Shah Abbas I, the ruler of the Safavid empire from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, was accorded a legendary reputation by his contemporaries, with John Chardin even claiming that after his death, “the prosperity of Persia ended likewise.”[1] Much of Abbas’s historiographical tradition largely adopts this viewpoint, and only relatively recently has there has been a shift away from this misleading, exaggerated paradigm toward a more critical examination of the Shah’s reign. Abbas’s reputation is, to a certain degree, supported by the events of his rule; he salvaged the Safavid project from the chaos that erupted after Tahmasp’s reign, and many of his reforms were quite successful. Some historians, such as Roger Savory, have interpreted these developments as signs of modernity, and present the Shah as the creator of a modernised Iranian nation.[2] This description is problematic, as it lacks nuance and disregards the fact that although Abbas restructured his empire and endowed it with some novel traits in the areas of military, foreign relations, and governance, the polity retained many of its original, fundamental characteristics. Most significantly, he was unable to find a solution to the problems that most originally nomadic dynasties located in that region had faced; the struggle to permanently move away from traditional Turko-Mongol methods of governance, and the opposing forces of the nomadic and sedentary populations. Ultimately, Abbas provided the Safavids with a well-controlled, slightly modified continuity with the past, and his reforms and achievements were not radical enough for him to be deemed the legitimate founder of modern Iran.
Before considering Abbas’s impact on the Safavid empire, it is important to address the general criteria by which a modern state should be defined. While it is difficult to say exactly what indicates modernity, there are several key components to consider when attempting to determine whether a nation is modernised. In their respective studies of the Safavids, both Andrew Newman and Roger Savory assert that modernity means complete central control over the military and possession of a standing army, a shared national identity among all citizens, fixed borders, and above all, a highly centralised administration.[3] Strong diplomatic and trade relations with foreign countries, and in the case of the Safavids specifically, a resolution to the constant tension between nomadic and sedentary styles of rule, also would point toward modernisation. These elements can be observed to some degree within Abbas’s empire, but the Shah failed to modernise his state because he did not change enough during his reign.
Abbas’s military reforms were extensive, and at first glance, appear to have modernised the army. The way soldiers were paid was altered to make reporting for duty more appealing.[4] The Shah increased the number of soldiers in the ghulam corps, creating a force equivalent to a modern standing army.[5] In addition, he updated the weaponry used by the militia, mainly to counter that of the increasingly powerful Ottomans. Carmelite visitors to the Safavid region describe the Shah’s interest in military matters, stating that he had “a great liking for warfare and weapons” and “introduced into his militia the use of and esteem for arquebuses and muskets, in which they are very practiced.”[6] The English traveller Thomas Herbert also mentions weaponry in his chronicle; “they know well how to use the bow, dart, scimitar, gun, and javelin. Their arquebuses… they use very well, but detest the trouble of cannon and such pieces as require carriage.”[7] These quotes imply that it was Abbas who introduced technologically advanced weapons into Safavid warfare, and that the soldiers used them frequently and adeptly. Both accounts, however, were written by foreigners; it is likely that the Shah wanted to impress them with his army’s prowess, and consequently ensured that the travellers only saw what he wished them to see. This explains the rather inaccurate descriptions presented in these texts. Abbas was not, as is commonly believed, the first Safavid leader to promote the use of modern armaments. Ismail began to reform the military after his defeat at Chaldiran; he asked Italy for assistance in acquiring weaponry and knowledge of contemporary war tactics, resulting in a stronger armed force with an increased number of musketeers.[8] Abbas, along with Robert and Anthony Shirley, was also not responsible for updating Safavid artillery, and the equipment used by Safavid troops in the seventeenth century was outdated. For example, Iskandar Beg Munshi writes that the Safavids used “two huge siege guns firing shots weighing thirty Tabriz mann” in the 1605 Battle of Sufiyan against the Ottomans.[9] This may appear to be a sign of modernisation, but by this time, such artillery was effectively obsolete.[10] Moreover, many members of the Safavid army were reluctant to use the new weaponry, as it did not suit traditional warfare practices and, in the case of larger firearms, was often cumbersome.[11] The use of modern artillery in battle was still quite rare during Abbas’s reign, and the military was not particularly experienced in its use. In most contemporary accounts, the Safavid army is presented as updated and organised, but these descriptions do not reflect reality. Abbas did attempt to reform along modern lines, but apart from his expansion of the standing ghulam army, these changes were not extensive enough to consider the military modernised.
The Safavid empire’s contact with foreign nations increased under Abbas, both in terms of military alliances and commercial relations. Prior to the Shah’s rule, Ismail and Tahmasp sustained contact with Venice, and much of the correspondence between the two regimes demonstrate a mutual desire to form a pact against the Ottomans.[12] A precedent for European-Safavid cooperation was set by these two leaders, but their international networks were quite small and insignificant compared to those of Abbas, who had a much broader understanding of world politics and was therefore able to foster both diplomatic and trade connections with an increased number of countries.[13] From 1608, “contact between Persia and Europe was joined far more consistently than ever in the past” and many foreign rulers sent ambassadors to the Safavid court to cement ties with the empire, largely due to mutual concern about the rising power of the Ottomans.[14] The letters of Robert Shirley, Abbas and Clement VIII compiled in the Carmelite Chronicle further illustrate a desire for cooperation and the establishment of greater links between European powers and the Shah.[15] Abbas opened his empire to international contact far more than his predecessors, and many nations wanted to form military alliances with the Safavids, largely precipitated by a desire to check the growth of the Ottoman empire. The development of stronger international diplomatic ties seems to suggest that the Abbas’s empire was beginning to enter the modern world order. However, while the Shah did manage to place his empire closer to modernity by linking it more firmly to the foreign community, he was unable to fully integrate the Safavids into global politics, and in large part, Europeans developed ties with the region only because of the shared fear of Ottoman expansion.
In addition to diplomatic relations, Abbas also connected the Safavids to foreign states through commerce. He successfully expanded the lucrative silk trade and created a royal monopoly on the commodity to give the crown more authority over the economy.[16] He brought Armenians, who were adept at business, into Isfahan, and soon a class of successful merchants who possessed extensive knowledge of international trade routes developed.[17] Abbas also launched a project to renovate roads; for example, there was much roadwork in 1622 in Mazandaran to encourage both domestic and international trade.[18] He also created many caravanserais and the sang-farsh, a paved road between Ardistan and Firuzkhuh that made Isfahan the centre of internal commerce.[19] All of these developments made it easier for merchants and artisans to travel throughout his empire and engage with Safavid commercial activity. Some historians, such as Bert Fragner, have argued that by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was too late for Abbas’s empire to participate fully in international trade, which was “running along new tracks” by this time, causing Iran to find itself “pushed onto the fringe of the world economy” and unable to partake in the global market.[20] To a certain extent, this is a reductionist view; commercial connections between European powers and the Safavids were important during the seventeenth century, mostly due to the empire’s location along active trade routes in Asia. Europeans were interested in participating in trade with Iran mainly because of its high-quality silk, but most simply wanted to use it as a transit region. Commodities “went through the country but didn’t belong to it.”[21]Essentially, Abbas increased interest in the Safavid empire as a trading partner, but failed to modernise the region’s commercial system enough to participate fully on a global level. The empire, while not entirely relegated to the outskirts as Fragner argued, was not considered a large enough independent trader to be integrated into the international network, and was used primarily as a transfer zone for commodities being exchanged between larger powers. Abbas had not modernised but only somewhat strengthened the empire’s global commercial position. He simply improved relations with other countries after the period of confusion and chaos following Tahmasp’s reign where new connections were unable to be established and existing ones were not well-maintained.
In addition to forming ties with European countries, Abbas attempted to develop a shared national identity to offset the Ottoman threat, but this feeling was present in the empire at such a negligible level that it cannot be considered modern nationalism. Shi’ism was used as a governmental tool after the second Safavid civil war of 1576 to 1590 to strengthen the centre’s legitimacy. Abbas presented himself as pious Shi’ite leader to garner support from a wider population, since after he subdued the civil war, he was unable to appeal to the Qizilbash as the leader of the Safavid Sufi religious order due to both the events of the previous years and the increased number of conversions to Shi’ism.[22] The use of religion to justify the shah’s right to rule was naturally not a modern concept, but some historians have argued that in addition to being employed as a method of legitimisation, the introduction and propagation of Shi’ism, and subsequent widespread conversion, contributed to the creation of nationalistic sentiments. There was already a developing idea of nationhood during the mid-sixteenth century; for example, Munshi uses the terms “mulk-i Iran” and “mamalik-i Iran” to describe the empire at the time of Tahmasp.[23] Abbas furthered this idea by attempting to use Shi’ism to promote allegiance to the nation in hopes that it would unite the population against Sunni Ottoman and Uzbek enemies, and mitigate the effects of strong ethnic and Qizilbash ties.[24] For example, the Shah cited religion when encouraging troops to report for duty, ordering that when men were called, “they should report without delay out of zeal for their faith…”[25] Though Abbas did make an effort to create identification with a larger national project, the “nationalism” generated through shared religion was not pervasive enough to be considered modern. Ultimately, tribal and ethnic loyalties were regarded by many of the governmental elites and members of the general population as more important, and remained prevalent despite Abbas’s efforts to consolidate his empire’s inhabitants through religious identity.
In matters of government, Abbas managed to reform, but again failed to modernise. An examination of the legitimisation methods employed by the Shah shows a measure of continuity with those used by previous Turko-Mongol leaders of the fifteenth century. In addition to religion and the concept of divine kingship, the Shah used another traditional technique to establish authority; emphasising the empire’s Turko-Mongol heritage and endeavouring to create a strong connection between the Safavids and the Timurids through a plethora of references to Timur in contemporary literature. Qazi Ahmad’s Khulasat al-tawdrikh exemplifies Abbas’s keen interest in stressing Timurid dynastic ties.[26] In an interpretation of one of Shaykh Safi al-Din’s dreams predicting Ismail’s rule, Ahmad changes Amir Mahmud’s original description of the first Safavid ruler as “king” to Timur’s title “the lord of the fortunate conjunction,” thereby linking the first Safavid shah and the great Turko-Mongol leader.[27] In addition, many anecdotes about meetings between early Safaviyya shaykhs and Timur were formulated during Abbas’s time, with one even claiming that Timur predicted the rise of the Safavids during the fifteenth century after visiting the order in Ardabil.[28] Legitimising stories such as these were also circulated to foreign nations to give weight to the dynasty’s claim to the throne in the eyes of other rulers. For example, a waqf document that is considered to have been forged in Abbas’s court shows an endowment from Timur to the Safavids, and was sent to the Mughal emperor Jahangir to emphasise the strong historical ties between these two dynasties.[29] By using the widely recognised and revered figure of Timur to justify his reign both internally and internationally, the Shah was continuing to utilise a legitimisation device that other rulers, such as Babur, relied on long before he came to power.
According to Munshi’s History of Shah Abbas, the king was “responsible for some weighty legislation in the field of administration.”[30] This quote is one of the few in his text that does not overstate the Shah’s reforms; Abbas’s centralisation of the Safavid government despite the strength of relatively autonomous Qizilbash tribal leaders was indeed an achievement. He improved on existing theories of governance and created a stabler Safavid empire, with his two most influential reforms being the khassa policy and his approach to the issue of the Qizilbash. The khassa policy was just one of the ways in which the Shah tried to assert his power in the peripheries and at the same time increase royal sources of revenue. Abbas converted mamalik lands, which were previously allotted to Qizilbash amirs, into khassa, or crown lands, and he appointed loyal viziers as governors instead of the Qizilbash in an effort to bring more areas under central influence.[31] This conversion, while certainly centralising, contributed in part to the decline of the empire and cannot be considered an example of modernity. The forms of taxation employed by the viziers were harsher than those of the original amirs, which caused agitation in the peripheries and contributed to the destabilisation of the Safavid state.[32] Abbas, and subsequent shahs, showed a distinct lack of interest in this exploitation and were willing to let it continue unchecked as long as the provincial governors provided sufficient funds for the centre. Khassa conversions were a superficial method of demonstrating economic improvement and governmental reform, without making changes to the fundamental semi-autonomous provincial governance system. The only noticeable difference was that Abbas’s appointed governors were mostly loyal to him and more eager to gain his favour than the Qizilbash, and would consequently send increased funds back to the Shah. So long as the viziers provided more money than the Qizilbash, the Shah hardly monitored his provinces. Abbas’s khassa reform is not an example of governmental modernity, but just another slightly more regulated form of feudalism, which was practised by the Safavids prior to his ascendance to the throne.
Abbas’s approach to the Qizilbash tribes was a significant governmental break with the past, and it is the main factor that has led many historians to claim that he was the founder of a modern Iranian state. A major problem for leaders of empires originally established by nomadic tribes was the conflict that inevitably arose between these founding groups and the more centralised governmental style that many rulers eventually wished to establish. The Safavid shah was no exception; Abbas aimed to centralise the state, but Qizilbash nomadic tribes wished to retain their traditional ways of life and government. The Safavid empire emerged from a chaos of sultanates, all of which were attempting to gain any power they could after the fragmentation of the Timurid empire in the late fifteenth century. There was no central government or authority in most of these small territories until the Safavid empire was established in 1501. Due to the influence of the Turkoman Qizilbash force that brought Ismail to power, this original empire “shared Central Asian Turkic political traditions and a vision of conquest rooted in Mongol aspirations of world empire.”[33] During the reigns of Ismail and Tahmasp, very little changed in terms of government. Both adhered to Turko-Mongol traditions, where political and military power belonged to the Turkoman tribal elite, in this case the Qizilbash, while bureaucracy was supported by the sedentary population of Tajiks.[34] Riza Yildirim argues that the early Safavid state was the last embodiment of this type of government, and that Ismail and his followers merely took over, without modification, Aqqoyunlu administrative structures.[35] These institutions remained generally unchanged until the seventeenth century, when Abbas sought to radically reform the Safavid government and began to reject the decentralised, Turko-Mongol model of governance in favour of a centrally controlled regime. He focused on “consolidating his rule within the boundaries of the Safavid empire” according to Munshi, rather than expansion.[36]Abbas eventually faced the same questions that all rulers of originally nomadic polities faced; how to occupy the Qizilbash tribes when frequent campaigns were no longer a priority, and how to create a modern, centralised state when most of these groups were unwilling to give up their autonomy and traditional nomadic practices.
The introduction of the ghulams provided a solution to this issue, as they were able to counteract the influence of Qizilbash leaders by taking over many military and government positions. Abbas is often credited with the creation of the ghulam class, but it was Tahmasp who, after being manipulated for several years by Qizilbash leaders, first introduced the idea of a group of Georgian and Circassian soldiers loyal only to the king.[37] Abbas expanded on this concept, appointing “to the highest offices and to the emirate promising officers who owed their rise to him alone” to decrease the influence of the Turkoman tribes even further, thereby consolidating his control over the provinces.[38]The ghulams curtailed the monopoly that the Qizilbash had on military and political power, but despite the noticeable decline in Turkoman army and government officials during his reign, the key posts in the centre and the provinces were still held by them by the end of his rule in 1629.[39] Powerful nomadic chiefs continued to play a large role in the governance of the Safavid empire, and tribal loyalties in many peripheral areas were never eliminated. Abbas’s style of leadership is comparable to that of Timur; his system of governance worked quite smoothly while he was on the throne, but fragmentation and destabilisation occurred without him controlling it. This was illustrated in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when noticeably weaker shahs struggled to retain Qizilbash loyalty. Abbas’s attempts to marginalise the Qizilbash were decidedly progressive and represented a marked shift away from traditional nomadic governmental practices, but he was unable to fully execute this change and cannot be said to have modernised Iran.
Overall, Shah Abbas’s governance style should be viewed as a continuation of the cyclical governmental history of the Iranian plateau and its surrounding territories. This region fluctuated between Irano-Islamic and Turko-Mongol regimes based on which population was able to gain the most power at a given time, and Abbas’s reign did not break this sequence. His administrative institutions showed remarkable continuity with early fifteenth-century Irano-Islamic traditions, which stressed the importance of a strong central administration and led to the reduction of the nomadic leaders’ power.[40] Shah Rukh was one of the most important figures who promoted this type of rule; he encouraged sedentarisation over nomadism, and attempted to create a unified society ruled by a leader who combined secular and religious authority.[41] Abbas and Shah Rukh’s governance styles were similar, and the Safavid shah can be considered to have partially revived of a tradition that was abandoned a century earlier due to increased nomadic activity following the collapse of the Timurids. Every empire that preceded the Safavids—the Seljuks, the Mongols, and the Timurids—was unable to end the cycle of a period of centralisation followed by a period of decentralisation and nomadic dominance.[42] The Safavids were no exception; Abbas was marginally more successful in resolving nomadic versus sedentary tensions, but his core policies were too similar to those of fifteenth-century empires to create any profound change, and therefore he was unable to effectively modernise.
Shah Abbas consolidated Safavid rule and established a stable, prosperous empire during his reign. He reformed the army, linked the region to foreign countries more than it ever had been before, and reorganised several government institutions, such as land policy. Despite these many improvements, he cannot be considered the founder of modern Iran. To describe him as such is an unnuanced, incorrect description that perpetuates the traditional historiographical narrative of Abbas’s rule. As Hans Roemer says, the Shah was prepared to “cast aside the old customs of the order whenever it was in his interests to do so. On the other hand, he willingly obeyed and enforced them if it suited him.”[43] This is an accurate description of Abbas’s sixteenth and seventeenth-century reforms; the alterations he made strengthened his control over the empire and appeared progressive, but in fact, his reforms were largely superficial and did not radically change Safavid institutions and ideologies. Perhaps most importantly, he was unable to find a solution to the fundamental issue that affected all preceding Turko-Mongolian empires; nomadic-sedentary, or more specifically, Turk-Tajik differences that led to perpetual fluctuation between Irano-Islamic and Turko-Mongol forms of government. Formulating a solution to the problem of the centrifugal Qizilbash forces would have given the Safavids an opportunity to truly modernise the region. Due to Abbas’s failure to distance himself in any significant way from older styles of governance and to resolve the core tensions present in the empire, he cannot be considered to have founded modern Iran.
Dorothy Green is in her 4th year of an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of St. Andrews.
Notes: [1] John Chardin, Travels in Persia 1673-77 (London, 1927), p. 188. [2] Iskandar Beg Munshi, History of Shah ‘Abbas the Great, trans. Roger Savory (Colorado, 1978), p. xxii. [3] Andrew Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (London, 2006), p. 123. Munshi, History, p. xxii. [4] Munshi, History, p. 1142. [5] A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia Vol 1, trans. and ed. Herbert Chick (London, 2012), p. 161. [6] Ibid, p. 160. [7] Thomas Herbert, Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Africa and Asia the Great (London, 1677), p. 243. [8] Sholeh A. Quinn, Shah Abbas: The King Who Refashioned Iran (London, 2015), p. 80. [9] Munshi, History, p. 843. [10] Colin Imber, ‘The Battle of Sufiyan, 1605: A Symptom of Ottoman Military Decline?’, in Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig (eds), Iran and the World in the Safavid Age (London, 2012), p. 93. [11] Quinn, Shah Abbas, p. 81. [12] Giorgio Rota, ‘Safavid Persia and its Diplomatic Relations with Venice’, in Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig (eds), Iran and the World in the Safavid Age (London, 2012), p. 150-151. [13] Munshi, History, p. 553. [14] Ibid, p. 191-193. [15] Carmelites, pp. 80-84. [16] Quinn, Shah Abbas, p. 111. [17] Chardin, Travels, p. 138. [18] Munshi, History, p. 1211-1212. [19] Bert Fragner, ‘Social and Internal Economic Affairs’, in Peter Jackson (ed), Cambridge History of Iran, Vol 6 (Cambridge, 2008), p. 527. [20] Ibid, p. 526. [21] Matthee, ‘Safavid Economy’, p. 43. [22] Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 56. [23] Roger Savory, ‘The Safavid Administrative System’, in Peter Jackson (ed), Cambridge History of Iran, Vol 6 (Cambridge, 2008), p. 352. [24] David Blow, Shah Abbas: The Ruthless King Who Became an Iranian Legend (London, 2009), p. 187. [25] Munshi, History, p. 525. [26] Sholeh A. Quinn, Historical Writing During the Reign of Shah Abbas: Ideology, Imitation, and Legitimacy in Safavid Chronicles (Salt Lake City, 2000), pp. 44, 65. [27] Quinn, Historical, p. 75. [28] Ibid, p. 89. [29] Lisa Balabanlilar, ‘Lords of the Auspicious Conjunction: Turco-Mongol Imperial Identity on the Subcontinent’, Journal of World History, 18:1 (March 2007), p. 5. [30] Ibid, p. 527. [31] Blow, Shah Abbas, p. 38. [32] Savory, ‘Administrative System,’ p. 366. [33] Balabanlilar, ‘Lords’, p. 1. [34] Yildirim, Riza, ‘The Rise of the Safavids as a Political Dynasty’, in Rudi Matthee (ed), The Safavid World (London, 2021), p. 59. [35] Ibid, p. 68-69. [36] Munshi, History, p. 615. [37] Savory, ‘Administrative System’, p. 362-363. [38] Munshi, History, p. 518. [39] Newman, Safavid Iran, p. 53. [40] Yildirim, ‘Rise of the Safavids’, p. 71. [41] Ibid, p. 60. [42] Savory, ‘Administrative System’, p. 371. [43] Hans R. Roemer, ‘The Safavid Period’, in Peter Jackson (ed), Cambridge History of Iran, Vol 6 (Cambridge, 2008), p. 263.
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