Suchergebnisse

The Qajar uymāq provided Iran with a central dynasty from 1795 until 1924. A great deal of attention has been paid to the dynastic aspect of the Qajar uymāq, with emphasis being placed on the founders of the dynasty (Āghā Muḥammad Khān and Fatḥ cAlī Shāh and their successors. The almost total preoccupation with the family that established the dynasty has underestimated the amazing complexity of the organism out of which it developed and the origins of that organism in the even more complex Safavid uymāq system. In order to understand the specific characteristics of the social system(s) of Qajar Iran, it is necessary to study first the development of the uymāq system in Iran and the origins of the Qajar within that newly developing social context.

AbstractArmenian sources from the 15th century provide distinctive viewpoints on the history of the Safaviyyih Sufi order before the foundation of the Safavid Empire. The history of T'ovma of Metsop' suggests an earlier intermediate step in the militarization of the order, which scholars have typically viewed as an unprecedented development beginning after 1447, and ascribes to the Safavi shaykh the idea of taxing non-Muslims to encourage conversion to Islam. A second Armenian text, a previously unknown colophon, describes Haydar's attack on Shirvan in 1488 and the suffering of the Muslim and Christian sedentary population, as well as an episode of interreligious mockery. It is probably the earliest extant source to identify the Qizilbash by their distinctive red hats. Together, these sources suggest ways in which the Safaviyyih order's development was conditioned by the multireligious environment. They are examples of the value of non-Muslim sources even for late medieval Islamic history.

A brilliant coral ground silk coat with a brocaded silk and silver gilt floral diaper sprig (fig. 1) was acquired in 1982 by the Textile Department of the Royal Ontario Museum (hereafter, "ROM coat"). It has been tentatively dated by the Department to mid-seventeenth - early eighteenth century Iran. There are as well several published garments, generally described as robes and sometimes classified as cadabi (sic.), which are very similar in cut, fabrics and trim to the ROM coat (see Appendix, "Related Robes"; hereafter, "Robes").

The Safavids evolved from a Sufi order (1301) into a messianic movement (1447) before they finally established their imperium with world-conquering aspirations (1501). Isma'il, the first pīr (spiritual guide) of the Safavid order to assume the political role of shah, claimed to be the reincarnation of a host of prophets and kingly heroes from Iran's cultural past. "Prostrate thyself! Pander not to Satan! Adam has put on new clothes, God has come," writes Isma'il in his poetry (Divan), composed as he, together with his adepts, the Qizilbash (Redheads), conquered Iran and Iraq (1501-13).

Socio-economic justice lies in the normative core of Islam. The concepts of fard-al-kifāyah and zakāh reveal its commitment to protect the poor from the arbitrariness of the rich and treat the state as an institution that maximises collective welfare. The political economy of Safavid Iran indicates that the establishment of Islam as Iran's state religion facilitated the empire's administrative modernisation, economic development and class formation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that religion did not only offer legitimacy grounds to the Safavid government. It also provided institutional incentives that transformed clerics into intermediaries between people and the Imperial Court, improved fiscal capacity and increased general trust toward the central government.

During the 16th century, several European states were regularly engaged in forming an anti- Ottoman alliance. The goal was to cooperate in the elimination of the Ottoman power and expansion in Europe. In addition, traditional European members of the anti-Ottoman league (the Papal State, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, the Venetian Republic) were counting on the help of the Eastern empires such as the Tsardom of Muscovy (Russia) and the Safavid Persia. In connection with this policy, Habsburg-Safavid diplomatic relations continued to develop. In the second half of the 1580s and 1590s, the Tsardom of Muscovy began to play an important mediating role in the context of Habsburg-Persian relations. An illustrative case is the presented study, which deals with the missions of Habsburg envoy Nicholas von Warkostch and the Safavid (Persian) envoy Haji Khosrow to the court of the Russian Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich in 1593. This issue is examined against the background of a broader international politics and diplomacy in the second half of the 1580s and the beginning of 1590s. Regarding their missions to the Russian tsar, both envoys took advantage of their mutual presence at the Muscovite court and through the mediation of Boris Godunov managed to arrange a meeting where they negotiated the possibility of the formation of an anti-Ottoman alliance. The analysis of the preserved archival and published documents concerning the above-mentioned missions reveals the goals and attitudes of all negotiating parties (Habsburgs, Persia, and Muscovy) in relation to the creation of an anti-Ottoman alliance.

The tradition of the endowment is one of the activities having existed in all human societies from past to now. In Iran, this tradition was seen as a belief from ancient civilization. It is developed and flourished in Safavid dynasty so that, in Isfahan (Iran), the endowed estate is found everywhere. The endowment is so important that public, rich people and imperial family participated in this tradition and endowed their properties. This study has aimed to answer this question: what reasons and factors developed the endowment and what is the role of endowment in Safavid time? To do so, library and descriptive-analytic methods were used in this study.

Taking a comparative perspective and drawing on the documents from the Venetian State Archives, the paper attempts to examine a ceremonial treatment of the Ottoman and Safavid diplomats in Venice. Both the Ottoman and Safavid envoys usually were graciously received in Venice. However, the degree of the Venetian hospitality was subject to changes and varied in accordance to the importance of the incoming mission and overall nature of its relations with the Ottomans and Safavids. It appears from the receptions of the Ottoman and Safavid diplomats in Venice that during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the ceremonial positions of the sultan's envoys were equal or mostly above that of the Qızılbaş representatives. As it is evident from the Safavid Asad bey's case in 1600, in its treatment of the Safavid envoys, Venetian government pursued a cautious policy and tried not to antagonize the Ottomans. Furthermore, the Ottoman factor had enduring impact both on the nature and on the dynamics of the Safavid-Venetian relations.

Abstract
The exchange of gifts was an important aspect of the relations between the Safavid Empire and the Republic of Venice. Drawing on Venetian archival documents, the article aims to explore the nature and significance of Safavid diplomatic gift-giving to Venice in the first third of the seventeenth century. In particular, it examines the place and importance of precious objects in gift exchanges, looking at specific types of gifts given such as carpets, textiles, and weaponry. The article sheds light on the role religion played in the determination of a Shah's choice of a gift to the Doge. Furthermore, this article examines how the diplomatic gifts from the Safavid rulers were viewed and conceived in Venice. Using a comparative perspective, the article explores the differences between the Safavid gift-giving strategies towards Venice and Ottomans. It reveals that the Safavids and Venetians had a common understanding of what was worthy of giving.

Pre-nineteenth century Iranian history is short on numbers, or at least on reliable ones. Lack of quantitative data is perhaps the greatest obstacle confronting historians of pre-modern Iranian economy and society, and the Safavid period is scarcely better provided than earlier ages. The Safavid archives were destroyed, the Persian histories provide few hard facts, and the accounts of visiting Europeans, though often full of comment on social and economic matters, are generally unreliable when it comes to quantitative information. Safavid Iran thus presents a depressing contrast to its neighbours to East and West, where the earlier and deeper European penetration has left arich record in the archives of several European countries, while in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the survival of extensive state archives can only remind the historian of Iran of how much was lost through the destruction of their Safavid counterparts.

The study of Iranian history in the Safavid period is at a relatively rudimentary stage. Despite the wealth of chronicle, biographical, numismatic, documentary, and journalistic material available, few monographic studies of Safavid institutions have been produced. As Minorsky pointed out four decades ago, "not until all the available sources have been properly scrutinized and more material…discovered, shall we be able to get to the bedrock of social and economic conditions under the Safavids."His admonition holds true for political institutions as well. Certain fundamental features of the political life of Safavid Iran are well known to its students. But aside from the state structure itself, as analyzed by Minorsky in his translation of and commentary on the Tadhkirat al-muluk and in articles by Roger Savory and Ann K. S. Lambton, other aspects of political life—for instance the Safaviyya and the persistence of Sufi loyalties in political, life, the character and evolution of the qizilbash as a political party, the political integration of local aristocrats (e.g., the maliks of Farah and Sistan and the divs of Mazandaran), and the organization and functioning of tribal uymaqs—remain largely unstudied.