Gareth Smyth on Persia in Crisis (original) (raw)

Safavid Persia : the history and politics of an Islamic society

1996

The historiography of Safavid prefaces the early years of Shah Ismail in the "Afzal al-tavarikh" and elsewhere the iconography of the "Shah-nama-yi Shahi" kinship ties between the Safavids and the Qizillbash Amirs in late 16th-century Iran - a case study of the political career of members of the Sharaf al-Din Ogli Tekelu family le "Dar al-Saltana" de Qazvin, deuxieme capitale des safavides sufis, dervishes and mullas - the controversy over spiritual and temporal dominion in 17th-century Iran Shii rituals and Power II - the consolidation of Safavid Shiism - folklore and popular religion Shah Abbas and pilgimage to Mashhad "barrier of heterodoxy"? - rethinking the ties between Iran and Persian during the Safavid period - sketch for an "Etat de Langue" similar farmans from the reign of Shah Safi the rise of the Julfa merchants in the late 16th century the Dutch and the Persian silk trade the character of the urbanization of Isfahan in t...

Ghereghlou review of Persia in Crisis

's " Reminiscences of the Maidan-i Shah " combine discussion of the development of Isfahan as imperial capital by Abbas I with the author's childhood memories of growing up in the Safavid royal quarters adjoining the Maidan in the house of his grandmother, a Qajar princess and " first lady of Isfahan. " The house had formerly been the residence of the last Safavid Chief Eunuch and stood amidst a number of other buildings surviving in various states of repair from the Safavid age. Bakhtiar recollects some of these now vanished buildings in vivid and precise detail and gives also fascinating glimpses of the life and uses of the Maidan during the first half of the 20th century. Charles Melville takes as his subject the apparent lack of interest in historical subjects among Safavid painters (in contrast to Timurid, Ottoman, and Mughal practice). An extensive survey of manuscripts allows him to qualify the previously held assumption of Safavid neglect of historical painting. First, he finds that the Timurid tradition of illustrating histories continued under the Safavids, though primarily in 16th century Shiraz before the consolidation of Safavid control there and not, as far as we know, through the patronage of Safavid princes. Second, he notes that while Safavid court chronicles were not illustrated, manuscripts of several popular, romanticized histories did frequently contain pictures. This type of history was preferred for illustration, Melville suggests, because of the epic-romantic nature of the text itself, which lent itself to the kind of pictorial treatment given to the Shahnama and other verse epics and romances. Melville does not challenge the consensus that the Safavids showed little interest in the illustration of contemporary historical events, but he argues that this may have been because the mythologized past, first and foremost in the shape of the Shahnama, provided sufficient outlet for the illustration of idealized royal exploits. The principle difference, he suggests, with Ottoman practice was that Safavid artists, whose patrons remain for the most part unidentified, preferred to depict an idealized past, while their Ottoman counterparts, working for official commissions, concentrated on the present. The final chapter by Paul Losensky is a gem of an article on Safavid architectural chronograms— poems inscribed on buildings to record their date of construction and other information. It opens with an introduction to the subject, based on a single simple chronogram that allows the non-specialist reader to understand the mechanics of this highly specialized genre of poetry. This is followed by a discussion of the variety and complexity of the Safavid chronogram and the breath-taking virtuosity of its exponents. An appendix listing the architectural chronograms examined in researching the chapter provides all that would be needed to introduce students to this class of inscription, which is so important for dating and contextualizing buildings. Regrettably, the book is marred by errors and typographic slips in several chapters. However, despite the uneven quality, this is a useful volume containing several contributions that will become essential reading for those working in the field of Safavid studies. The chapters by Matthee and Losensky also particularly lend themselves for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate teaching. In Persia in Crisis, Rudi Matthee focuses on political and economic trends and events that catalyzed the downfall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722. Drawing on a lifetime of research on socioeconomic history of late Safavid Iran, this book coalesces the conclusions Matthee had already drawn in his

The Decline of Safavid Iran in Comparative Perspective

This essay analyzes the incontrovertible weakening of the Safavid state in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century by putting it in a larger context. It does so by comparing various manifestations of Iran's "decline" at the time to conditions and developments in the adjacent Ottoman and Mughal states, where similar processes were playing out in the same period. In order to arrive at a measured and balanced view of similarities and differences between these three early modern Islamic empires, it singles out and focuses on four areas: geographical/environmental and economic conditions, political developments, the state of the army, and ideological characteristics.

The Rival Nemesis or the Civil Barbarian: Imagining Persian kingship from antiquity to modernity

Ancient and Modern Narratives of the Greco-Persian Wars, 28-29th July, 2022

The concept of the Persian foe was borne in the context of the fifth-century BCE Greco-Persian wars, after which the Greeks systematically associated with Persia notions of barbarism, despotism, and luxury, establishing a collective memory for which to imagine Persian kingship. The reception of the Greco-Persian wars has canonised the Persian kings as a European trope which holds a mirror to the societies that negotiate it, ranging from Herodotus in the 5th century BCE to the 19th century colonial writers. The figure of the Persian is routinely stripped of its cultural identity and reimagined as a trope for leadership, emerging in instances of political tension for varied local interests: as the rival nemesis and as the civil barbarian. Tracing the multidirectional reception of Persian kingship, this paper will reflect on the fundamental question: how did modern Iranians consume the contradictory images of themselves produced by others? Accordingly, it will explore the subsequent impacts of this reception, particularly in its collision in Iran’s engagement with European colonial scholarship of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.