| Tahmasp I طهماسب یکم | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) Shah Tahmasp. Frescoe of the Palace ofChehel Sotoun,Isfahan, commissioned circa 1647 by his fifth-generation descendantAbbas II.[1][2] | |||||
| Shah of Iran | |||||
| Reign | 23 May 1524 – 25 May 1576 | ||||
| Coronation | 2 June 1524 | ||||
| Predecessor | Ismail I | ||||
| Successor | Ismail II | ||||
| Regent | See list
| ||||
| Born | (1514-02-22)22 February 1514 Shahabad, Isfahan,Safavid Iran | ||||
| Died | 25 May 1576(1576-05-25) (aged 62) Qazvin, Safavid Iran | ||||
| Spouse | Many, among them: Sultanum Begum Sultan-Agha Khanum | ||||
| Issue Among others | Mohammad Khodabanda Ismail II | ||||
| |||||
| Dynasty | Safavid | ||||
| Father | Ismail I | ||||
| Mother | Tajlu Khanum | ||||
| Religion | Twelver Shia Islam | ||||
| Seal |  | ||||
Tahmasp I (Persian:طهماسب یکم,romanized: Ṭahmāsb orتهماسب یکمTahmâsb; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the secondshah ofSafavid Iran from 1524 until his death in 1576. He was the eldest son ofShah Ismail I and his principal consort, theMawsillu princessTajlu Khanum.
Tahmasp ascended the throne after the death of his father on 23 May 1524. The first years of Tahmasp's reign were marked by civil wars between theQizilbash leaders until 1532, when he asserted his authority and began anabsolute monarchy. He soon faced along-lasting war with theOttoman Empire, which was divided into three phases. The Ottoman sultan,Suleiman the Magnificent, tried to install his own candidates on the Safavid throne. The war ended with thePeace of Amasya in 1555, with the Ottomans gaining sovereignty overIraq, much ofKurdistan, and westernGeorgia. Tahmasp also had conflicts with theUzbeks ofBukhara overKhorasan, with them repeatedly raidingHerat. In 1528, at the age of fourteen, he defeated the Uzbeks in the Battle of Jam by usingartillery.
Tahmasp was apatron of the arts and was an accomplished painter himself. He built a royal house of arts for painters,calligraphers and poets. Later in his reign, he came to despise poets, shunning many and exiling them to theMughal court of India. Tahmasp is known for his religious piety and fervent zealotry for theShia branch of Islam. He bestowed many privileges on the clergy and allowed them to participate in legal and administrative matters. In 1544 he demanded that the fugitive Mughal emperorHumayun convert to Shi'ism in return for military assistance to reclaim his throne in India. Nevertheless, Tahmasp still negotiated alliances with the Christian powers of theRepublic of Venice and theHabsburg monarchy who were also rivals of the Ottoman Empire.
Tahmasp's succession was disputed even before his death; after his death a civil war erupted, causing the deaths of most of the royal family. His reign, spanning nearly fifty-two years, was the longest of any Safavid ruler. While contemporary Western accounts were critical of him, modern historians recognize Tahmasp as a courageous and capable commander who preserved and expanded his father's empire. His reign marked a pivotal shift in Safavid ideological policy: he ended theTurkoman Qizilbash tribes' veneration of his father as theMessiah and instead established himself as a pious and orthodox Shia king. Tahmasp also initiated a long-term process, later continued by his successors, to diminish Qizilbash influence in Safavid politics. This was achieved by introducing a "third force" composed ofIslamizedGeorgians andArmenians.
"Tahmasp" (Persian:طهماسب,romanized: Ṭahmāsb) is aNew Persian name, ultimately derived fromOld Iranian*ta(x)ma-aspa, meaning "having valiant horses."[3] The name is one of the few instances of a name from theepic poemShahnameh (The Book of Kings) being used by an Islamic-era dynasty based in Iran.[4] In theShahnameh, Tahmasp is the father ofZaav, the penultimateshah of themythical PersianPishdadian dynasty.[5]
Tahmasp was the second shah of the Safavid dynasty, a family ofKurdish origin,[6] who weresheikhs of aSufitariqa (school of Sufism) known as theSafavid order and centred inArdabil, a city in the northwestern Iran.[7] The first sheikh of the order and eponym of the dynasty,Safi-ad-din Ardabili (d. 1334), married the daughter ofZahed Gilani (d. 1301) and became the master of his father-in-law's order, theZahediyeh.[8] Two of Safi-ad-Din's descendants,Shaykh Junayd (d. 1460) and his son,Shaykh Haydar (d. 1488), made the order more militant and unsuccessfully tried to expand their domain.[7]
Tahmasp's father,Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), who inherited the leadership the Safavid order from his brother,Ali Mirza, became shah of Iran in 1501, a state mired in civil war after the collapse of theTimurid Empire. He conquered the territories of theAq Qoyunlu tribalconfederation, the lands of theChinggisid[10] (Descendant of Genghis Khan)UzbekShaybanid dynasty in the eastern Iran, and many city-states by 1512.[11] Ismail's realm included the whole territory of modernIran, in addition to sovereignty overGeorgia,Armenia,Daghestan, andShirvan in the west, andHerat in the east.[12] Unlike his Sufist ancestors, Ismail believed inTwelver Shia Islam and made it the official religion of the realm.[13] Heforced conversion on theSunni population by abolishing Sunni Sufi orders, seizing their property, and giving the Sunniulama (Islamic clergymen) a choice of conversion, death, or exile.[14] From this, apower vacuum emerged which allowed the Shiaulama to create a clerical aristocracy filled withseyyid (descendant ofMuhammad) andmujtahid (Islamic scholar expert in theIslamic law) landowners.[15]
Ismail established theQizilbashTurkoman tribes as inseparable members of the Safavid administration since they were the "men of the sword" who brought him to power.[11][16] These "men of the sword" clashed with the other major part of his bureaucracy, the "men of the pen", who controlled the literati and were mainlyPersian. Ismail created the title ofvakil-e nafs-e nafs-e homayoun (deputy to the king) to resolve the dispute.[11] The title ofvakil surpassed both theamir al-umara (commander-in-chief; mostly bestowed upon Qizilbash leaders), and thevizier (minister and head of the bureaucracy) in authority. The holder of the title was thevicegerent of Ismail and represented him in the royal court.[17] The creation of this new superior title could not cease the clashes between the Qizilbash leaders and Persian bureaucrats, which eventually climaxed in theBattle of Ghazdewan between the Safavids and the Uzbeks, in which Ismail'svakil, the PersianNajm-e Sani, commended the army. The Uzbek victory, during which Najm was captured and executed afterwards, was the result of the desertion of many of the Qizilbash.[18]
The Uzbeks ofBukhara were a recurring problem on the Iranian eastern borders. The Safavids and the Shaybanids rose to power almost simultaneously at the turn of the sixteenth century.[19] By 1503, when Ismail I had taken possession of large parts of theIranian plateau,Muhammad Shaybani, Khan of Bukhara (r. 1500–1510), had conqueredKhwarazm andKhorasan. Ismail defeated and killed Muhammad Shaybani in theBattle of Marv in 1510, returning Khorasan to Iranian possession, though Khwarazm and thePersianate cities inTransoxiana remained in Uzbek hands.[19] Thereafter the possession of Khorasan became the main bone of contention between Safavids and Shaybanids.[19]
In 1514, Ismail's prestige and authority were damaged by his loss in theBattle of Chaldiran against theOttoman Empire. Before the war with the Ottomans, Ismail promoted himself as a reincarnation ofAli orHusayn.[20] This belief weakened after Chaldiran, and Ismail lost his theological-religious relationship with the disappointed Qizilbash tribes who had previously seen him as invincible.[21] This affected Ismail, who begandrinking heavily and never again led an army; this permitted the seizure of power by the Qizilbash tribes which overshadowed Tahmasp's early reign.[22]
._Anthology_made_for_Bahram_Mirza_(1517%25E2%2580%259349)%2c_before_1549._Istanbul%2c_Topkap%25C4%25B1_Palace_Museum%2c_R._957%2c_fol._2a.jpg)
Abu'l-Fath Tahmasp Mirza[23][b] was born on 22 February 1514 inShahabad, a village nearIsfahan, as the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, princessTajlu Khanum from theMawsillu tribe of theAq Qoyunlu confederation.[c][25] According to the narrative told by Iraniannaqqals (coffeehouse storytellers), on the night of Tahmasp's birth, a storm erupted, with wind, rain, and lightning. Tajlu Khanum, feeling her labour pains beginning, suggested that the royal caravan camp in some village. The royal caravan thus headed to Shahabad. Thekadkhoda (warden) of the village was a Sunni and did not let Tajlu Khanum enter his house, but a Shia resident of the village welcomed her into his modest house.[26] By then, Tajlu Begum's pain had made her faint, and shortly after entering the house gave birth to a son.[27] When the news reached Ismail, he was reportedly "heaped" with utmost joy and happiness, but refrained from seeing his son until his astrologers gave him an auspicious date to do so. When the auspicious hour arrived, the young boy was presented to Ismail and astrologers foresaw his future to be one entwisted with war and peace and that he would have many sons.[28] Ismail named the boy Tahmasp after Ali, the firstImam, told him to do so in his dream.[29] From the same parents, Tahmasp later had a brother,Bahram Mirza Safavi, and two sisters,Parikhan Khanum andMahinbanu Soltanum, who all came to have important political and cultural roles.[30]
In 1516, when Tahmasp Mirza was two years old, the province of Khorasan became hisfief by Ismail's order.[23] This appointment was specially done to emulate theTimurid dynasty, that followed theTurco-Mongol tradition of appointing the eldest son of a sovereign to govern a prominent province like Khorasan. The centre of this major province, the city of Herat, would go on to be the city where Safavid crown princes were raised, trained, and educated throughout the sixteenth century.[32] In 1517, Ismail appointed theDiyarbakr governor Amir Soltan Mawsillu as Tahmasp'slala (tutor) and governor ofBalkh, a city in Khorasan.[33] He replaced theShamlu andMawsillu governors of Khorasan, who did not join his army during the Battle of Chaldiran for fear of famine.[34] Placing Tahmasp in Herat was an attempt to reduce the growing influence of the Shamlu tribe, which dominated Safavid court politics and held a number of powerful governorships.[25] Ismail also appointed Amir Ghiyath al-Din Mohammad, a prominent Herat figure, as Tahmasp's religious tutor.[25]
A struggle for control of Herat emerged between the two tutors. Amir Soltan arrested Ghiyath al-Din and executed him the following day, but was ousted from his position in 1521 by a sudden raid by the Uzbeks who crossed theAmu Darya and seized portions of the city.[35] Ismail appointedDiv Sultan Rumlu as Tahmasp'slala, and the governorship was given to his younger son,Sam Mirza Safavi.[25] During his years in Herat, Tahmasp developed a love for writing and painting. He became an accomplished painter and dedicated a work to his brother,Bahram Mirza.The painting was a humorous composition of a gathering of Safavid courtiers, featuring music, singing, and wine-drinking.[36]
In the spring of 1524, Ismail became ill on a hunting trip toGeorgia and recovered in Ardabil on his way back to the capital.[37] But he soon developed a high fever which led to his death on 23 May 1524 inTabriz.[38]
The ten-year-old Tahmasp ascended the throne after his father's death under the guardianship of Div Sultan Rumlu, hislala, thede facto ruler of the realm.[25] Rule by a member of theRumlu tribe was unacceptable to the other Turkoman tribes of the Qizilbash, especially theOstajlu andTakkalu.[40] Kopek Sultan, governor of Tabriz and leader of Ostajlu, along with Chuha Sultan, leader of the Takkalu tribe, were Div Sultan Rumlu's strongest opponents.[40] The Takkalu were powerful in Isfahan andHamadan, and the Ostajlu held Khorasan and the Safavid capital, Tabriz.[25] Rumlu proposed atriumvirate to the two leaders which was accepted, the terms were for sharing the office ofamir al-umara.[25] The triumvirate proved unsustainable, since all sides were dissatisfied with their share of power. In the spring of 1526, a series of battles in northwest Iran between these tribes expanded into Khorasan and became a civil war.[41] The Ostajlu faction was quickly excluded and their leader, Kopek Sultan, was killed by order of Chuha Sultan.[42] During the civil war, the Uzbeks raiders temporarily seizedTus andAstarabad. Div Sultan Rumlu was blamed for the raids and was executed.[25] His execution was performed by Tahmasp himself.[40]
At the behest of the young king, Chuha Sultan, the sole remaining member of the triumvirate, becamede facto ruler of the realm from 1527 to 1530.[42] Chuha tried to remove Herat from Shamlu dominance, which led to a conflict between the two tribes. In early 1530, the Herat governor,Hossein Khan Shamlu, and his men killed Chuha and executed every Takkalu in the retinue of the shah in the royal camp.[40] This provoked the Takkalu tribe to rebellion, and a few days later, in an act of retaliation, they attacked the shah's retinue in Hamadan. One of the tribesman attempted to abduct the young Tahmasp, who had him put to death. Then Tahmasp ordered the general slaughter of the Takkalu tribe; many were killed, and many fled to Baghdad, where the governor, himself a Takkalu, put some to death to prove his loyalty. Eventually, the remaining Takkalu managed to flee to the Ottoman Empire.[43] In the contemporary chronicles, the downfall of Chuha Sultan and the massacre of his tribe is dubbed "the Takkalu pestilence".[25] Hossein Khan Shamlu thereafter assumed Chuha Sultan's position with the consent of the Qizilbash leaders.[43]
While the civil war was ongoing among the Qizilbash, the Uzbeks underUbayd Allah Khan conquered the borderlands.[44] In 1528, Ubayd reconquered Astarabad and Tus and besieged Herat. Fourteen-year-old Tahmasp commanded the army and defeated the Uzbeks, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Jam.[25] Safavid superiority in the battle was due to many different factors, one of them being their use of artillery, which they had learned from the Ottomans.[45] The then governor of Herat and Tahmasp's regent, Hossein Khan Shamlu, distinguished himself during the battle and earned the respect of the shah.[32] The victory, however, reduced neither the Uzbek threat nor the realm's internal chaos, since Tahmasp had to return to the west to suppress a rebellion in Baghdad.[46] That year, the Uzbeks captured Herat; however, they allowed Sam Mirza to return to Tabriz. Their occupation did not last long, and Tahmasp drove them out in the summer of 1530. He appointed his brother, Bahram Mirza, governor of Khorasan and Ghazi Khan Takkalu, as Bahram's tutor.[47]
By this point, Tahmasp had turned seventeen, and thus no longer needed a regent. Hossein Khan Shamlu circumvented this challenge by having himself named as the steward to Tahmasp's newborn son,Mohammad Mirza.[48] Hossein Khan constantly undermined the shah's power and had angered Tahmasp many times. His confidence in his power, combined with the rumours that Hossein Khan intended to depose Tahmasp and place his brother, Sam Mirza, on the throne, finally led Tahmasp to rid himself of the powerful Shamlu amir.[49] Thus Hossein Khan was overthrown and executed in 1533.[40] His fall was a turning point for Tahmasp, who now knew that each Turkoman leader would favour his tribe. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash and gave the "men of the pen" bureaucracy greater power, ending the regency.[44][50]
Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566), sultan of the Ottoman Empire, may have considered a strong Safavid empire a threat to his ambitious plans in the west and northwest of his realm. During the first decade of Tahmasp's reign, however, he was preoccupied with fighting theHabsburgs and the unsuccessfulattempt to seize Vienna.[51] In 1532, while the Ottomans were fighting in Hungary, Suleiman sent Olama Beg Takkalu with 50,000 troops under Fil Pasha to Iran.[25] Olama Beg was one of many Takkalu members who, after Chuha's death, took refuge in the Ottoman Empire.[52] The Ottomans seized Tabriz and Kurdistan, and tried to obtain support fromGilan province.[53] Tahmasp drove the Ottomans out, but news of another Uzbek invasion prevented him from defeating them.[25] Suleiman sent his grand vizier,Ibrahim Pasha, to occupy Tabriz in July 1534 and joined him two months later.[51] Suleiman peacefully conquered Baghdad and Shia cities such asNajaf.[53] Whilst the Ottomans were on the march, Tahmasp was in Balkh, campaigning against the Uzbeks.[25]
The first Ottoman invasion caused the greatest crisis of Tahmasp's reign. Its events however are difficult to reconstruct; on an unknown date, an agent from the Shamlu tribe unsuccessfully tried to poison Tahmasp; they revolted against the shah, who had recently asserted his authority by removing Hossein Khan.[54][55] Seeking to dethrone Tahmasp, they chose one of his younger brothers, Sam Mirza (who had a Shamlu guardian) as their candidate. The rebels then contacted Suleiman and asked him for support in enthroning Sam Mirza, who promised to follow a pro-Ottoman policy.[25] Suleiman recognised him as ruler of Iran, which panicked Tahmasp's court.[55] Tahmasp reconquered the seized territory when Suleiman went toMesopotamia, and Suleiman led another campaign against him. Tahmasp attacked his rearguard, and Suleiman was forced to retreat toIstanbul at the end of 1535 after losing all his gains except Baghdad.[54] After confronting the Ottomans, Tahmasp rushed to Khorasan to defeat his brother. Sam Mirza surrendered and sought mercy from Tahmasp. The shah accepted his brother's pleads and banished him to Qazvin but otherwise executed many of his advisors, namely, his Shamlu guardian.[56]
Relations with the Ottomans remained hostile until the revolt ofAlqas Mirza, another one of Tahmasp's younger brothers, who had led the Safavid army during the 1534–35 Ottoman invasion and was governor ofShirvan.[57] He led an unsuccessful revolt against Tahmasp, who conqueredDerbant in the spring of 1547 and appointed his sonIsmail as governor.[58] Alqas fled toCrimea with his remaining forces and took refuge with Suleiman. He promised to restore Sunni Islam in Iran and encouraged the Sultan to lead another campaign against Tahmasp.[59][60] The new invasion sought the quick capture of Tabriz in July 1548; it soon became clear, however, that Alqas Mirza's claims of support from all the Qizilbash leaders were untrue. The long campaign focused on looting, plundering Hamadan,Qom, andKashan before being stopped at Isfahan.[25] Tahmasp did not fight the exhausted Ottoman army but laid waste the entire region from Tabriz to the frontier; the Ottomans could not permanently occupy the captured lands, since they soon ran out of supplies.[44]
Eventually, Alqas Mirza was captured on the battlefield and imprisoned in a fortress, where he died. Suleiman ended his campaign, and by the fall of 1549 the remaining Ottoman forces retreated.[61] The Ottoman sultan launched his last campaign against the Safavids in May 1554, whenIsmail Mirza (Tahmasp's son) invaded eastern Anatolia and defeated Erzerum governor Iskandar Pasha. Suleiman marched fromDiyarbakr towards ArmenianKarabakh and reconquered the lost lands.[62] Tahmasp divided his army into four corps and sent each in a different direction, indicating a Safavid army that had grown much larger than it was in the previous wars. With Tahmasp's Safavids holding the advantage, Suleiman had to retreat.[63] The Ottomans negotiated thePeace of Amasya, in which Tahmasp recognised Ottoman sovereignty in Mesopotamia and much of Kurdistan; furthermore, as an act of obeisance towards Sunni Islam and Sunnis, he banned the holding ofOmar Koshan (a festival commemorating the assassination of the second caliphUmar ibn al-Khattab) and expressing hatred towards theRashidun caliphs, who are held dear by the Sunni Muslims. The Ottomans allowed Iranian pilgrims to travel freely toMecca,Medina,Karbala, and Najaf.[53][64] Through this treaty, Iran had time to increase its forces and resources as its western provinces had the opportunity to recuperate from the war.[64] This peace also demarcated the Ottoman-Safavid frontier in the north-west without the cession of large areas of territory on the Safavid side.[44] These terms, in circumstances favourable to the Safavids, were evidence of the frustration felt by Suleiman the Magnificent at his inability to inflict a greater defeat on the Safavids.[44]
Tahmasp was interested in theCaucasus, especially Georgia, for two reasons: to reduce the influence of the Ostajlu tribe (who kept their lands in southern Georgia and Armenia after the 1526 civil war) and a desire for booty, similar to that of his father. Since the Georgians were mainly Christian, he used the pretext ofJihad (Islamic armed struggle against nonbelievers) to justify the invasion.[66] Between 1540 and 1553, Tahmasp led fourcampaigns against the Georgian kingdoms.[67] The Safavid army lootedTbilisi, including its churches and the wives and children of the nobility, in the first campaign.[68] Tahmasp also forced the governor of Tbilisi, Golbad, to convert to Islam. TheKing of Kartli,Luarsab I (r. 1527/1534–1556/1558), managed to escape and went to hiding during Tahmasp's raiding.[69] During his second invasion, ostensibly to ensure the stability of Georgian territory, he looted the farms and subjugatedLevan of Kakheti (r. 1518/1520–1574).[70] One year before the Peace of Amasya in 1554, Tahmasp led his last military campaign into the Caucasus. Throughout his campaigns, he took many prisoners, and this time he brought 30,000Georgians to Iran. Luarsab's mother, Nestan Darejan was captured during these campaigns, but committed suicide upon incarceration.[24] The descendants of these prisoners formed a "third force" in the Safavid administration and bureaucracy with the Turkomans and Persians and became a main rival to the other two during the later years of the Safavid Empire.[68] Although this "third force" came to power two generations later during the reign of Tahmasp's grandson,Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629), it began infiltrating Tahmasp's army during the second quarter of his reign asgholams (slave warriors) andqorchis (royal bodyguards of the shah) and became more influential at the apex of the Safavid empire.[71]
In 1555, following the Peace of Amasya, eastern Georgia remained in Iranian hands and western Georgia was ruled by the Turks.[72] Never again did Tahmasp appear on the Caucasus frontier after the treaty. Instead, the Governor of Georgia,Shahverdi Sultan, represented Safavid power north of theAras River.[24] Tahmasp sought to establish his dominance by imposing several Iranian political and social institutions and placing converts to Islam on the thrones of Kartli andKakheti; one wasDavud Khan, brother ofSimon I of Kartli (r. 1556–1569, 1578–1599).[68] Son of Levan of Kakheti,Prince Jesse also appeared in Qazvin during the 1560s and converted to Islam. In return, Tahmasp granted him favours and gifts. The prince was given the old royal palace for his residence in Qazvin, and became the governor ofShaki and adjacent territories.[24] The conversion of these Georgian princes did not dissuade the Georgian forces who tried to reconquer Tbilisi under Simon I and his father, Luarsab I of Kartli, in theBattle of Garisi; the battle ended in astalemate, with Luarsab and the Safavid commander Shahverdi Sultan both slain in battle.[73]
_and_Tahmasp_I_(right)_in_Isfahan_in_1544._Chehel_Sotoun_Palace%2c_painted_circa_1647.jpg)
One of the most celebrated events of Tahmasp's reign was the visit ofHumayun (r. 1530–1540), the eldest son ofBabur (r. 1526–1530) and emperor of theMughal Empire, who faced rebellions by his brothers.[75] Humayun fled to Herat, travelled throughMashhad,Nishapur,Sabzevar, andQazvin, and met Tahmasp atSoltaniyeh in 1544.[76] Tahmasp honoured Homayun as a guest and gave him an illustrated version ofSaadi'sGulistan dating back to the reign ofAbu Sa'id Mirza (r. 1451–1469, 1459–1469), Humayun's great-grandfather;[77][78] however, he refused to give him political assistance unless he converted to Shia Islam. Humayun reluctantly agreed, but reverted to Sunni Islam when he returned to India; however he did not force the Iranian Shias, who came with him to India, to convert.[75] Tahmasp also demanded aquid pro quo in which the city ofKandahar would be given to his infant son, Morad Mirza.[76][79] Humayun spentNowruz in the Shah's court and left in 1545 with an army provided by Tahmasp to regain his lost lands; his first conquest was Kandahar, which he ceded to the young Safavid prince.[80] Morad Mirza soon died, however, and the city became a bone of contention between the two empires: the Safavids claimed that it had been given to them inperpetuity, while the Mughals maintained that it had been anappanage that expired with the death of the prince.[76] Tahmasp began the first Safavid expedition to Kandahar in 1558, after the death of Humayun, and reconquered the city.[55]
Another notable visitor to Tahmasp's court wasŞehzade Bayezid, the fugitive Ottoman prince who rebelled against his father, Suleiman the Magnificent, and went to the Shah in the autumn 1559 with an army of 10,000 to persuade him to begin a war against the Ottomans.[81] Although he honoured Bayezid, Tahmasp did not want to disturb the Peace of Amasya.[82][83] Suspecting that Bayezid was planning a coup, he had him arrested and returned to the Ottomans; Bayezid and his children were immediately executed.[81]
In 1555, Shah Tahmasp transferred the capital from Tabriz to Qazvin, located at a greater distance from the Ottoman Empire.[84] In 1556, he promulgated his"Edict of Sincere Repentance", an affirmation of piety and formal religiosity which involved his renunciation of "undisciplined passions", including dancing, music, wine, sodomy, and painting.[85]
Although Tahmasp rarely left Qazvin from the Peace of Amasya in 1555 to his death in 1576, he was still active during this period. A 1564 rebellion in Herat was suppressed by Masum Bek and the Khorasan governors, but the region remained troubled and was raided by the Uzbeks two years later.[86] Tahmasp became seriously ill in 1574 and neared death twice in two months.[81] Since he had not chosen a crown prince, the question of succession was raised by members of the royal family and Qizilbash leaders. His favourite son,Haydar Mirza, was supported by the Ustajlu tribe and the powerful Georgian court faction; the imprisoned prince Ismail Mirza was supported byPari Khan Khanum, Tahmasp's influential daughter.[87][d] The pro-Haydar faction tried to eliminate Ismail by winning the favour of the castellan ofQahqaheh Castle (where Ismail was imprisoned), but Pari Khan learned about the plot and informed Tahmasp; the shah, who was still fond of his son, ordered him to be guarded byAfshar musketeers.[89]
Tahmasp, recovered from his illness, returned his attention to affairs of state. Remaining court tensions, however, triggered another civil war when the shah died on 14 May 1576 from poisoning.[90] The poisoning was blamed on Abu Naser Gilani, a physician who attended Tahmasp when he was ill. According toTarikh-e Alam-ara-ye Abbasi, "He unwisely sought recognition of his superior status vis-à-vis the other physicians; as a result, when Tahmasp died, Abu Nasr was accused of treachery in the treatment he had prescribed, and he was put to death within the palace by members of thequrchi".[44] Tahmasp I had the longest reign of any member of the Safavid dynasty: nine days short of fifty-two years.[44] He died without a designated heir and the two factions in his court clashed for the throne. Haydar Mirza was murdered not long after his father's death, and Ismail Mirza became king and was crowned Ismail II (r. 1576–1577). Less than two months after his enthronement, Ismail ordered a mass purge of all male members of the royal family. Only Mohammad Khodabanda, already nearly blind, and his three toddler sons survived this purge.[58]
Shah Tahmasp was buried at theImam Reza shrine inMashhad, a prestigious shrine he had greatly supported and renovated.[91] Soon after his burial though, the fear ofUzbek incursions in Mashhad ledIsmail II to move the body, and its final resting place is now uncertain.[91]
._Khamsa_of_Nizami%2c_painted_by_Aqa_Mirak%2c_circa_1539-1543._British_Museum_OR_2265%2c_folio_26.jpg)
Tahmasp's reign after the civil wars between the Qizilbash leaders became a "personal rule" that sought to control Turkoman influence by empowering the Persian bureaucracy. The key change was the 1535 appointment ofQazi Jahan Qazvini, who extended diplomacy beyond Iran by establishing contact with thePortuguese, theVenetians, the Mughals, and the ShiiteDeccan sultanates.[92]English explorerAnthony Jenkinson, who was received at the Safavid court in 1562, also sought to promote trade.[44] The Habsburgs were eager to ally with the Safavids against the Ottomans. In 1529,Ferdinand I (r. 1558–1564) sent an envoy to Iran with the objective of a two-front attack on the Ottoman Empire the following year. The mission was unsuccessful, however, since the envoy took over a year to return.[93] The first extant Safavid letters to a European power were sent in 1540 toDoge of VenicePietro Lando (r. 1538–1545). In response, the Doge and theGreat Council of Venice commissioned Michel Membré to visit the Safavid court. In 1540, he visited Tahmasp's encampment atMarand, near Tabriz. Membré's mission lasted for three years, during which, he wrote theRelazione di Persia, one of the few European sources which describe Tahmasp's court.[94] In his letter to Lando, Tahmasp promised to "cleanse the earth of [Ottoman] wickedness" with the help of theHoly League. The alliance, however, never bore fruit.[95]
One of the most important events of Tahmasp's reign was his relocation of the Safavid capital, which began what is known as the Qazvin period.[96] Although the exact date is uncertain, Tahmasp began preparations to have the royal capital moved from Tabriz to Qazvin during a 1540s period of ethnic re-settlement.[25] The move from Tabriz to Qazvin discontinued the Turco-Mongol tradition of shifting between summer and winter pastures with the herds, ending Ismail I's nomadic lifestyle.[97] The idea of a Turkoman state with a center in Tabriz was abandoned for an empire centered on theIranian plateau.[98] Moving into a city that linked the realm to Khorasan through anancient route, allowed a greater degree of centralisation as distant provinces such as Shirvan, Georgia, and Gilan were brought into the Safavid fold.[99] The incorporation of Gilan in particular was vital to the Safavids. To ensure his permanent control on the province, Tahmasp arranged royal marriages with the influential families in Gilan.[100] Qazvin's non-Qizilbash population allowed Tahmasp to bring new members to his court who were unrelated to the Turkoman tribes.[f][25] The city, associated with orthodoxy and stable governance, developed under Tahmasp's patronage; the era's foremost building isChehel Sotoun.[101]
From the transition of capitals, a new era in history-writing emerged under Tahmasp's rule.[102] The Safavid historiography, which until then relied only on historians outside of Safavid's influence, matured and became a valued project in Tahmasp's new court.[103] Tahmasp is the only Safavid monarch to have recorded his memories, known asTazkera-ye Shah Tahmasb.[103] On the shah's behalf,Abdi Beg Shirazi, a secretary-accountant in the royal chancellery, wrote a world history namedTakmelat al-akhbar, which he dedicated it to Pari Khan Khanum, Tahmasp's daughter. Although intended to be a world history, only the last part of the book which covers the reigns of Ismail I and Tahmasp up until 1570 was published.[104] He also commissioned Abol-Fath Hosseini to rewriteSafvat as-safa, the oldest surviving text regarding Safi-ad-din Ardabili and the Sufi beliefs of the Safavids, in order to legitimise hissayyid claim.[103] All of the historians under Tahmasp's patronage centred their works around one main goal: to tell the history of the Safavid dynasty. They defined themselves as 'Safavid' historians, as living in a Safavid period of Iranian history, a concept that had not been seen in the earlier chronicles of the dynasty. This new definition has its roots in the change of the capital and the urbanisation of the Safavid nomadic lifestyle. Historians such asCharles Melville and Sholeh Quinn thus consider Tahmasp's reign as the start of the "real flourishing of Safavid historiography".[105]
TheSafavid military evolved during Tahmasp's reign. The first corps ofgunners (tupchiyan) andmusketeers (tufangchiyan), developed initially during Ismail I's reign, came to be used in his army. A court chronicle's retelling of Battle of Jam and a military review in 1530 show that the Safavid army was armed with several hundred light canons and several thousand infantrymen.[109]Gollar-aghasis, military slaves developed by Tahmasp from Caucasus prisoners, commanded thetufangchiyan andtupchiyan.[110] To lessen Qizilbash power, he discontinued the titles ofamir al-umara andvakil.[44] Thequrchi-bashi (the commander of thequrchis), formerly subordinate to theamir al-umara, became the chief Safavid military officer.[49]
After the Peace of Amasya in 1555, Tahmasp became an avaricious person who did not care how and where his troops obtained their pay, even if it was through criminal means. By 1575, Iran's troops had not been paid for four years. They are said to have accepted this because, as one chronicler put it, 'they loved the shah so much'.[111]
Tahmasp described himself as a "pious Shia mystic king".[112] His religious views and the extent to which they influenced Safavid religious policy is the most interesting aspect of his reign for historians, both contemporary and modern. As the Italian historianBiancamaria Scarcia Amoretti has noted, "the modern originality of Persian Shi'ism has its roots [with Shah Tahmasp]".[25] Until 1533, the Qizilbash leaders (worshipping Ismail I as the promisedMahdi) urged the young Tahmasp to continue in his father's footsteps; that year, he had a spiritual rebirth, performed an act ofrepentance and outlawed irreligious behaviour.[113]
Tahmasp rejected his father's claim of being a mahdi, becoming a mystical lover ofAli and a king bound tosharia,[115] but still enjoyed villagers travelling to his palace in Qazvin to touch his clothing.[25] Tahmasp held firmly to the controversial Shia belief in theimminent coming of the Mahdi. He refused to allow his favourite sister, Mahinbanu Soltanum, to marry, because he was keeping her as a bride for the Mahdi.[116] He claimed connections with Ali and Sufi saints, such as his ancestor Safi al-Din, through dreams in which he foresaw the future.[117] Tahmasp had other superstitious beliefs too; for instance, his obsession with theoccult science ofgeomancy. According to the Venetian diplomat,Vincenzo degli Alessandri, the shah was so devoted to practice geomancy that he had not left his palace for a decade.[118] He also observed that Tahmasp was worshipped by his people as a godlike being possessing a frail and old body.[118] Tahmasp wanted the poets of his court to write about Ali, rather than him.[119] He sent copies of theQuran as gifts to several Ottoman sultans; overall, during his reign, eighteen copies of the Quran were sent to Istanbul and all were encrusted with jewels and gold.[120]
Tahmasp sawTwelverism as a new doctrine of kingship, giving theulama authority in religious and legal matters, and appointing Shaykh Ali al-Karaki as the deputy of theHidden Imam.[112] This brought new political and court power to themullahs (Islamic clerics),sayyids, and their networks, intersecting Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan, and the recently incorporated centres ofRasht, Astarabad, andAmol.[121] As observed byIskandar Beg Munshi, the courtchronicler, thesayyids as a class of landed elite enjoyed considerable power. During the 1530s and 1540s, they hegemonised the Safavid court in Tabriz and according to Iskandar Beg, "any wish of theirs was translated into reality almost before it was uttered… although they were guilty of unlawful practices".[122] During Tahmasp's reign, Persian scholars accepted the Safavid claims tosayyid heritage and called him "theHusaynid".[123] Tahmasp embarked on a wide-scale urban program designed to reinvent the city of Qazvin as a centre of Shiite piety and orthodoxy, expanding theShrine of Husayn (son ofAli al-Rida, the eighth Imam).[124] He was also attentive to his ancestral Sufi order in Ardabil, building the Janat Sarai mosque to encourage visitors and holdSama (Sufi spiritual ceremony).[125] Tahmasp ordered the practice of Sufi rituals and had Sufis andmullahs come to his palace and perform public acts of piety andzikr (a form of Islamic meditation) forEid al-Fitr (and renew their allegiance to him). This encouraged Tahmasp's followers to see themselves as belonging to a community too large to be bound by tribal or other local social orders.[126] Although Tahmasp continued the Shia conversion in Iran, unlike his father he did not coerce other religious groups; he had a long-established acknowledgment and patronage of Christian Armenians.[127]
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In his youth, Tahmasp was inclined towardscalligraphy andart and patronised masters in both.[25] His preeminent and acclaimed contribution to the Safavid arts was his patronage ofPersian miniature manuscripts that took place during the first half of his reign.[129] He was thenamesake of one of the most celebrated illustrated manuscripts of theShahnameh, which was commissioned by his father around 1522 and completed during the mid-1530s.[130] He encouraged painters such asKamāl ud-Dīn Behzād,[131] bestowing a royal painting workshop for masters,journeymen, and apprentices with exotic materials such as ground gold andlapis lazuli. Tahmasp's artists illustrated theKhamsa of Nizami,[132] and he worked on Chehel Sotoun's balcony paintings.[133] TheTarikh-e Alam-ara-ye Abbasi calls Tahmasp's reign the zenith of Safavid calligraphic and pictorial art.[25] Tahmasp lost interest in the miniature arts around 1555 and, accordingly, disbanded the royal workshop and allowed his artists to practice elsewhere, particularly at theMughal court ofHumayun (artistsMirza Ali andMir Sayyid Ali).[134][135] His patronage of arts, however, has been praised by many modernart historians such asJames Elkins andStuart Cary Welch.[136][137] The American historian, Douglas Streusand, calls him 'the greatest Safavid patron'.[138] Colin P. Mitchell associates Tahmasp's patronage with the revival of Iranian artistic and cultural life.[25]
The reigns of Tahmasp and his father, Ismail I, are considered as the most productive era of the history of theAzeri Turkish language andliterature. The renowned poet,Fuzuli, who wrote in Azeri Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, flourished during this era.[139] In his memoir, Tahmasp denotes his love for both Persian and Turkish poetry.[140] During the later years of his life, however, he came to despise poets and poetry; as his devotion to the Quran increased, he no longer counted poets as pious men, for many of them were addicted to wine, an irreligious behaviour. Tahmasp refused to allow poets in his court and ceased to regard them with favour.[141] According toTazkera-ye Tohfe-ye Sāmi by his brother, Sam Mirza, there were 700 poets during the reigns of the first two Safavid kings. After Tahmasp's religious conversion, many joined Humayun; those who remained and wrote eroticghazals (sonnets), such asVahshi Bafqi andMohtasham Kashani, were shunned.[25][142] Other poets such asNaziri Nishapuri and'Orfi Shirazi chose to leave Iran andemigrate to the Mughal court, where they pioneered the rise ofIndian-style poetry (Sabk-i Hindi), known for its high-rhetorical texts of metaphors, mystical-philosophical themes and allegories.[143][144]
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Like his father, Shah Tahmasp at the beginning of his reign (1524–1555) stayed rather inactive in architectural matters, contenting himself with restorations and embellishments, always along the lines of the dynasties which preceded him. In Tabriz, his capital until the tranfer to Qazvin in 1555, Shah Tahmasp had inherited and continued to occupy the Aq QoyunluHasht Behesht Palace.[147] The Palace appears in the early Safavid paintingNighttime in a City, dated circa 1540 from Tabriz, with the ruler sitting in its center holding court.[146]
In terms of renovations, the great mosques ofKerman,Shiraz and Isfahan, and the sanctuaries ofMashhad andArdabil benefited from his attention.[148] In Ardabil, one can cite thefuneral tower of Shah Ismail, which was commissioned by Shah Ismail's wifeTajlu Khanum in 1524, at the beginning of Shah Tahmasp's reign.[148] But during the whole of the 16th century, no new congregational mosques were built in Persia, despite their centuries-old role in the affirmation of Imperial power, possibly out of religious misgivings due to theological disputes about the religious acceptability of Friday prayers in the absence of theMahdi, or because of the general instability of the Safavid realm during this period.[149]
In Ardabil, theJannatsarā is one of the rare instances of architectural contribution by Shah Tahmasp. Situated at the north-west of the Safavid tombs in theSheikh Safi al-Din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble, it dates to the years 1536–1540.[148] Its main use is still debated, but it seems to have been designed as an assembly and prayer hall for the ecstatic ceremonies of Sufi followers.[148] Some remarkable carpets, theArdabil Carpets, were likely created to adorn the building.
The usage of tents remained central for the accommodation of Safavid princes.[150] Shah Tahmasp maintained a royal encampment in Tabriz, which was witnessed by the Venetian traveler Michele Membre. The royal camp amounted to about 5,000 tents used to house the king with his retinue and troops. This indicates a duality in the life style of Safavid rulers, not unlike many of their nomadic predecessors, alternating life between temporary settlements such as tents, and permanent buildings.[150]
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In the second half of his reign circa 1555-56, Shah Tahmasp moved his capital from Tabriz toQazvin, away from the constant threat of the Ottoman Empire.[147] Tahmasp organized the gardens ofSadatabad in Qazvin, his new capital. These, like all Persian gardens, were divided in four by two perpendicular alleys and bordered by a canal, an arrangement found particularly in thetapis-jardins (literally carpet gardens) of the same period. It contains baths, four covered walkways and three pleasure pavilions: the Gombad-e Muhabbat, the Iwan-e Bagh and theChehel Sutun.[148] The name of the latter, built in 1556, means "palace of forty columns", a name which is explained by the presence of twenty columns reflected in a pond. In the Persian tradition, the number forty is often used to mean a large quantity. This little construction at one point served as a place of audience, for banquets and for more private uses. It was decorated with panels painted with literary Persian scenes, such as the story of Farhad and Shirin, as well as hunting scenes, festivals and polo, etc. Floral bands surrounded these panels, based on models of Shah Tahmasp himself, to paint at his hours, or again of Muzaffar Ali or Muhammadi, thus used in the royal library.[148]
In the city ofNain, the house of the governor, designed with fouriwans, presents a décor undoubtedly elaborated between 1565 and 1575,[151] using a rare and very sophisticated technique: over a coat of red paint, the artist placed a white coating, and then scratched to allow motifs to appear in red silhouette—motifs reminiscent of those in books and on cloth. One finds there animal fights, enthroned princes, literary scenes (Khosrow and Shirin, Yusuf and Zuleykha), a game of polo, hunting scenes etc. One notices that the silhouettes curve and that thetaj, the headdress characteristic of the Safavids at the beginning of the empire had disappeared, following the fashion of the time. Among the scroll patterns are calligraphic representations of the quatrains of the poetHafiz.[151]
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Only few decorated ceramics can be securely dated to the 16th century. One of them is a blue and black underglaze painted dish dated 1563, and signed by a potter named 'Abd al-Vahed, now in the Islamic Museum, East Berlin. The plate is decorated with an arabesque mesh at its center, and a number of roundels on the periphery, showing the signs of the zodiac.[154] Iranian ceramics from the period often reflect the influence of Chinese wares fromJingdezhen, particularlyMing styleblue-and-white dishes.[152]
Mahinbanu Soltanum had a renowned collection of Chinese porcelain, which she donated to the Imam Reza shrine at Mashhad in 1561.[155]
Tahmasp I's coins were characterised by the region they were minted in. Theakçe was used in Shirvan; inMazandaran,tanka was minted, andKhuzestan used thelarin currency. By the 1570s, most of these autonomous monetary were unified.[156] The weight of theshahi[g] coins decreased significantly from 7.88 grams (0.278 oz) at the beginning of Tahmasp's reign to 2.39 grams (0.084 oz) in the western parts of the realm and 2.92 grams (0.103 oz) in the east at the end.[156] These weight reductions were the results of Ottoman and Uzbek invasions as well as the Ottoman trade ban which had a devastating impact on trade, and thus on the shah's revenues. According the Venetian Michel Membré, no merchant could have travelled to Iran through Ottoman borders without permission from the sultan. All travellers were stopped and arrested if they had no royal permit.[158]
In his coins,Arabic is no longer the only language used, in hisfals (folus-i shahi) coins, the phrase "May be eternally [condemned] to the damnation of God / He, who alters [the rate of] the royal folus" is minted inPersian. Old copper coins were released anew with thecountermarksfolus-i shahi, 'adl-e shahi, etc. that showed their new value.[156]
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Tahmasp, unlike his ancestors who married Turkomans, also took Georgians andCircassians as wives; most of his children hadCaucasian mothers.[162] His only Turkoman consort was his chief wife,Sultanum Begum of the Mawsillu tribe (amarriage of state), who gave birth to two sons: Mohammad Khodabanda and Ismail II.[163] Tahmasp had a poor relationship with Ismail, whom he imprisoned on suspicion that his son might attempt a coup against him.[162] However, he was attentive to his other children; On his orders, his daughters were instructed in administration, art, and scholarship,[164] and Haydar Mirza (his favourite son, born of a Georgian slave) participated in state affairs.[165]
Tahmasp had seven known consorts:
He had thirteen sons:
Tahmasp probably had thirteen daughters, eight of whom are known:[44]
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Tahmasp I's reign started in an era of civil wars between the Qizilbash leaders after the death of Ismail I, whose charismatic characterisation as Messiah, which had driven the Qizilbash to follow him, came to an end with Tahmasp's succession.[178] In contrast to his father, Tahmasp did not possess charisma in any political or spiritual sense, nor was he old enough to prove himself a fierce warrior on the battlefield, a quality valued by the Qizilbash. Eventually, Tahmasp did overcome that challenge; he proved himself a worthy military commander in the Battle of Jam against the Uzbeks and, instead of facing the Ottomans directly in the battlefield, he preferred to loot their rearguards.[179] Even the ability to survive against the much larger Ottoman army marks him as a master ofFabian tactics.[180] Tahmasp knew that he could not replace his father as a charismatic spiritual leader, and while he struggled to restore his family's legitimacy amongst the Qizilbash, he also had to craft a public figure of himself to convince the wider population of his right to rule as the new Safavid shah.[181] Thus, he became a devout follower of Shi'ism and maintained this image with exaggerated piety until the end of his reign.[182] This zealous image helped him to break the influence of the Qizilbash, and he became able to take the reins of power within ten years, after the realm had been through the civil war between the plotting tribal chieftains. He thus established a standard public image for Safavid kings: a zealous monarch who functioned as a representative of the Hidden Imam. However, none of his successors kept this image as zealously as him.[183] Even after consolidating his power, Tahmasp had little political leverage compared to the Ottoman Empire. However, he successfully laid the foundation for Abbas the Great's transformation of the Safavid polity by bringing Caucasian slaves into his realm. He thus created the core of the force that changed the political balance of the empire in his grandson's time.[55]
Tahmasp I made little impression on Western historians, who often compared him with his father. He is portrayed as a "miser" and a "religious bigot". He was accused of never leaving the harem and it was said that he divided his time between sexual liaisons with hisfavourites and foretelling the future.[109] This characterisation has made an obscure figure out of Tahmasp as a king and a person. However, there are several instances recorded by the contemporary historians which denoted the more favourable sides of the shah's character: the fact that, despite his greed, piety led him to forgo taxes of about 30,000tomans because collecting them would offend the religious law; his speech to the envoys of Suleiman the Magnificent, who had come to collect the fugitive Şehzade Bayezid, showed his political skill;[h] he patronised the arts and had a highly cultured mind.[185]
According to Colin P. Mitchell, it is an achievement that he was able to not only maintain his father's empire from dissolution but also expanded it whilst being contemporaneous with Suleiman the Magnificent, the most successful Ottoman sultan.[25] It was during Tahmasp's reign that the Safavid right to rule was established and gradually accepted among the Shia people, who were endeared to the idea of a descendent ofAhl al-Bayt (Family of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad) ruling over them. Thus the Safavid dynasty gained an ideological underpinning much stronger than the initial premise of theright of conquest.[181] By the end of his reign, Tahmasp's success in keeping the empire together allowed the Persian elite of the bureaucracy to assume bureaucratic and ideological custodianship of the Safavid empire. This allowed Tahmasp and his successors to gain dynastic legitimacy and to cultivate an imperialcult of personality that prevented another civil war, even when the empire was at its most fragile position.[186]
Şah Ismail (TSMK, nr. Hazine 2169, vr. 64b)
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Tahmasp I Born: 22 February 1514 Died: 25 May 1576 | ||
| Iranian royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Shah of Iran 1524–1576 | Succeeded by |
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