The Safavid Empire of Iran

Core Idea

The Safavid Empire (1501–1736) ruled Iran and nearby lands between the Ottoman Empire to the west and the Mughal Empire to the east. Its founder, Shah Ismail I, made Twelver Shi'a Islam the state religion, which over time made Iran a mainly Shi'a country and set it apart from its Sunni neighbors. The Safavids fought long wars with the Ottomans, beginning with their defeat at Chaldiran in 1514. Under Shah Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) they rebuilt their army with firearms and enslaved soldier converts and made Isfahan a showpiece capital.

How It's Best Learned

Place the Safavids on a map between the Ottomans and Mughals and compare the three Islamic land-based empires in a chart: founding, religion, army, and relations with non-Muslim subjects. Use images of Isfahan's great square and mosques to discuss how rulers display legitimacy. Read about Chaldiran to see how gunpowder weapons changed warfare.

Common Misconceptions

• Iran was always a Shi'a country. (Most people in Iran were Sunni in 1500; the Safavid state imposed Twelver Shi'ism and brought in Shi'a scholars, and the population became mainly Shi'a over the following two centuries.)
• The Safavids were Arabs. (The dynasty grew out of a Sufi order based in Ardabil in northwest Iran, and its early followers were mostly Turkic-speaking tribesmen; Persian was the language of administration and high culture.)
• Ottoman-Safavid wars were only about religion. (Sunni-Shi'a difference added hostility, but the two empires also fought over territory such as eastern Anatolia and Iraq, and over trade routes.)

Explainer

When you studied the Islamic caliphates, you saw the split between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims over who should lead the community after Muhammad. For centuries most rulers in Iran were Sunni. The Safavid dynasty changed that, and the change still shapes the Middle East.

The Safavids began as leaders of a Sufi religious order based in Ardabil, in northwest Iran. By the late 1400s the order had many devoted followers among Turkic-speaking tribes, called the Qizilbash ("red heads") after their red caps. In 1501 the young leader Ismail captured the city of Tabriz and declared himself shah. He made Twelver Shi'ism the state religion, required public loyalty to it, and he and his successors brought Shi'a scholars from Arab lands to teach it. Over the next two centuries Iran's population became mainly Shi'a.

This made the Safavids rivals of the Sunni Ottoman Empire to the west. In 1514 the Ottoman sultan Selim I invaded. At Chaldiran his artillery and musketeers defeated Ismail's cavalry. The Ottomans took eastern Anatolia, and wars between the two empires went on for much of the next century, mixing religious hostility with struggles over land and trade.

The greatest Safavid ruler was Shah Abbas I, who ruled from 1588 to 1629. He limited the power of the Qizilbash chiefs by building a new army of ghulams, enslaved young men from Georgia, Armenia and Circassia who converted to Islam and served the shah directly. He added musketeers and artillery. With this army he regained land from the Ottomans and, with English help, took the port of Hormuz from the Portuguese in 1622. He moved the capital to Isfahan and built a huge public square with a palace, a bazaar and great mosques. He encouraged the silk trade and settled Armenian merchants near the city to run it.

After Abbas, the empire slowly weakened. In 1722 Afghan invaders captured Isfahan, and the dynasty lost real power. By 1736 it had ended. The Safavids are usually studied with the Ottomans and Mughals as one of the great Islamic land-based empires that used gunpowder weapons to build and hold large states.