The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled by the Safavid dynasty from 1501 to 1736,Helen Chapin Metz, ed., Iran, a Country study. 1989. University of Michigan, p. 313.Emory C. Bogle. Islam: Origin and Belief. University of Texas Press. 1989, p. 145.Stanford Jay Shaw. History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. 1977, p. 77. albeit others place the end on the year 1722, when Isfahan fell to the Afghans. It is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires.
Shah Ismail I established Twelver Shi'ism as the official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam.
A dynasty rooted in the Safavid order, a dervish order of Sufism, founded by sheikhs of native Iranian (possibly Kurdish) origin,: "The Safavids originated as a hereditary lineage of Sufi shaikhs centered on Ardabil, Shafeʿite in school and probably Kurdish in origin." : "The Safavi house originally was among the landowning nobility of Kurdish origin, with affinity to the Ahl-e Haqq in Kurdistan (chart 1). In the twelfth century, the family settled in northeastern Azarbaijan, where Safi al-Din Ardabili (d. 1334), the patriarch of the Safavid house and Ismail's ancestor dating back six generations, was a revered Sufi leader." : "Of Kurdish ancestry, the Ṣafavids started as a Sunnī mystical order (...)" : "The Safavids are thought to have been Kurdish in origin, but by Sheikh Safi's day they were a Persian-speaking family of small landowners, living near Ardabil, which was a commercial centre in mountainous country, about 40 miles inland from the Caspian Sea. There was also a large Turkoman tribal population in Azerbaijan, who spoke a language closely related to Turkish, known today as Azeri. In time the province would become almost entirely Azeri-speaking." : "The Turkic-speaking Safavids of Kurdish origin arose from a Sunni Sufi fraternity that was organized in Azerbaijan by Safi al-Din (d. 1334)." : "The Safavids, as Iranians of Kurdish ancestry and of nontribal background, did not fit this pattern, although the stat they set up with the aid of Turkmen tribal forces of Eastern Anatolia closely resembled this division in its makeup. Yet, the Turk versus Tajik division was not impregnable." : "As Persians of Kurdish ancestry and of a non-tribal background, the Safavids did not fit this pattern, though the state they set up with the assistance of Turkmen tribal forces of eastern Anatolia closely resembled this division in its makeup." : "The Safavid dynasty was of Iranian – probably Kurdish – extraction and had its beginnings as a Sufi order located at Ardabil near the eastern border of Azerbaijan, in a region favorable for both agriculture and pastoralism." : "After 907/1502 Āḏẖarbayḏj̱ān became the chief bulwark and rallying ground of the Ṣafawids, themselves natives of Ardabil and originally speaking the local Iranian dialect." : "Despite recent research, the origins of the Safavid family are still obscure. Such evidence as we have seems to suggest that the family hailed from Kurdistān. What does seem certain is that the Safavids were of native Iranian stock, and spoke Āzarī, the form of Turkish used in Āzarbāyjān. Our lack of reliable information derives from the fact that the Safavids, after the establishment of the Safavid state, deliberately falsified the evidence of their own origins." : "This official version contains textual changes designed to obscure the Kurdish origins of the Safavid family and to vindicate their claim to descent from the Imams." : "The Safavid Shahs who ruled Iran between 1501 and 1722 descended from Sheikh Safi ad-Din of Ardabil (1252–1334). Sheikh Safi and his immediate successors were renowned as holy ascetics Sufis. Their own origins were obscure; probably of Kurdish or Iranian extraction, they later claimed descent from the Prophet." it was not only Persian-speaking, but also Turkic-speaking and Turkified.: "The origins of the Safavids are clouded in obscurity. They may have been of Kurdish origin (see , , and also ), but for all practical purposes they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified." From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Buyids to establish a national state officially known as Iran.
The main group that contributed to bringing the Safavids to power, due to making up the bulk of the Safavid army, were the Qizilbash (), who consisted of Turkoman tribes. Meanwhile, ethnic Iranians, including the Shahs, held the positions in bureaucracy and cultural affairs, leading the empire politically as the administrative and religious elite."Why is there such confusion about the origins of this important dynasty, which reasserted Iranian identity and established an independent Iranian state after eight and a half centuries of rule by foreign dynasties?" RM Savory, Iran Under the Safavids (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980), p. 3.Matthee, Rudi. (2005). The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900. Princeton University Press. p. 18; "The Safavids, as Iranians of Kurdish ancestry and of nontribal background (...)".
Savory, Roger. (2008). "EBN BAZZĀZ". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, Fasc. 1. p. 8. "This official version contains textual changes designed to obscure the Kurdish origins of the Safavid family and to vindicate their claim to descent from the Imams."
Amoretti, Biancamaria Scarcia; Matthee, Rudi. (2009). "Ṣafavid Dynasty". In Esposito, John L. (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford University Press. "Of Kurdish ancestry, the Ṣafavids started as a Sunnī mystical order (...)" In the 17th century, Armenian, Georgian, and Circassian gholams (slave-soldiers) emerged as the "Third Force" and became the primary military authority until the fall of the Safavids.
The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736 and 1750 to 1773) and, at their height, they controlled all of what is now Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus including Russia, and Iraq, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts. The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by establishing Twelver Shi'ism as the state religion of Iran, as well as spreading Shia Islam in major parts of Central Asia, Caucasus, Anatolia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia.
The Safavid dynasty is considered a turning point in the history of Iran after the Muslim conquest of Persia, as after centuries of rule by non-Iranian kings, the country became an independent power in the Islamic world.
Names The Guarded Domains of Iran was the common and official name of the Safavid realm, and it remained the country's official title under subsequent rulers until 1924. "The frontiers of the "Guarded Domains of Iran" (Mamalik-i Mahrusa-yi Iran), as the country had been defined since Safavid times, were almost the same as those in the fifth-century definition of Iranshahr in the Sassanian manual, Nama-yi Tansar, and those outlined by four-teenth-century geographer Hamdullah Mustawfi, the author of Nazhat al-Qulub." "The “Guarded Domains of Iran” (Mamalik-e Mahruseh-e Iran), which became the official title of the country, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century, implied decentralized autonomy and acknowledged diversity of cultures and ethnicities. The idea of the “guarded domains" implied the presence of contesting powers at the frontiers. In this notion of Iran, one may argue, there was a realistic recognition not only of its complexity but also of the inherent necessity for the central state." The idea of the Guarded Domains illustrated a feeling of territorial and political uniformity in a society where the Persian language, culture, monarchy, and Shia Islam became integral elements of the developing national identity. The concept presumably had started to form under the Ilkhanate in the late 13th century, contributing to the establishment of the early modern Persianate society. Its shortened form was ("Kingdom of Iran"), and it also had other variants, such as ("the Royal Guarded Domains") and ("the Imperial Guarded Domains").; It was also often shortend as .
The phrase ("the expansive realm of Iran") is used in both the 17th-century chronicle and the 1680s travelogue by the Safavid ambassador to the Ayutthaya Kingdom. This recurring expression highlights the authors' pride and recognition of their homeland. This expression is likely the appropriate Persian way to describe an "empire" in the writings of that period.
Background
Safavid history begins with the establishment of the Zahediyeh Sufi order in Gilan by its eponymous founder Zahed Gilani. Having no male heir, Zahed married his daughter to his favorite disciple, Safi al-Din Ardabili, and appointed him as the spiritual successor of the Zahediyeh order. Safi al-Din succeeded him upon his death in 1301, and through his great spiritual charisma, the Zahediyeh order gained enormous influence in the city of Ardabil—Hamdullah Mustaufi noted that most of the people of Ardabil were followers of Safi al-Din. Consequently, the Zahediyeh gradually became known as the Safaviyya, after the more widely known Safi al-Din.
Religious poetry from Safi al-Din, written in the Old Azari language—a now-extinct Northwestern Iranian language—and accompanied by a paraphrase in Persian that helps its understanding, has survived to this day and has linguistic importance.
After Safī al-Dīn, the leadership of the Safaviyya passed to Sadr al-Dīn Mūsā († 794/1391–92). The order at this time was transformed into a religious movement that conducted religious propaganda throughout Iran, Syria and Asia Minor, and most likely had maintained its Sunni Shafi'ite origin at that time. The leadership of the order passed from Sadr ud-Dīn Mūsā to his son Khvajeh Ali Safavi († 1429) and in turn to his son Ibrāhīm († 1429–1447).
When Shaykh Junayd, the son of Ibrāhim, assumed the leadership of the Safaviyya in 1447, the history of the Safavid movement was radically changed. According to historian Roger Savory, "Sheikh Junayd was not content with spiritual authority and he sought material power." At that time, the most powerful dynasty in Iran was that of the Qara Qoyunlu, the "Black Sheep", whose ruler Jahan Shah ordered Junāyd to leave Ardabil or else he would bring destruction and ruin upon the city. Junayd sought refuge with the rival of Kara Koyunlu Jahan Shah, the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep Turkomans) Khan Uzun Hassan, and cemented his relationship by marrying Uzun Hassan's sister, Khadija Begum. Junayd was killed during an incursion into the territories of the Shirvanshah and was succeeded by his son Haydar Safavi.
Haydar married Alamshah Halime Begum, Uzun Hassan's daughter, possibly named "Martha", who gave birth to Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty. Martha's mother Theodora—better known as Despina Khatun—was a Pontic Greek princess, the daughter of the Grand Komnenos John IV of Trebizond. She had been married to Uzun Hassan in exchange for protection of the Grand Komnenos from the Ottomans.