The Safavid Empire

Tomic 3.2 the safavid empire in this video we'll move eastwards from the ottomans to turn to the next major regional empire in southwest asia the Safavids now the safavid empire which lasted from 1501 until 1720 to was mostly comprised of the territory as you can see of modern-day Iran and was one of the most significant ruling dynasties in that region in fact the legacy of their rule still determines the nature of Iran's religious beliefs and interactions with its neighbors in the region to this day the Safavid Empire takes its name from the staff of the dynasty the ruling family who though they were Muslim also claimed their legitimacy from pre-islamic Persian empires in very simple terms the most significant and long-lasting contribution of the Safavids to the region was the adoption of the Shia school of Islam which is a minority sect within Islam and is distinct from the more pervasive Sunni Islam so without becoming too heavily involved in this extremely complicated issue the Sunni Shia split originally and at its most basic involves a controversy over who was the true successor of Muhammad who of course is the founder of Islam Shiites claimed that Muhammad's son-in-law Ali was the true heir of his father-in-law's Empire while Sunni Muslims who were the majority held that it was in fact Muhammad's father-in-law who was the limit legitimate heir over time there have of course been additional contrast between the two sects but the most important thing to remember is that one they do not always get along and two the Sunni Muslims are in the vast vast majority fact Iran is the only country in the Middle East that has a Shiite identity and as Shiite majority now the impact of this in some ways continues into modern-day Iran it created a deep chasm between Iran and its neighbors who were Sunni Muslim and this made Iran a truly separate country though culturally Iran had been developing separately from its Muslim neighbors for a long time now without again getting too in-depth into this Persia where Iran is located has perhaps some of the oldest history of any region in the world dating all the way back to prehistory long before the staff of has entered the picture the region was home to some of the most important empires of antiquity now although a series of different Islamic powers governed the region the staff of an empire as I've been saying was perhaps the most significant of these and they came to power in the late 1400s and shaped many of the features of the modern state of a rim prior to the rise of the Safavids Persia had been under control of the Timm Reds who were not really going to concern ourselves with too much but with their decline there was a return to localized control so you should be seeing the parallels here between what's happening in Persia and what happened in Anatolia that allowed for the rise of the Ottoman Empire so that returned to localized control and fragmentation provided the space for a number of religious communities to grow and gain power in the region subbing in for the lack of political authority it was out of one of these religious communities that the Safavid Empire was founded in particular the new dynasty grew out of an order of Sufi mystics now again to introduce another unfamiliar term Sufis focus on the mystical kind of spiritual dimensions of Islam and Sufi orders often gained followers based on the charisma of their leaders so whoever the leader of a Sufi order was they had to be someone who was personally very magnetic in particular the Safavid order gained great power in the city of art appeal to the charismatic leadership of the Safavid founder Safi al deen in the late 13th and 14th century over time the Safavid order would grow beyond our Deauville to establish a religious movement which spread throughout Persia Syria and a minor now eventually the south of it dynasty was not content with spiritual power but wanted to establish a military and political Empire as well now their motives for this transition are as mysterious as the modems of Osman the founder of the Ottoman dynasty but can likely be attributed to some combination of the same factors that influenced him whatever the reason successors of Safie Aldean began the process of amassing political authority at the expense of the current Persian local powers they made important alliances and worked hard to gain support of the local population a smile the first would become the first Shah of Iran and the founder of the south of the dynasty Ismael is as shadowy a figure as Aslan his origins and heritage are much disputed and much like in the Ottoman case that's partially due to a lack of records but is just as much due to the deliberate mythologizing of is my house heritage and foundations by the Safavids themselves now according to south of the tradition Ismael was descended from both the founder of the Safavid religious order on his father's side and local royalty on his mother's born in 1487 he was forced into hiding after his father was killed during his struggle to attain a political ascendancy in the region in 1501 at the age of only fourteen Ismael emerged from hiding at the head of an army determined to avenge the death of his father afterwards Ismael went on a campaign of conquest by the end of the year he had enthroned himself as the new Shah of Ashur by John than in the northwest corner of modern I ran he minted his own coins and declared Shia Islam as the official religion of the new Empire now whatever his ethnic background or heritage or motives we know that ismael was an incredibly charismatic and bold young man he accomplishes all of this as a teenager and he attracted devout followers who are willing to do literally anything for him in fact he was considered to be a living Saint by many of his followers and the whole period of early Safavid conquest under Ishmael has this very decisively religious air about it far more so than the conquests of Osman that we were just talking about after the early period of conquest under Ismael which basically took a year the Safavid continued to expand outside the Azerbaijan region and ultimately won the struggle for power over all of Persia which had been going on in the century since the collapse of a unified power a year after his initial round of victories Ishmael claimed most of Persia as part of his territory ten years later at the age of only 26 he had laid claim to all of Persia the most dangerous Challenger to Safavid control over the region were the Ottomans who were not only well established in the Middle East by this point but we're also Sunni Muslim and therefore opposed to the Safavids on both political and religious grounds by the fifteen tens Ismael's expansionist policies had pushed the borders of the Safavid Empire in Asia Minor ever more westward the Ottomans would react to a large-scale incursion into Anatolia by the Safavids by not only pushing this out of the army back but then marching their own army into South of the territory with their superior military force and especially their use of artillery the Ottomans would be able to overwhelm the Safavid force in 1514 this defeat the first that ismael had suffered would lead to temporary - moralization and disorganisation in the south of it ranks ismael and his followers had believed their progress had been protected by God and this defeat at the hands of the Ottomans really took the wind out of their sails this battle though would mark the beginning rather than the end of Ottoman Safavid rivalry and violence which would last the duration of the south of his existence some 300 years so with the main geography of the safavid empire now in place let's turn to the political and religious characteristics of the Empire so according to Shia Muslim religious beliefs Safavids regarded that all political rulers were near stand-ins for a mysterious religious figure known as the Hidden Imam who really briefly is the 12th descendant of Ali and someone who had disappeared as a child way back in the 9th century so the upshot of this is that some Shiite scholars argued that the faithful should just sort of withdraw quietly and wait for the return of the Hidden Imam but others encouraged Safavid rulers to take a more active role in politics in order to attempt to divine what the hidden Imams will might be and then carry that out whatever interpretation you put on this this unusual conception of political power created a society in which religious officials were not only independent of the government but had quite a bit of power on their own atop the political structure was the Shah who claimed total power over the state by virtue of his bloodline which via ismael could now be claimed to trace back to the prophet muhammad himself much like the Ottoman Sultans the Shah maintained power through an extensive bureaucracy which was closely supervised by royal agents who reported directly to the Shah himself competition for government positions was fierce and this created a tense atmosphere which prevented powerful government ministers from trusting one another enough to you know get together and plot against the Shah or something economically the Safavids never achieved the wealth of their larger neighbors their trade was primarily structured around the production of silk and deep pile carpets so if you ever heard of a Persian rug this is where that comes from but their manufacturing sector was never very large or terribly productive and most of the Safavid population remained impoverished subsistence farmers and herders after suffering through some internal and external chaos which threatened its borders the Safavid Empire reached its height in the reign of Shah Abbas at the end of the sixteenth century using an army formed in part of gulam's which you don't really need to know that term but it's just interesting to note that these were also Christian slaves from Armenia and Georgia who had been converted to Islam Shah Abbas not only reestablished the borders of the Safavid Empire but also defeated the Ottomans to take control of the city of Baghdad in 1623 these conquests allowed Shah Abbas and the Safavids access to sacred Shia shrines and gave the Empire control of trade coming through the Persian Gulf much like the great Ottoman Sultans Abbas solidified his control by reestablishing the capital of the Empire in 1598 Shah Abbas made Isfahan the new capital of south of the territory he invested in a large-scale building project that soon made is behind one of the most beautiful cities in the world a fitting home for the Shah skort artists workshops and luxury carpet production Abbas spared no expense employing calligraphers painters book binders and illuminators to produce manuscripts and design inscriptions and paintings for the buildings that he built during this period Isfahan became a cultural crossroads as well open to both neighbors like India as well as travelers from thus far abroad as the Netherlands and Britain shah abbas saw the rulers of christian Europe as potential military allies against his enemies the Ottomans as well as commercial partners luxury Iranian silk was exchanged for gold and silver which was in short supply in Iran but plentiful in Europe thanks to new supplies from South America eventually though the pressure of keeping up with the latest military technology that was being employed by their enemies including the Ottomans proved to be too much for the soffits they were under this constant pressure to increase defense spending in order to improve their military equipment to hold off the Ottomans and other threats moreover the Empire's economy suffered from widespread inflation which was caused by the sudden overabundance of silver from South America which spread into Iran and so over time as we move into the 18th century we see the Safavid struggling to find the money to pay the army and the bureaucracy and eventually they would collapse under pressure from nomadic tribes which would effectively and Safavid rule in 1722

Tomic 3.2 the safavid empire in this video we&#39;ll move eastwards from the ottomans to turn to the next major regional empire in southwest asia the Safavids now the safavid empire which lasted from 1501 until 1720 to was mostly comprised of the territory as you can see of modern-day Iran and was one of the most significant ruling dynasties in that region in fact the legacy of their rule still determines the nature of Iran&#39;s religious beliefs and interactions with its neighbors in the region to this day the Safavid Empire takes its name from the staff of the dynasty the ruling family who though they were Muslim also claimed their legitimacy from pre-islamic Persian empires in very simple terms the most significant and long-lasting contribution of the Safavids to the region was the adoption of the Shia school of Islam which is a minority sect within Islam and is distinct from the more pervasive Sunni Islam so without becoming too heavily involved in this extremely complicated issue the Sunni Shia split originally and at its most basic involves a controversy over who was the true successor of Muhammad who of course is the founder of Islam Shiites claimed that Muhammad&#39;s son-in-law Ali was the true heir of his father-in-law&#39;s Empire while Sunni Muslims who were the majority held that it was in fact Muhammad&#39;s father-in-law who was the limit legitimate heir over time there have of course been additional contrast between the two sects but the most important thing to remember is that one they do not always get along and two the Sunni Muslims are in the vast vast majority fact Iran is the only country in the Middle East that has a Shiite identity and as Shiite majority now the impact of this in some ways continues into modern-day Iran it created a deep chasm between Iran and its neighbors who were Sunni Muslim and this made Iran a truly separate country though culturally Iran had been developing separately from its Muslim neighbors for a long time now without again getting too in-depth into this Persia where Iran is located has perhaps some of the oldest history of any region in the world dating all the way back to prehistory long before the staff of has entered the picture the region was home to some of the most important empires of antiquity now although a series of different Islamic powers governed the region the staff of an empire as I&#39;ve been saying was perhaps the most significant of these and they came to power in the late 1400s and shaped many of the features of the modern state of a rim prior to the rise of the Safavids Persia had been under control of the Timm Reds who were not really going to concern ourselves with too much but with their decline there was a return to localized control so you should be seeing the parallels here between what&#39;s happening in Persia and what happened in Anatolia that allowed for the rise of the Ottoman Empire so that returned to localized control and fragmentation provided the space for a number of religious communities to grow and gain power in the region subbing in for the lack of political authority it was out of one of these religious communities that the Safavid Empire was founded in particular the new dynasty grew out of an order of Sufi mystics now again to introduce another unfamiliar term Sufis focus on the mystical kind of spiritual dimensions of Islam and Sufi orders often gained followers based on the charisma of their leaders so whoever the leader of a Sufi order was they had to be someone who was personally very magnetic in particular the Safavid order gained great power in the city of art appeal to the charismatic leadership of the Safavid founder Safi al deen in the late 13th and 14th century over time the Safavid order would grow beyond our Deauville to establish a religious movement which spread throughout Persia Syria and a minor now eventually the south of it dynasty was not content with spiritual power but wanted to establish a military and political Empire as well now their motives for this transition are as mysterious as the modems of Osman the founder of the Ottoman dynasty but can likely be attributed to some combination of the same factors that influenced him whatever the reason successors of Safie Aldean began the process of amassing political authority at the expense of the current Persian local powers they made important alliances and worked hard to gain support of the local population a smile the first would become the first Shah of Iran and the founder of the south of the dynasty Ismael is as shadowy a figure as Aslan his origins and heritage are much disputed and much like in the Ottoman case that&#39;s partially due to a lack of records but is just as much due to the deliberate mythologizing of is my house heritage and foundations by the Safavids themselves now according to south of the tradition Ismael was descended from both the founder of the Safavid religious order on his father&#39;s side and local royalty on his mother&#39;s born in 1487 he was forced into hiding after his father was killed during his struggle to attain a political ascendancy in the region in 1501 at the age of only fourteen Ismael emerged from hiding at the head of an army determined to avenge the death of his father afterwards Ismael went on a campaign of conquest by the end of the year he had enthroned himself as the new Shah of Ashur by John than in the northwest corner of modern I ran he minted his own coins and declared Shia Islam as the official religion of the new Empire now whatever his ethnic background or heritage or motives we know that ismael was an incredibly charismatic and bold young man he accomplishes all of this as a teenager and he attracted devout followers who are willing to do literally anything for him in fact he was considered to be a living Saint by many of his followers and the whole period of early Safavid conquest under Ishmael has this very decisively religious air about it far more so than the conquests of Osman that we were just talking about after the early period of conquest under Ismael which basically took a year the Safavid continued to expand outside the Azerbaijan region and ultimately won the struggle for power over all of Persia which had been going on in the century since the collapse of a unified power a year after his initial round of victories Ishmael claimed most of Persia as part of his territory ten years later at the age of only 26 he had laid claim to all of Persia the most dangerous Challenger to Safavid control over the region were the Ottomans who were not only well established in the Middle East by this point but we&#39;re also Sunni Muslim and therefore opposed to the Safavids on both political and religious grounds by the fifteen tens Ismael&#39;s expansionist policies had pushed the borders of the Safavid Empire in Asia Minor ever more westward the Ottomans would react to a large-scale incursion into Anatolia by the Safavids by not only pushing this out of the army back but then marching their own army into South of the territory with their superior military force and especially their use of artillery the Ottomans would be able to overwhelm the Safavid force in 1514 this defeat the first that ismael had suffered would lead to temporary - moralization and disorganisation in the south of it ranks ismael and his followers had believed their progress had been protected by God and this defeat at the hands of the Ottomans really took the wind out of their sails this battle though would mark the beginning rather than the end of Ottoman Safavid rivalry and violence which would last the duration of the south of his existence some 300 years so with the main geography of the safavid empire now in place let&#39;s turn to the political and religious characteristics of the Empire so according to Shia Muslim religious beliefs Safavids regarded that all political rulers were near stand-ins for a mysterious religious figure known as the Hidden Imam who really briefly is the 12th descendant of Ali and someone who had disappeared as a child way back in the 9th century so the upshot of this is that some Shiite scholars argued that the faithful should just sort of withdraw quietly and wait for the return of the Hidden Imam but others encouraged Safavid rulers to take a more active role in politics in order to attempt to divine what the hidden Imams will might be and then carry that out whatever interpretation you put on this this unusual conception of political power created a society in which religious officials were not only independent of the government but had quite a bit of power on their own atop the political structure was the Shah who claimed total power over the state by virtue of his bloodline which via ismael could now be claimed to trace back to the prophet muhammad himself much like the Ottoman Sultans the Shah maintained power through an extensive bureaucracy which was closely supervised by royal agents who reported directly to the Shah himself competition for government positions was fierce and this created a tense atmosphere which prevented powerful government ministers from trusting one another enough to you know get together and plot against the Shah or something economically the Safavids never achieved the wealth of their larger neighbors their trade was primarily structured around the production of silk and deep pile carpets so if you ever heard of a Persian rug this is where that comes from but their manufacturing sector was never very large or terribly productive and most of the Safavid population remained impoverished subsistence farmers and herders after suffering through some internal and external chaos which threatened its borders the Safavid Empire reached its height in the reign of Shah Abbas at the end of the sixteenth century using an army formed in part of gulam&#39;s which you don&#39;t really need to know that term but it&#39;s just interesting to note that these were also Christian slaves from Armenia and Georgia who had been converted to Islam Shah Abbas not only reestablished the borders of the Safavid Empire but also defeated the Ottomans to take control of the city of Baghdad in 1623 these conquests allowed Shah Abbas and the Safavids access to sacred Shia shrines and gave the Empire control of trade coming through the Persian Gulf much like the great Ottoman Sultans Abbas solidified his control by reestablishing the capital of the Empire in 1598 Shah Abbas made Isfahan the new capital of south of the territory he invested in a large-scale building project that soon made is behind one of the most beautiful cities in the world a fitting home for the Shah skort artists workshops and luxury carpet production Abbas spared no expense employing calligraphers painters book binders and illuminators to produce manuscripts and design inscriptions and paintings for the buildings that he built during this period Isfahan became a cultural crossroads as well open to both neighbors like India as well as travelers from thus far abroad as the Netherlands and Britain shah abbas saw the rulers of christian Europe as potential military allies against his enemies the Ottomans as well as commercial partners luxury Iranian silk was exchanged for gold and silver which was in short supply in Iran but plentiful in Europe thanks to new supplies from South America eventually though the pressure of keeping up with the latest military technology that was being employed by their enemies including the Ottomans proved to be too much for the soffits they were under this constant pressure to increase defense spending in order to improve their military equipment to hold off the Ottomans and other threats moreover the Empire&#39;s economy suffered from widespread inflation which was caused by the sudden overabundance of silver from South America which spread into Iran and so over time as we move into the 18th century we see the Safavid struggling to find the money to pay the army and the bureaucracy and eventually they would collapse under pressure from nomadic tribes which would effectively and Safavid rule in 1722

Transcript for:The Safavid Empire

Transcript for:
The Safavid Empire