Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgments to the first edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Acknowledgments to the second edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Publisher's Preface
- Introduction to Islamic Societies
- Part I The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations
- Part II From Islamic Community to Islamic Society
- Part III The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries
- Chapter 25 Introduction: Islamic Institutions
- The Western Islamic Societies
- Islam in Asia
- Chapter 30 Introduction: Empires and Societies
- Chapter 31 The Turkish Migrations and the Ottoman Empire
- Chapter 32 The Postclassical Ottoman Empire: Decentralization, Commercialization, and Incorporation
- Chapter 33 The Arab Provinces Under Ottoman Rule
- Chapter 34 The Safavid Empire
- Chapter 35 The Indian Subcontinent: The Delhi Sultanates and the Mughal Empire
- Chapter 36 Islamic Empires Compared
- Chapter 37 Inner Asia From the Mongol Conquests to the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 38 Islamic Societies in Southeast Asia
- Islam in Africa
- Conclusion
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Annotated Bibliography from A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition
- Index
Chapter 34 - The Safavid Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgments to the first edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Acknowledgments to the second edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Publisher's Preface
- Introduction to Islamic Societies
- Part I The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations
- Part II From Islamic Community to Islamic Society
- Part III The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries
- Chapter 25 Introduction: Islamic Institutions
- The Western Islamic Societies
- Islam in Asia
- Chapter 30 Introduction: Empires and Societies
- Chapter 31 The Turkish Migrations and the Ottoman Empire
- Chapter 32 The Postclassical Ottoman Empire: Decentralization, Commercialization, and Incorporation
- Chapter 33 The Arab Provinces Under Ottoman Rule
- Chapter 34 The Safavid Empire
- Chapter 35 The Indian Subcontinent: The Delhi Sultanates and the Mughal Empire
- Chapter 36 Islamic Empires Compared
- Chapter 37 Inner Asia From the Mongol Conquests to the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 38 Islamic Societies in Southeast Asia
- Islam in Africa
- Conclusion
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Annotated Bibliography from A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition
- Index
Summary
The Origins of the Safavids
Iran had a profound historical tradition of imperial regimes and cultures. The Saljuq governments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were built on prior ʿAbbasid and Sasanian and more ancient institutions. The Mongol and Timurid invasions continued many of the political and cultural achievements of the past but brought lasting demographic, economic, and political changes to Iranian societies. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, large numbers of Turkish and Mongol peoples settled in northwestern Iran and eastern Anatolia, and, by the fourteenth century, a large Turkish population was also established in eastern Iran and in the Oxus region. Ever since, Turkish peoples have constituted about one-fourth of the total population of Iran.
The Turkish presence radically changed the economy of Iran. Substantial territories were turned from agriculture into pasturage. Villagers were induced to take up a migratory existence, farming in valley bottoms and pasturing sheep in adjacent mountain highlands. Only in the reign of Ghazan (d. 1304) did the Ilkhans attempt to develop a more balanced relationship between agricultural and pastoral activities and a system of property organization that maintained the position of both agricultural and pastoral peoples. The Ilkhans began to stabilize the division of Iran into two economic and cultural worlds – one, the world of the sedentary village; the other, that of the pastoral camp.
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- Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth CenturyA Global History, pp. 490 - 506Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012