E., Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Boulder, Col : Westview Press, 2011) ("Streusand"), p. 135.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-90-04-16121-4
    .
  6. S2CID 236371308
    .
  7. ^
    • 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 (...)"
  8. ^
    • 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
  9. ISBN 1-84511-056-0
    , pp. 130–1
  10. ^ a b Yarshater 2001, p. 493.
  11. ^ a b Khanbaghi 2006, p. 130.
  12. ^ 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"
  13. ^ Safavid dynasty at Encyclopædia 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."
  14. ^ "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.
  15. ^ 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".
  16. 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.
  17. ^ 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."
  18. ^ RM Savory. Ebn Bazzaz. Encyclopædia Iranica
  19. ^ 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"
  20. ISBN 1-4051-0900-9
  21. ISBN 0-415-30804-6
    .
  22. ^ Minorsky, V (2009). "Adgharbaydjan (Azarbaydjan)". In Berman, P; Bianquis, Th; Bosworth, CE; van Donzel, E; Henrichs, WP (eds.). Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd ed.). NL: Brill. Archived from the original on 2012-07-28. After 907/1502, Adharbayjan became the chief bulwark and rallying ground of the Safawids, themselves natives of Ardabil and originally speaking the local Iranian dialect
  23. ^ 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.
  24. ^ Safavid dynasty at Encyclopædia 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."
  25. ^ 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."
  26. ^ 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."
  27. ^ 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)."
  28. ^ 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)
  29. ^ 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."
  30. ^ 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.
  31. ^ 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.
  32. ^ "Ismail Safavi" Encyclopædia Iranica
  33. ^ E. Yarshater, Language of Azerbaijan Archived 2009-01-20 at the Wayback Machine, vii., Persian language of Azerbaijan", Encyclopædia Iranica, v, pp. 238–45, Online edition.
  34. ^ Emeri "van" Donzel, Islamic Desk Reference, Brill Academic Publishers, 1994, p. 393.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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