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AbstractThis paper examines the organizing ideological and infrastructural principles of the Safavid state structure and questions whether the Safavid state had the capacity and universality to qualify as an empire. Until now, the Safavid state has only been given equal status to the Ottoman and Mughal state as a "gunpowder empire". But with this approach some other aspects tip the balance towards the cohesion and coherence that enabled the Safavid Empire to function as an empire in spite of exiguous economic resources and the limitations of ideological underpinnings. When some of these aspects lost their force, this contributed to the dissolution of the glue that kept Iranian society together and to the demise of the Safavid state in the early eighteenth century.Le cadre de cette contribution est l'État safavide et elle en explore les principes de la structure étatique au niveau de l'organisation, de l'idéologie, et de l'infrastructure pour établir si cet état a été un véritable empire au niveau de ses capacités et de son caractère universel. Jusqu'à maintenant l'État safavide s'est vu attribuer le statut 'd'empire de poudre à canon', pareil aux États ottoman et moghul. Mais en abordant ce thème du côté structure on aperçoit quelques aspects qui font pencher la balance vers une cohérence interne. C'est qu'en dépit de ses faibles ressources économiques et tenant compte des limites du support idéologique en général, l'Empire safavide savait remplir son rôle d'empire. À mesure que la force cohésive s'affaiblissait, la société iranienne se dissolvait de façon à sonner le glas de l'État safavide au début du dix -huitième siècle.

The Safavid period marks a definite turning point in the history of Persia and the beginning of a new phase in the history of Islam in that country. Yet, despite its distinct character and the break it seems to display with respect to the centuries preceeding it, there is definitely a long religions and intellectual history which prepared the ground for the sudden establishment of a Shiᶜite order in Persia and the transformation of the country into a predominantly Shiᶜite area. There are several centuries of growth of Shiᶜite theology and jurisprudence, the development of Sufi orders with Shiᶜite tendencies and the establishment of Shiᶜite political power--albeit of a transient character--all preceeding the Safavid period.As far as Shiᶜite thought is concerned, the advent of the Mongols and the destruction of the major centers of Sunni political power in Western Asia enabled Shiᶜism to flower in Persia more than ever before, culminating in the establishment of Shiᶜism as state religion for a brief period under Sulṭān Muḥammad Khudābandah.

A la fin du quinzieme sifècle et à l'aube du seizième l'Iran était déchiré par des guerres intestines résultant de l'émiettement du pouvoir des Timurides. Le pays, sur le chemin de sa perte, subissait au nord comme à l'est, les terribles pressions de belliqueuses tribus.En ce chaos, il appartint au futur fondateur de la dynastie des Safavides, Shāh Ismāᶜīl I (règne de 1499 à 1524 A.D.), de s'imposer, grâce à l'appui d'une faction turque, établie par sa famille dans la province caspienne du Gilan.D'un sang illustre, puisque descendant du septième imam, Mūsā al-Kāzim, ce personnage, guerrier énergique et intelligent, héritait également des vertus combattives de ses ascendants de la tribu Ak Koyunlu et de la finesse de sa grand'mère, princesse grecque. En l'absence d'un rival de même valeur, ce prince chiite, alors que les populations partageaient en grande partie la même foi, fut sans difficulté reconnu comme roi.

The most common classification of Persian literature is the classification according to geographical divisions. The literary style sabk carries the name of the geographical area in which it reached its climax. The boundaries of these divisions, however, are very flexible.The three main literary styles which follow each other consecutively are known as: Khurasani, ᶜIraqi, and Hindi. The time spans of each style are equally flexible. Within these broad geographical divisions we then come across certain "literary schools" which reflect regional peculiarities and idiosyncrasies and are identified with smaller entities like provinces or towns. For example, there are: the Azerbayjani school, the Tabriz school, or the Shirvan school. This paper deals with literature in Isfahan in pre-Safavid times.Isfahan has enjoyed a central geographical position and played a very important role in the history of Iran. It is, therefore, natural that in the history of Persian literature we come across The Isfahan School of poetry.

Until the rise of the Safavids, Guilan enjoyed relative independence and was governed by local governments. Guilan's local rulers had political and economic relations with governments outside Guilan, especially the Safavids and the Ottomans. Guilan's local governments, especially the Karkiya dynasty, played an important role in the rising to power of the Safavids, so the Safavids were initially tolerant of them. However, after the transfer of the Safavid capital to Qazvin, their political independence, especially their relations with the Ottomans, was not bearable by the Safavids, so Guilan became one of the areas of conflict between the Ottomans and the Safavids. The main question of the present article concerns the why and the how of the conflicts between Ottoman and Safavid governments over Guilan. By examining historical sources and analyzing them, the findings show that the Ottomans and the Safavids were competing for religious dominance in Guilan and dominating economic resources, especially the silk industry and its international trade route until finally with the conquest of Guilan by Shāh Abbās, most people of Guilan inclined to the Twelve Shi'ites, and the economic and commercial interests of Guilan were entirely placed at the disposal of the Safavids.

The emergence of the Safavid Empire in the early sixteenth century marked a significant change in the geopolitics of the Middle East. This momentous change coincided with the widening of Ottoman expansion eastward and the exploration by European powers, especially by Venice, of the possibilities of forming alliances against the Ottomans with the involvement of the Safavids. Thus, Ottoman threat and commercial interests contributed to the emergence and development of diplomatic, cultural, and trade relations between the Republic of Venice and the Safavid Empire, which lasted until the end of the seventeenth century. Drawing on the documents from the Venetian State Archives and other contemporary sources, this book focuses mainly on some aspects of Safavid diplomacy, including the language of the Safavid polity, the role of European subjects as interpreters for the shahs, material and visual characteristics of Safavid diplomatic letters to Venice, the attitude of the Safavids towards resident diplomacy, the reception of the European envoys in the Safavid court and Europeans' perception of Safavid diplomatic practices, as well as the characteristics of the Safavid embassies to Venice. We have tried to explain the role of Turkish as a language of diplomacy and communication in Safavid-Venetian encounters. We have also attempted to explore briefly how the Venetians distinguished Safavid subjects according to their ethno-linguistic affiliations. Finally, we examine the Ottoman factor in Safavid-Venetian relations in order to establish to what extent, if any, the Ottomans had an impact on the overall character of Safavid-Venetian relations.

I regard the arguments about nationalism or the lack of it, and about whether or not the Safavid state can be called a nation-state, as in many ways sterile. What I am much more interested in is the question whether or not the Safavids created a state at all, in any generally accepted sense of the word. I propose in a moment to look at some of the commonly accepted characteristics of the state, and see whether or not the Safavid system possessed these characteristics. It is because I do not want to place primary emphasis on the concept of the "nation-state" that I have entitled this paper "The Safavid state and polity"--the latter meaning, of course, an organized society of which they were a part, for to Plato and Aristotle the polis was more than just a natural organism such as a herd or a hive.

The splendour of Safavid Isfahan is no doubt proverbial. The landmarks that come to mind--the great Maydān-i Shāh with its stage perpetually set, the elegant Chahār Bāgh avenue, the graceful bridges slung across the Zayandah Rud--would make it appear as though the topography of Isfahan today, except for the old Jāmiᶜ, is a Safavid one. It is hard to believe, however, that the ages have not left a deeper mark, that the patterns of life generated in the pre-Safavid past did not affect profoundly the course of subsequent development.Consider for example the curious orientation of Shāh ᶜAbbās' imperial centerpiece, the Maydān-i Shāh. The two imperial mosques built to the south and east of the Maydān, the Masjid-i Shāh and the Luṭfallah Mosque, awkwardly twist on their axes in order to face the proper direction for prayer, the qiblah.

"The literature of the Safavid period is usually regarded as a literature of decline." So Jan Rypka begins his chapter on this literature. In 1911, in a letter to E.G. Browne, Mīrzā Muḥammad Qazvīnī, the noted Persian scholar, pronounced an even harsher judgment on this period: "Under this dynasty," he wrote, "learning, culture, poetry, and mysticism completely deserted Persia…."The first question we must face is whether this was, in fact, the case. Did Persian poetry and prose under the Safavids sink into literary doldrums, as so many critics have judged, or, rather, was this an age of positive literary merit? And if our response should be negative, how are we to account for the decline of literature in the face of the political strength and economic prosperity of Persia under the Safavids, and for the flourishing of other arts in this period?

The history of Iranian metalwork has yet to be written. Published material is scanty compared with the number of pieces on record in public institutions, not to mention private collections. But no period has been so blatantly neglected as the Safavid period and the half century of Timurid rule during which the foundations of much of Safavid art were laid.The first substantial body of material was if not published stricto sensu, at least illustrated in the Survey of Persian Art. Fourteen bronze, brass, and tinned copper vessels, plus a number of "steel" implements and weapons, a couple of bronze ensigns and astronomical instruments which will not be considered in this paper, were dealt with in a short text of general content. Alas not a few errors, which crept into the text as well as the brief captions, marred the reader's pleasure. There was no attempt to read the Persian and Arabic inscriptions except for dates.

It is axiomatic that, if a language does not have a word for a given concept, that particular concept does not exist for the people who speak that language. We must therefore begin consideration of the evolution of the Ṣafavid state by making the negative statement that, for the Ṣafavids the concept of the state in any Western sense did not exist. As Minorsky has said: "it is a moot question how the idea of the State, if ever distinctly realized, was expressed in Ṣafavid terminology." The term dawlat, meaning "bliss, felicity", was sometimes used in an abstract way to denote the aura of beneficence which surrounded the just ruler and sheltered his subjects. Thus the principal officers of the Ṣafavid state were termed arkān-i dawlat. that is, the pillars which supported this regal canopy. So too, especially from the time of shāh ᶜAbba I onwards, the vazīr was entitled iᶜtimād al-dawla, that is, its trusty support or prop.