The Safavids: Persia becomes Shia
Shah Ismail declares Shia Islam the faith of the state, and Persia stands apart in the Muslim world from then on.
In 1501 Ismail, head of a Sufi brotherhood from Ardabil, takes Tabriz, proclaims himself shah and makes Shia Islam the faith of the state—by compulsion, where needed. Persia, until then mostly Sunni, becomes Shia within two generations and stays so; with the Ottomans to the west goes a long war over faith and land. The state's height is under Abbas I, who in 1598 moves the capital to Isfahan and builds the square, the mosques and the bridges that stand to this day. For the Jews of Persia the time is hard: under the later Safavids they are forced into Islam, and some communities live a double life for decades. The dynasty falls in 1736.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Persian chronicles of the Safavids — the year 1501, the proclamation of Shiism and the move of the capital
- the Kitab-i Anusi of Babai ibn Lutf — the forcing of the Jews of Persia into Islam under the later Safavids
Scholarship
- studies of the history of Iran — the years of the dynasty and its place in the Muslim world
Basis: documents and evidence.