Chronicling a Dynasty on the Make: New Light on the Early Ṣafavids in Ḥayātī Tabrīzī's Tārīkh (961/1554)

This article studies Qāsim Beg Ḥayātī Tabrīzī’s unpublished account of Ṣafavid history, which has long been considered lost. Ḥayātī’s account—dedicated, in 961/1554, to Shah Ṭahmāsp’s sister, Princess Mihīn Begum (d. 969/1562)—spans the period between the formative years of the Ṣafaviyya Sufi order under Ṣafī al-Dīn Isḥāq Ardabīlī (d. 735/1334) and the early years of the reign of Shah Ismāʿīl (907–30/1501–24). Emphasis is given to the way in which it fills in the gaps of our knowledge insofar as the pre-dynastic and early dynastic phases of Ṣafavid history as well as the administrative history of the Ṣafavid shrine in Ardabīl are concerned

A Safavid Bureaucrat in the Ottoman World: Mirza Makhdum Sharifi Shirazi and the Quest for Upward Mobility in the İlmiye Hierarchy

This present article examines Mirza Makhdum Sharifi Shirazi’s (1540–87) life and career in the Ottoman Empire. Mirza Makhdum was a high-ranking Twelver Shiite bureaucrat in Safavid Iran, but after taking refuge with the Ottomans, he converted to Sunnism and started a new career as a judge in Diyarbakir, Bilad al-Sham, Baghdad, and the holy cities of the Hijaz. In this article, emphasis has been on his employment and professional advancement in the ilmiye, a milieu that was open on the one hand, but maintained ideological and institutional limitations on the other. I take the horizontality of his ilmiye career as a lens through which to explore nuances and complexities of professional advancement among the Iranian recruits of the Ottoman bureaucracy during the 16th century

Cashing in on land and privilege for the welfare of the shah: Monetisation of tiyūl in early Safavid Iran and eastern Anatolia

The assignment of land as tiyūl to early Safavid military and bureaucratic elites was conditional on their emoluments being subjected to direct taxation on annual basis. Between 914 and 918/1508 and 1512, the money-based disposal of tiyūl land assignments boosted Shah Ismā‘īl’s control over fiscal resources in Iran. In the province of Diyarbakir, however, the Safavid practice of tiyūl expedited dynastic transition, enabling the new regime to uproot the regional allies and partners of the Aqquyunlu. A glimpse at monetisation of tiyūl brings necessary torch into the dynamics of bureaucratic centralisation and its political implications in this early phase of territorial expansion and political absolutism in the Safavid history. The principal primary source this study explores is an unpublished fiscal statement, kept as document E. 1071 at the Topkapı Palace Museum Archives in Istanbul, that details the taxes paid to central treasury by early Safavid tiyūl-holders in Iran and eastern Anatolia over the course of four fiscal years (914–918/1508–1512)

On the margins of minority life: Zoroastrians and the state in Safavid Iran

This article looks at the treatment of the Zoroastrians by central and provincial authorities in early modern Yazd, Kirman and Isfahan, emphasizing the institutional weaknesses of the central or khāsṣạ protection they were supposed to benefit from under the Safavids (907–1135/1501– 1722). It is argued that the maltreatment the Zoroastrians endured under the Safavids had little to do with religious bigotry. Rather, it arose from rivalries between the central and the provincial services of the Safavid bureaucracy, putting Zoroastrians in Yazd, Kirman, Sistan and Isfahan at risk of over-taxation, extortion, forced labour and religious persecution. The argument developed in this article pivots on the material interest of the central and the provincial agents of the Safavid bureaucracy in the revenue and labour potentials of the Zoroastrians, and the way in which the conflict of interest between these two sectors led to such acts of persecution as over-taxation, forced labour, extortion and violenc

Khorasan X. History in the Safavid and Afsharid Period

This article, originally published in the print version of the Encyclopaedia Iranica (vol. XVI/fascicle 6), explores the history of the Iranian province of Khorasan from the beginning of the 16th to the middle of the 18th century. Drawing mainly on court chronicles and archival materials from the period, it synthesizes a detailed account of the province's political history under the Safavids (r. 1501-1735). The article closes with an account of events and trends in Khorasan under the Afsharid Nader Shah (r. 1735-1747) and his immediate successors

Mitchell Colin P. New Perspectives on Safavid Iran : Empire and Society. London, New York, Routledge, ( Iranian Studies, Vol. 8), 2011

Ghereghlou Kioumars. Mitchell Colin P. New Perspectives on Safavid Iran : Empire and Society. London, New York, Routledge, ( Iranian Studies, Vol. 8), 2011. In: Bulletin critique des annales islamologiques, n°31, 2017. pp. 94-95

Iskandar Beg Munshī

Iskandar Beg Munshī (b. 969/1561–2, d. c.1043/1633 or 1634) was a Persian court scribe (munshī) and chronicler whose Tārīkh-i ʿālam-ārā-yi ʿAbbāsī (“The world-adorning history of ʿAbbās”) deals with Ṣafavid history and the reign of Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629). Its sequel (dhayl) chronicles the first five years of the reign of his grandson and successor, Shāh Ṣafī (r. 1038–52/1629–42)

Muhammad Khan Shibani in Tus

This present article studies and contextualizes an unpublished appointment letter (nishān) drafted on behalf of and sealed by the Uzbek ruler of Khurāsān, Muḥammad Khān Shībānī, in 915/1509. Issued in the name of a Sunnī judge from Mashhad, this appointment letter sheds light on the Uzbek ruler's plans to build a new city on the ruins of Ṭūs, a rural town some 20 miles northwest of Mashhad, to be called Yādgār-i Khānī