The Safavid State and Polity

In: Iranian studies, Band 7, Heft 1-2, S. 179-212

Abstract

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.