THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · 1501–1736 · Middle East & South Asia

Safavid Empire

The Safavids began as leaders of a Sufi order in Ardabil whose Turkmen followers, the Qizilbash or red heads, revered them. In 1501 the young Ismail I captured Tabriz and declared himself shah, and he made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion, gradually converting a largely Sunni Iran.

Defeat by the Ottomans at Chaldiran in 1514 began a long frontier rivalry. Shah Abbas the Great rebuilt the state, creating an army of slave soldiers loyal to the crown, recovering lands from the Ottomans and Uzbeks, and making Isfahan a magnificent capital of mosques, bridges and bazaars that traded silk with Europe and India. Later shahs were weaker and more secluded, and in 1722 Afghan invaders captured Isfahan. The general Nader, who drove the Afghans out, ended the dynasty by crowning himself shah in 1736.

Follow its story on the map

Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, seen through the Qeysarieh portal, laid out for Shah Abbas I from about 1598
Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, seen through the Qeysarieh portal, laid out for Shah Abbas I from about 1598 Amir Pashaei · CC BY-SA 4.0
Years
1501–1736
Capital
Tabriz, then Qazvin, then Isfahan (from 1598)
Greatest extent
1630, about 2.90 million km²
Region
Middle East & South Asia

c. 2.9M km² (Oxford figure cited by Wikipedia); after Shah Abbas I's conquests, including Iraq and the Caucasus

Legacy

The Safavids gave Iran its Shia identity and much of its modern territory, and Isfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan Square remains a masterpiece of Islamic architecture.

Timeline of Safavid Empire

  1. Ismail I takes Baghdad, ending the Aq Qoyunlu

    Ismail, the young leader of the Safavid Sufi order backed by the Turkmen Qizilbash tribes, had seized Tabriz in 1501 and proclaimed himself shah, making Twelver Shia Islam the state religion of Iran. He then spent several years overthrowing the Aq Qoyunlu, the Turkmen dynasty that had ruled western Iran and Iraq. In 1508 Ismail and his commander Husayn Beg Shamlu took Baghdad, putting an end to the Aq Qoyunlu, and began destroying Sunni shrines there. With Mesopotamia added, the Safavids now ruled from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, though Baghdad would change hands several times in later wars with the Ottomans.

  2. Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani defeated and killed near Merv

    To the northeast, the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani Khan had conquered Transoxiana and the Timurid lands of Khorasan, and raided into Iran. In 1510 Shah Ismail marched east with great speed; Shaybani, short of troops, retreated behind the walls of Merv (in today's Turkmenistan). On 2 December 1510 the Safavid army feigned a retreat, drew the Uzbeks out of the fortress and ambushed them, and Shaybani was killed trying to escape. The victory gave the Safavids the rich province of Khorasan, including Herat, and pushed the frontier with the Uzbeks back towards the Oxus (Amu Darya), although the Uzbeks went on raiding Khorasan for a century.

  3. Ottoman victory at Chaldiran; eastern Anatolia lost

    Ismail's preaching among the Turkmen tribes of eastern Anatolia alarmed the Sunni Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who marched east in 1514. On 23 August the two armies met at Chaldiran, northwest of Lake Urmia. The Ottomans, with an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 men, heavy artillery and musket-armed Janissaries, crushed the Safavid cavalry, which had no artillery; Ismail was wounded and nearly captured. Selim briefly occupied the Safavid capital, Tabriz. The Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia, ending Safavid expansion to the west, and Ismail never again led an army in battle.

  4. Peace of Amasya with the Ottomans after decades of war

    Under Ismail's son Tahmasp I, the Safavids fought a long war with Suleiman the Magnificent, who invaded Iran and took Baghdad in the mid-1530s. On 29 May 1555 the two empires signed the Peace of Amasya, the first formal peace between them. Armenia and Georgia were divided, with the western parts going to the Ottomans and the eastern parts staying with Iran, and the Ottomans kept most of Iraq, including Baghdad. The treaty set a frontier that brought about twenty years of peace.

  5. Abbas I makes Isfahan the capital

    Abbas I became shah in 1587 at a low point: the Ottomans held Tabriz and much of the northwest, and the Uzbeks had overrun half of Khorasan. After making peace with the Ottomans in 1590 and rebuilding his army, he decided to move the capital to a safer, more central place. In 1598 he moved it from Qazvin to Isfahan and rebuilt the city as one of the largest of the 17th century, around the vast Naqsh-e Jahan Square, with new mosques, palaces, bazaars and bridges. Isfahan became the political and cultural heart of Safavid Iran, and the saying went that 'Isfahan is half the world'.

  6. Abbas I retakes Tabriz from the Ottomans

    In the peace of 1590 Abbas had been forced to give the Ottomans large territories, including Tabriz, the old Safavid capital. With a reformed army that included musketeers, artillery and ghulams (slave soldiers recruited mainly from the Caucasus), he opened a new war in 1603. His troops retook Tabriz in 1603, then Erivan, Shirvan and other lands. By 1612 the Safavids had regained all the territory ceded in 1590, including Azerbaijan, Georgia and Shirvan. It was the first great Safavid victory over the Ottomans and restored the empire's northwest.

  7. Hormuz taken from the Portuguese with English help; Kandahar seized

    Since 1507 the Portuguese had held a fortress on the island of Hormuz, controlling the Persian Gulf trade between India and Europe. In 1622 Abbas I's general Imam Quli Khan besieged it, with ships of the English East India Company, which wanted Persian trade, providing naval support; after a siege from February to April the Portuguese surrendered. In the same year, from May, Safavid forces besieged and captured the fortress city of Kandahar from the Mughal emperor Jahangir. Both gains extended Safavid power: the empire controlled the gulf coast, while Kandahar became its eastern bastion against India.

  8. Abbas I recaptures Baghdad (1623–24)

    In a new war with Sultan Murad IV, which Abbas I presented as a defence of Shiism, a Safavid army besieged Baghdad, held by the Ottoman officer Bakr Subashi. It broke into the city on 12 January 1624 and had taken it two days later, and many Sunni inhabitants were massacred. Fighting spread to other cities of Ottoman Iraq, including Mosul, Kirkuk and Basra. Mesopotamia, with its Shia shrine cities such as Najaf and Karbala, was back in Safavid hands for the first time since the 1530s. The Ottomans repeatedly tried to recover Baghdad and finally retook it in 1638 under Sultan Murad IV.

  9. Treaty of Zuhab: Baghdad and Mesopotamia ceded to the Ottomans

    After Abbas I died in 1629 the Safavids faced renewed Ottoman offensives, and in 1638 Sultan Murad IV recaptured Baghdad. On 17 May 1639 the two empires made peace at Qasr-e Shirin, in western Iran, in the Treaty of Zuhab. It largely confirmed the Peace of Amasya: the Caucasus was permanently divided, with eastern Armenia, eastern Georgia, Dagestan and Shirvan staying Safavid, and Iran gave up all of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad. The treaty ended almost 150 years of intermittent war, and its line became the rough outline of today's frontier between Iran and Turkey and Iraq.

  10. Afghan Hotaki army takes Isfahan; Soltan Hoseyn deposed

    By the early 18th century the Safavid state was weak, with poor leadership and court intrigue. Afghan Ghilzai tribes in Kandahar, led by the Hotaki family, rebelled, and in 1722 Mahmud Hotak marched deep into Iran. On 8 March 1722 his much smaller army routed the Safavid army at Gulnabad, near Isfahan, and then besieged the capital. After months of famine, Shah Soltan Hoseyn capitulated on 23 October 1722 and abdicated in favour of Mahmud. The Afghans would hold much of Iran until 1729, while the Ottomans and Russians seized lands in the west and north.

  11. Nader recovers Iran for Tahmasp II after the Afghan occupation

    After Isfahan fell, the shah's son Tahmasp escaped and claimed the throne as Tahmasp II, but he had little power. Nader, an Afshar Turkmen warlord from Khorasan and a brilliant general, became the commander of his army and recaptured Mashhad in late 1726. In September 1729 Nader defeated the Afghan ruler Ashraf at Damghan, then decisively in November at Murchakhort, and in December he handed Isfahan back to Tahmasp. The Safavids were restored in name, but real power lay with Nader, who went on to drive the Ottomans and Russians out of the lands they had taken.

  12. Nader Shah crowned; the Safavid dynasty ends

    Nader steadily took control of the state: in 1732 he forced Tahmasp II to abdicate in favour of his infant son, Abbas III, and ruled as regent while winning wars against the Ottomans. In 1736, after recovering the empire's lost territories, he deposed the child and was crowned shah himself on 8 March 1736, founding the Afsharid dynasty. The Safavids, who had ruled Iran since 1501, lost the throne for good. Under Nader the empire briefly expanded again, invading Mughal India and sacking Delhi in 1739.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

Realms on the map

Chapters

Sources