Safavid Persia
Iran's Shia revolution
Safavid Persia1,501 CE – 1,736 CE
01
The Safavid Order
a Sunni Sufi brotherhood in Ardabil becomes a Shia messianic army
~1300–1500
02
Ismail and the Shia Revolution
a fourteen-year-old Shah forcibly converts an 80% Sunni country to Shia Islam
1501–1524
03
Chaldiran and the Frontier
Ottoman gunpowder defeats the Qizilbash and fixes the frontier for five centuries
1514–1588
04
Abbas the Great and Isfahan
the ghulam revolution, military recovery, and Isfahan as half the world
1588–1629
05
The Shia Clergy and the Isfahan School
Mulla Sadra, Majlisi, and the clerical hierarchy that outlasted the dynasty
1600–1699
06
Trade, Carpets, and the World
the silk monopoly, Armenian merchants at New Julfa, and the Ardabil Carpet
1600–1650
07
The Long Decline
palace purges, the Treaty of Zuhab, and the Afghan revolt that ended everything
1629–1722
08
The Afghan Catastrophe and Nader's Restoration
the Afghan siege of Isfahan, Nader Shah's restoration, and the Shia identity that outlasted them all
1722–1736