Shah Abbas

The King Who Refashioned Iran

Sholeh Quinn

• Publisher: Oneworld Academic
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780745688
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

SHAH ? ABBAS (1571–1629) is the most well-known king of Iran's Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), ruling at the height of its power and prestige. When Shah 'Abbas came to power his country was in chaos. Yet within eleven years he had regained territory lost to his enemies, moved his capital city and begun a transformation of Iranian society. Few aspects of life were unaffected by his policies and the new capital he built, the spectacular Isfahan, is still referred to as nisf-i jahan, or "half the world", by Iranians today.In this wide-ranging profile, Sholeh A. Quinn explores Shah ? Abbas's rise to power and his subsequent interactions with religious movements and artistic developments, reaching beyond the historical narrative to assess the true impact of the man and his politics. Thought provoking and comprehensive, this account is ideal for readers interested in uncovering the life and thoughts of a man who ruled during a period described by many as a golden age for the arts in Iran.

EARLY YEARS: 1571–1598

THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT: THE REIGNS OF SHAH ISMA‘IL II AND MUHAMMAD KHUDABANDA

‘Abbas was only five years old when his grandfather, Shah Tahmasb, died in 1576. Shah Tahmasb was succeeded by his sons, Isma‘il II (r. 1576–1577) and Muhammad Khudabanda (r. 1578–1587), ‘Abbas’s father. Isma‘il II goes down in history primarily for his attempt to revert Iran back to Sunni Islam, an experiment that utterly failed. He also endeavored to re-impose order in Iran in a harsh fashion, as bandits and Turkoman raids had killed thousands of people. Consequently, he had Qizilbash officers executed, along with anyone else whom he perceived to be a threat to his rule. Because of this, a group of Qizilbash, assisted by his sister, Pari Khan Khanum, poisoned his habitual dose of opium and killed him. Isma‘il II was succeeded by his oldest brother, the nearly blind Muhammad Khudabanda, who was too weak to stop the ongoing contention between and among the Qizilbash tribes, with one faction in control of Qazvin and another in control of Khurasan.

In fact, during his first year as king, Muhammad Khudabanda was weak and ineffective, which provided the political space for his wife, Khayr al-Nisa Begum, known as Mahd-i ‘Ulya, to step in and act, effectively, as ruler. Mahd-i ‘Ulya was Shah ‘Abbas’s mother and a daughter of Mir ‘Abd Allah Khan, the latest in a line of Mar‘ashi sayyids (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) who ruled Mazandaran. Mahd-i ‘Ulya, having had Pari Khan Khanum killed in February 1578, ruled until 1579, when she herself was strangled to death by a group of Qizilbash who resented her position.

THE BIRTH OF SHAH ‘ABBAS

When ‘Abbas Mirza was born at Herat, signs of his great destiny were visible upon his brow.

(TAA, 128/210)

This is how Iskandar Beg Munshi, official chronicler to Shah ‘Abbas, begins the account of ‘Abbas’s birth. Unsurprisingly, all of Shah ‘Abbas’s chroniclers narrate this event as a great occasion laden with cosmological signs of his divine destiny to rule. Iskandar Beg goes on to establish a special connection between the newborn prince and his grandfather, Shah Tahmasb, whose reign had lasted more than fifty years (from 1524 to 1576). Shah Tahmasb, he says, would send a carpet and a cradle to every new-born boy in the royal family, but what he sent to ‘Abbas was no ordinary carpet; rather, it was one which had originally been “spread beneath his own royal throne in the Chehel Sotun hall of the palace at Qazvin” (TAA, 129/210). Clearly, Shah Tahmasb foresaw that of all the many children in the royal family, this was a child that would be king. In another episode, ‘Abbas’s father sent Shah Tahmasb the news of the birth of his son, asking him to give him a name. At that time, Shah Tahmasb just happened to be writing a poem that had the name ‘Abbas in it, and so this was the name he chose. Another of Shah ‘Abbas’s chroniclers, his royal astrologer Munajjim Yazdi, opens his history with a description of the astrological phenomena associated with the birth of the king and notes the auspicious nature of the stars and zodiac constellations at that time. From these accounts, we are left in no doubt that ‘Abbas was destined to be a great king from the very start.

Actually, it was far from obvious that ‘Abbas was going to become king at all. He was born on 27 January 1571 in the eastern Iranian city of Herat, in modern-day Afghanistan, as the third offspring of Muhammad Khudabanda. When ‘Abbas was six years old, his uncle Isma‘il II succeeded Shah Tahmasb. One of the first things Isma‘il II did as the new king was to have his own brothers executed (Abbas’s father survived, though blinded) along with anyone else whom he believed a threat to his rule, including ‘Abbas’s tutor/guardian (lala). Whether he did this out of desire to emulate a practice current under the Ottomans, or as a result of long years of imprisonment and drug use, is unclear.

‘Abbas’s lala was not a tutor in the ordinary sense of the word. Rather, the lala played a significant role in the Safavid dynasty. The Safavids had inherited from the earlier Turkoman dynasties the practice in which royal princes were tutored by an individual – a lala – who held a prominent position in the Safavid state. For example, Shah Tahmasb’s tutor was from the Rumlu Qizilbash tribe, and he also held the position of amir al-umara, or “great amir.” These lalas could become too influential for the king’s liking or become involved in succession politics – Shah Tahmasb, for example, shot his lala to death with an arrow after he tried to wield too much power. Without a powerful lala, the young ‘Abbas (“‘Abbas Mirza,” or “Prince ‘Abbas,” as he was called) had no chance of succeeding to the throne.

After executing ‘Abbas’s lala, Isma‘il II then appointed a Qizilbash named ‘Ali Quli Khan of the Shamlu tribe as governor of Herat, giving him secret orders to execute the young prince. But ‘Ali Quli Khan was reluctant to carry out the orders and Isma‘il II himself was murdered after ruling for only about a year, as described in chapter 1, so ‘Abbas survived.

FIRST ATTEMPTS TO PLACE ‘ABBAS MIRZA ON THE THRONE

Having avoided being murdered, ‘Abbas was then raised to the throne prematurely in 1581, when he was only ten years old. This was due to the scheming of the Qizilbash tribes, who used him to further their own political aspirations and vendettas while at the same time taking full advantage of the weakness and incompetence of the king, Muhammad Khudabanda. The young prince became indirectly involved in Qizilbash politics and was at the center of a rebellion in which Khurasan, the province where he was residing, attempted to break away from the central Safavid government. One of the key individuals involved in the rebellion – the above mentioned ‘Ali Quli Khan, who had resisted orders to murder ‘Abbas when Isma‘il II was in power – had become the prince’s tutor after his appointment to the governorship of Herat. Herat and Mashhad, the resting place of the Eighth Imam of the Twelver Shi‘i, were the two most important cities in the province of Khurasan. ‘Ali Quli Khan was involved in a struggle against the governor of Mashhad, a certain Murtaza Quli Khan. He defeated Murtaza Quli Khan, even after the latter received reinforcement troops from the central court. The nature of Qizilbash rivalries at this time was such that when a particular individual was defeated, the relatives of the victor would face reprisals. Thus, ‘Ali Quli Khan’s kinsmen at the court suffered the consequences of his victory against Murtaza Quli Khan.

In retaliation, ‘Ali Quli Khan and his ally Murshid Quli Khan, an Ustajlu Qizilbash leader, along with a group of Qizilbash from their respective tribes, put the ten-year-old ‘Abbas on the throne. Although the prince was not universally recognized as king, this was a genuine coronation, for they struck coins and read the Friday sermon in his name, two steps traditionally taken when a new king came to power, thereby indicating that he was now the sovereign. But while ‘Abbas had the support of the Shamlu and Ustajlu Qizilbash, two other Qizilbash tribes, the Turkoman and Takkalu, held sway over his father, Muhammad Khudabanda. Other Qizilbash factions had supported three of ‘Abbas’s brothers (the princes Tahmasb, Hamza, and Abu Talib). It was the backers of Muhammad Khudabanda who won, and soon thereafter, Muhammad Khudabanda and his army marched on Herat, forcing ‘Ali Quli Khan, the “king maker,” to surrender, thus ending ‘Abbas’s first bid for the throne. ‘Abbas Mirza remained in Khurasan, however, with Murshid Quli Khan the Ustajlu now acting as his deputy and guardian. This episode reflects the weakness of Muhammad Khudabanda and indicates the degree to which he lacked control over his own kingdom – a situation that ‘Abbas would inherit once he officially succeeded his father.

‘ABBAS MIRZA’S SECOND ENTHRONEMENT

‘Abbas had better luck the second time around. When Hamza Mirza, ‘Abbas’s older brother and primary contender for the throne, who had wielded considerable power after 1581, was assassinated on 6 December 1586, possibly at the instigation of some of his own men, the way was clear for a second attempt to place ‘Abbas on the throne. This time, Murshid Quli Khan kidnapped the young prince and took him to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad, presumably to protect him from being killed. Murshid Quli Khan had recently been made governor of the city and used Mashhad as a base to gain support for ‘Abbas in Khurasan and elsewhere in Iran. In 1588, he marched on Qazvin, the capital city, and had ‘Abbas enthroned, effectively forcing out his father, Shah Muhammad Khudabanda. Shah ‘Abbas was sixteen years old at the time and was now the new Safavid king.

After his coronation, Shah ‘Abbas received various family members who had come to Qazvin to show their support. The next day, he gathered together an assembly of generals (amirs), Qizilbash, and other high-ranking state officials. They acknowledged him as their monarch and pledged their loyalty to him. For all that, he immediately had those responsible for the murder of his brother, Hamza Mirza, executed.

SHAH ‘ABBAS IN POWER

He [Shah ‘Abbas] was confronted by two powerful monarchs, the problem of Qizilbash disunity had not been solved, and he was faced by domestic revolts … and by rebellions on the part of the semi-independent rulers on the borders of the Safavid empire, who had taken advantage of fifteen years of weak Safavid rule since the death of Shah Tahmasb to shake off Safavid suzerainty and assert their independence.

(TAA, 409–410/587)

In this succinct passage, Iskandar Beg clearly describes the problems that Shah ‘Abbas faced upon becoming king during this first phase, when the Safavid capital was still in the city of Qazvin (from 1587 to 1598). The first and most serious threat was the internal one: the Qizilbash who had put him on the throne, though somewhat weakened as a result of having entered a period of internal conflict and strife, remained intent on preserving their position. This was the second time since the Safavids came to power that the Qizilbash experienced conflict of such intensity among themselves; the first was from 1524 to 1536, during the initial decade of Shah Tahmasb’s reign. Despite Shah ‘Abbas’s immediate purging of their ranks after he came to the throne, they still posed a challenge to his authority. Many were powerful governors of important cities and provinces of Iran, and in some cases they boldly ruled these areas in an almost independent fashion. His initial task, upon which the remainder of his career as king rested, was to re-conquer Iran.

SHAH ‘ABBAS AND THE QIZILBASH

Shah ‘Abbas’s overall approach to curbing Qizilbash power was to raise a new army consisting of ghulams who had been purchased as slaves from the Caucasus and initially brought into Iran during the reign of Shah Tahmasb. However, the process through which the ghulams (who will be discussed more fully later) were transformed into a new elite army was a gradual one, which meant that the king had to deal with the Qizilbash threat before the ghulam army became fully effective. This he accomplished through a persistent effort to eliminate those Qizilbash leaders who challenged his power and gradually replace them with ghulams.

Shah ‘Abbas began the process by executing a group of Qizilbash who were conspiring to kill Murshid Quli Khan, the Ustajlu who had put him on the throne. Later, upon learning that Murshid Quli Khan had plans to kill him, he had him executed too, in the summer of 1589. These events, occurring so soon after he came to power, gave him the determination to continue removing, one by one, those who posed a threat to his rule.

A number of important Qizilbash rulers lost their lives as a result of this campaign. These included (1) Bektash Khan, the Afshar Qizilbash who had been in control of Fars (where the city of Shiraz is located), Kirman, and Yazd, (2) Ya‘qub Khan, the Dhu’l Qadr who then assumed control over those areas, and (3) Farhad Khan Qaramanlu, an important general and trusted advisor to the king, whose story will be told in chapter 5, below.

Bektash Khan and Ya‘qub Khan were local governors who were killed due to their arrogance, their unwillingness to present themselves to the king at the court, and their greed. Bektash Khan was the Afshar who ruled over Kirman and Yazd, and Ya‘qub Khan the Dhu’l Qadr who was in control ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Frontispiece
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• EARLY YEARS: 1571–1598
• BUILDING HALF THE WORLD: 1598–1612
• RELIGION AND POWER IN ISFAHAN
• FROM HALF THE WORLD TO THE OTHER HALF: WARFARE AND DIPLOMACY
• THE ARTS IN THE SERVICE OF KINGSHIP
• THE FINAL PHASE: 1612–1629
• FURTHER READING
• BIBLIOGRAPHY