Abbas the Great of Persia

Abbas the Great of Persia

Shah Abbas the Great reigned from 1588 to 1629 during the zenith of Safavid glory and power. He effectively unified all of historic Persia and centralized the state and its bureaucracy.

Using loyal slave soldiers (ghulam) recruited among Caucasians, Abbas successfully destroyed the influence of the Qazilbash princes and extended Crown-owned land taken from defeated local rulers. With English advisers, he moved to reform the army into a successful fighting force.

In the Ottoman-Safavid Wars, Abbas was generally successful. He conquered northwest Persian and in 1623 took Baghdad and then Basra in southern present-day Iraq from the Ottomans. His forces seized Hormuz in the Persian Gulf in 1622, thereby extending Safavid power along this important seafaring trade route.


By the time Abbas came to power, the majority of the people in Safavid Persia, who had previously been Sunni Muslims, had become Shi’i. Qom and Mashad, sites holy in Shi’i tradition, were enlarged into centers for pilgrimages, and the veneration of Shi’i imams became widespread.

The martyrdom of Husayn, Ali’s son, was annually commemorated in massive passion plays and ceremonies; pilgrimages to Kerbala, in present-day Iraq, where Husayn had been killed, became a major event for devout Shi’i.

However, unlike many of his predecessors, Abbas encouraged religious tolerance. He encouraged foreign traders, especially Christian Armenians, who were known as skilled silk producers, to move to Iran. Although the sale of silk became a royal monopoly, Abbas provided Armenians financial inducements, including interest-free loans for building houses and businesses, to move to the outskirts of Isfahan.

In 1592, Abbas made Isfahan his new capital and turned it into a center for Safavid arts, culture, and commerce. Under Abbas, Isfahan’s population grew to more than one-half million people and became a major trading center.

He sent envoys to Venice, the Iberian Peninsula, and eastern Europe to encourage trade in luxury textiles and other goods; he also provided tax incentives to foreign traders. By 1617, the East India Trade Company had established trading posts along Persian Gulf, and Bandar Abbas became a major port. Along northern routes, the Safavids also enjoyed a lively trade with Russia.

As befitted 16th- and 17th-century monarchs, Abbas presided over a lavish court. He was the patron to numerous court poets and painters, even allowing portraits of himself and members of his court to be painted.

Like Suleiman I the Magnificent of the rival Ottoman Empire, Abbas, who had killed or blinded several of his sons, left no able successor. After his death, the Safavid empire entered into a century-long period of decline. It is a tribute to Abbas’s abilities as an eksekutif and leader that the empire survived as long as it did.

Suleiman I the Magnificent - Ottoman Sultan

Suleiman I the Magnificent

Suleiman (r. 1520–66) ruled the Ottoman Empire when it was the most powerful empire on earth. He came to the throne after his father, Selim I (the Grim), had expanded Ottoman territories to the east and west. Although he was only in his 20s when he became the sultan, Suleiman already had experience in the field as a military commander and as an able direktur in Balkan and Crimean territories.

Suleiman was known as “the Magnificent” in Europe, and among his subjects as Kanuni (the lawgiver) for his codification of Ottoman laws. Known for his fairness and honesty, Suleiman granted extensive local autonomy to his far-flung provinces, maintaining close regulation only over taxes and the regulation of trade.

Victory Over European Rivals

In 1527, Suleiman had over 80,000 trained men in military service and with better guns and horsemen than his European rivals, the Ottomans quickly seized Belgrade after the Battle of Mohács and moved on to lay siege to Vienna in 1529.


But Suleiman failed to defeat his main rival Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, or to take Vienna. As the Ottoman troops retreated from the city they were reputed to have left sacks of coffee, already popular among the Ottoman urban elite and a commodity that would soon enjoy widespread favor in the west as well.

Although Suleiman also failed in the attempt to take Malta, he ruled all of the Balkans and Hungary, as well as most of the territory around the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and much of North Africa. He rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, parts of which still stand.

Suleiman I the Magnificent in the Battle of Mohács

The Austrian diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq described in lavish detail the grandeur of the Ottoman court under Suleiman. Europeans praised Suleiman’s serious demeanor and culture, as well as his ability to discuss literature and philosophy in several languages.

A contemporary of the other great monarchs of the age, Charles V of Spain, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of England, Suleiman made practical alliances with Francis I to counter the power of Charles V and was a major participant in European diplomacy.

Marriage

Suleiman married a favorite slave from Russia, Hurrem Haseki (The Joyous One), known in Europe as Roxelana. Suleiman was deeply in love with Hurrem, and he wrote her moving love poems under the penname of muhibbi (beloved).

However, Hurrem, as well as her mother-in-law and a rival wife, became powerful political forces in their own right and plotted ruthlessly for their particular favorites to become Suleiman’s successor. Hurrem outmaneuvered her rivals so that her favorite son, Selim II, would become sultan. Believing Hurrem’s allegations about intrigues by his more capable sons, particularly Mustapha, Suleiman ordered their murders.

Suleiman was devastated when Hurrem died and had the famed Ottoman architect Abdul-Menan Sinan build a magnificent mausoleum in her memory. Sinan also designed the massive Suleimaniya complex in Istanbul as a lasting monument to the great sultan.

Hurrem Haseki

Although already in his 70s, Suleiman again led his troops into battle in what became another failed attempt to take Vienna in 1566. After the ailing Suleiman died on the battlefield, his commander kept the death a secret from the troops, who kept on fighting, until Suleiman’s son, Selim II, had been safely installed as the new sultan. Selim inherited an empire at its zenith of power but failed to equal his father’s distinction as either an direktur or military leader.

Abdul-Menan Sinan - Ottoman Architect

Abdul-Menan Sinan

Sinan was born in Kayseri in central Anatolia to a Greek Orthodox family. When he was in his early 20s, older than was customary, he was recruited in the devshirme levy to be educated in Istanbul.

He was selected for the elite Janissaries and served in several military campaigns, where he became a noted engineer building bridges and other structures.

He served as the major architect for sultans Suleiman I the Magnificent and Selim II (the sot) and became the empire’s chief architect (mimbar bashi). During his long and productive life, Sinan designed more known buildings than any other architect in history.


He built mosques, hammams, Byzantine church.

Sinan’s Suleimaniya complex in Istanbul has a mosque with a huge central dome supported by two half-domes giving the appearance of soaring in the air; the mosque, with tall needle shaped minarets, opens onto a courtyard with a portico, a style much favored in Ottoman architecture. The vast complex, with over 400 domes in total, also includes schools, a hospice, a soup kitchen, and commercial shops to support the social work of the complex.

Abdul-Menan Sinan statue

Sinan also built the elaborately decorated Rustem Pasha mosque for the grand vizier as well as the tombs for Suleiman’s son Mehmed and Suleiman’s beloved wife, Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana); these are adorned with brightly colored Iznik tiles in deep blues and reds. In his autobiography, Sinan rated the Selimya mosque in Edirne, outside Istanbul, as his masterpiece owing to its huge central dome, which seems to float over a vast open interior space.

Sinan died in 1574 at the age of 99 and is buried in a simple tomb close to one of his greatest accomplishments, the Suleimaniya complex.

Abdul-Menan Sinan greatest accomplishments, the Suleimaniya complex

Selim II - Ottoman Sultan

Selim II -  Ottoman Sultan

Suleiman I the Magnificent’s last surviving son, Selim II (r. 1566–75), became sultan of the Ottoman Empire when the empire was at the zenith of its power and glory. Although Selim was a gifted poet, his notorious abuse of alcohol, forbidden in Islam, offended many Muslims, and he was known as “the sot.”

Selim was the first Ottoman sultan who had not been a military leader who personally led his troops into battle. An ineffective ruler, Selim fortunately left most of the key administrative decisions to his able grand vizier, Mehmed Sokollu, who had also served under Suleiman.

In 1571, against the vizier’s advice, Selim ordered the conquest of Cyprus; some said it was because he wished to control the source of his favorite wine. After a particularly brutal fight, the Ottomans secured the island against the ruling Venetians but aroused the enmity of other European powers.


In retaliation, the pope called for a joint Christian fleet to counter Ottoman sea power in the Mediterranean. The new fleet met the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and in the fierce confrontation the Ottomans lost more than 100 ships.

However in less than a year, the Ottoman navy was rebuilt, although at great cost, and it subsequently defeated the Venetians who tried to retake Cyprus; the Ottomans also successfully incorporated Tunis into the empire by 1574. They also put down a rebellion in the Hijaz (in present-day Saudi Arabia) and reinforced control over Yemen.

Selim II Enthroned

The Russians managed to defeat Ottoman attempts to take territory to build a canal connecting the Volga and Don Rivers and Czar Ivan IV (the Terrible) subsequently signed a fairly short-lived treaty of friendship with the Ottomans.

Selim and his vizier also had dreams of building a canal to connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean but that too failed to materialize. Although not apparent at the time, the kurun of Ottoman expansion was almost over and other powers were soon to emerge on the global scene.

Like his forebears, Selim was a patron of the arts and he commissioned the noted Ottoman architect Abdul-Menan Sinan to build what became his masterpiece, the great Selimye mosque at Edirne. In 1575, Selim suffered a concussion from a fall while in a drunken stupor and died soon thereafter.

the great Selimiye mosque at Edirne

Safavid Empire

Safavid Empire

The Safavid Empire was established as the Mongol il-Khan government declined and the Safavids were victorious over the numerous Turkish tribes who had established independent fiefdoms in Persia (present-day northern Iran) during the 13th and 14th centuries.

During this tumultuous period, a number of Sufi, Islamic mystical orders emerged; one order, named after its founder, Shaikh Safi al-Din (1252–1334), created a network of followers who gradually viewed the head of the order as the shah or king. By the 15th century, the Safavid rulers adopted the title padishah or king/emperor.

The Safavid shahs asserted that they were descendants of Ali and the last Twelver Shi’i imam, who was believed to have gone into occultation to reappear at some later time. Religious zealots, the early Safavids attacked Christians as well as those of Turkish ethnicity. They also waged a long and ultimately futile series of wars on the rival Sunni Muslim Ottoman Empire.


While the Sunnis asserted that any true Muslim could rule the society, as Shi’i, the Safavids believed that the rulers of Muslim societies should be the descendants of Ali, the prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, and his sons, in particular the martyr Husayn. These conflicting views over the legitimacy of rule set the two empires on a rival course that would last for over a century.

The first Safavid king, Shah Isma’il reigned from l501 to 1524 and established Twelver Shi’i Islam as the state religion. However he moved away from the Sufi foundations of the empire. Unlike the Ottomans, who generally assimilated new cultural styles and allowed great latitude of languages and practices within their territories, the Safavids enforced the separate identity of Persian culture and language.

In a series of battles with the Ozbegs and the Ottomans, Shah Isma’il consolidated Iran as a unified state. His successor Shah Tahmasp (reigned 1524–76) waged war with the rival Ottoman Empire for control over northern Iran and Iraq as well as attempting to extend Safavid control around the Caspian Sea and into Georgia.

The first Safavid king, Shah Isma’il reigned from l501 to 1524.

The Safavid Empire reached its zenith under Shah Abbas the Great of Persia (reigned 1588–1629), who ruled with an iron fist. Abbas managed to destroy the rival Turkish Gazilbash tribes, reform the army, and create a prosperous economy based on the trade of luxury goods, especially silk brocades. Unfortunately he left no able successor and after his death the empire entered a long period of decline.

Safavid society was composed mostly of rural villagers as well as nomadic pastoralists and an urban elite. The Shi’i clergy or mullahs also held considerable power, particularly over the largely illiterate peasantry, who looked to the clergy for religious and political guidance.

Many mullahs were large landowners and used the revenues from their property to provide independent financing for religious schools and foundations. Thus when the central authority in Persia was weak, the mullahs often became a political force in their own right.

Shah Abbas the Great of Persia

Safavid rulers were dependent on taxations and revenues from vast Crown or state land and often used land to reward loyal officers and bureaucratic officials. Under Abbas I, the Crown also had a state monopoly over the sale of silk and encouraged a lively trade with western European powers as well as with Russia.

Safavid rulers, like the Ottomans, were keen patrons of the arts and literature. An illustrated Shahnameh, book of kings, with hundreds of intricate miniature paintings was one of the most famous productions of the court artists. The Safavids maintained a lavish court from their capital in Isfahan and enjoyed playing polo and chess.

Foreign envoys often commented on the sumptuous attire of the Safavid elite and the lavish lifestyle of the court. However every seven years, the used clothes of the royalty were burned and the gold and silver threads saved for reuse in new textiles.

A 19th-century drawing of Isfahan

Although the shahs after Abbas I were not as able or dynamic, the empire survived throughout the 17th century largely because it faced no major external threats. In the early 18th century, the Safavids were threatened by several outside forces. In 1722, tribes from neighboring Afghanistan took Isfahan, but a counterattack by Shah Tahmasp II (reigned 1722–32) restored the city to Safavid control for a short period.

Meanwhile, Ottoman forces took advantage of Safavid weakness to extend their authority into northern Persia. Further Afghan attacks effectively destroyed real Safavid power by 1726.

Remnants of the dynasty continued to assert their authority as shahs, but the death, by assassination, of Nadir Shah in 1747 marked the formal demise of the once great Safavid Empire. Toward the end of the 18th century, the new Qajar dynasty emerged as the new shahs over Persia.

Battle of Yarmuk

Byzantine troops in Battle of Yarmuk

The Battle of Yarmuk (a tributary of the Jordan River), close to the present-day border of Syria and Jordan, was a decisive battle between the Byzantine Empire and the rapidly expanding Arab Islamic empire. In the 630s as Arab forces advanced out of the Arabian Peninsula into Iraq in the east and greater Syria in the northeast they encroached deep inside Byzantine territory.

When they lay siege to Damascus and other major cities, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) grew alarmed and raised a large army of Greek and native Arabs in the eastern Mediterranean to defeat the Muslim army. However the Arab Islamic forces of Bedu tribespeople were often joined by Arab volunteers, many of them Christians, who had become disaffected by Byzantine policies and high taxation.

The able Arab commander Khalid ibn al-Walid had already achieved major military victories in the Arabian Peninsula and was a keen strategist. The Arabs also enjoyed the advantages of a new dynamic religious faith, mobility, and a willingness to fight in the heat of the midday with scant water supplies.


The Arab forces only numbered about 25,000; although the commonly given number of 90,000 Byzantine troops is an exaggeration, the Byzantines clearly outnumbered the Arabs. In August 636, when the Arab and Byzantine forces met along the Yarmuk River, which is traversed by deep ravines, the forces were spread out over several kilometers. The fighting lasted for six days and several times seemed to shift in favor of the Byzantines.

In keeping with Arab tradition, women and children accompanied the forces in wartime and on several well-documented occasions the women urged the men forward and even marched toward the Greeks armed with swords and tent posts. Fifty-year-old Hind Bint Utba, who had already earned a reputation as a formidable force in the Islamic community, marshaled troops in defense of their positions.

Muslim troops defending their position

Allegedly, the Greeks were so startled by the sight of armed women that some jumped over a cliff at the edge of the battlefield. By the end of the sixth day of fighting the Arabs were clearly victorious and, with no backup plans, the Byzantine forces retreated into the Anatolian Peninsula.

The victory at Yarmuk paved the way for the conquest of Damascus and then Jerusalem in 638. The inhabitants of Jerusalem handed the city, considered sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, directly to Caliph Omar. The newly gained territories of the eastern Mediterranean were consolidated under the Umayyad Caliphate led by Caliph Muaw’iya, Hind’s son, and Damascus was made the new capital.

Arab forces also went on to conquer Egypt and North Africa. The new Arab Islamic empire assimilated many Byzantine cultural and architectural styles and many of the Arab Christians, who were not forced to convert, gradually adopted Arabic as the primary language.

Battlefield of Yarmuk nowdays

Umayyad Dynasty

Umayyad Dynasty at its greatest extent

After Ali’s death and his son Hasan’s renunciation of the caliphate, Muaw’iya became the undisputed caliph of the Muslim world in 661. He established a hereditary dynasty with Damascus as its capital.

However, unlike in most western monarchies, succession was not based on primogeniture; the ruler selected anyone within his family as the chosen heir. However, the undisputed claim of the Umayyad family to the caliphate was short lived.

When Muaw’iya died in 680, his son Yazid’s claim to the position was immediately challenged by Ali’s younger son Husayn. Yazid’s forces inflicted a stunning defeat over Husayn and his Shi’i followers at the Battle of Kerbala but the victory was bittersweet as it resulted in the permanent division of the Muslim community into the orthodox, majority Sunnis, who accepted the legality of the Umayyad rule, and the Shi’i, who did not.


Internal divisions, especially from Iraq and Khurasan, an eastern province of the old Sassanid empire in Persia, were persistent problems during the Umayyad reign.

The Umayyads appointed Hajjah ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi to control the rebellious provinces of Iraq and he was fairly successful in putting down the sporadic, but persistent rebellions. He was responsible for appointing governors for Khurasan as well.

In the first years of the empire the administration was fairly decentralized and Greeks and Copts held many major bureaucratic positions. Muslim judges (qadis) were appointed but they dealt only with the Muslim population. The majority non-Muslim population retained their own communal systems.

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus

Under Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), the Umayyad empire became more highly centralized. He established a national mint and the process of Arabization of the vast Umayyad territory spread as Arabic became the lingua franca of the empire. Arabic became the language not only of Islam but of trade and government.

Provincial governors were appointed to administer the far-flung territories but when the caliphs were weak and central control lessened, these governors often became political powers in their own right.

The boundaries of the empire continued to widen as Abd al-Malik personally led his troops into battle. His able commander Hasan ibn Nu’man took Tunis in North Africa in 693; the Berber population subsequently converted to Islam and was largely responsible for the spread of the faith into Spain.

Abd al-Malik also paid for the construction of the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem. Built on the site where Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, it was also the site of Solomon’s temple and the prophet Muhammad’s miraculous ascent into the heavens.

Muslims referred to the site as the Haram as-Sharif (Sacred Mount), while it was known as the Temple Mount to Jews. Thus the site had holy meaning for all three great monotheistic religions.

Completed in 692 the Dome of the Rock remains one of the most notable architectural achievements of the Arab/Islamic empire. The great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was completed in 705. Essentially secular rulers the Umayyads also built numerous fortresses and hunting palaces.

Dome of the Rock, Masjid Al-Aqsa

The Umayyad empire reached its furthest geographic limits under Caliph al-Walid (r. 705–715). The Berber commander al Tariq led Muslim forces across into Spain in 711 and established a foothold at Jabal Tariq or Gibraltar. To the Arabs, the Spanish province was known as al-Andalus, or land of the Vandals.

Within a few years Muslim armies had moved across the Pyrenees into France. Muslim armies were halted in 732–733 by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours, marking the farthest point of Muslim conquests in western Europe.

In the east, Muslim armies conquered Afghanistan and territory across the Indus River deep into India, where they made numerous converts among the Buddhist population. Attempts in 670 and subsequently to take the Byzantine capital Constantinople all failed and the Byzantine Empire was able to survive until the 15th century.

In contrast to his predecessors, Caliph Umar II (r. 717–720) was known for his religious piety. He proclaimed the equality of all his subjects, Muslims, Arabs, or non-Muslims, but he also established some differentiations based on dress whereby Christians were forbidden to wear silk garments or turbans in public.

The collection and distribution of tax revenues were a perennial dilema for the Umayyads. Provincial governors were often reluctant to send monies to the state, preferring to spend revenues in their own localities. The Umayyads never established an effective centralized means of fiscal control.

Under Islamic law the non-Muslim population had not been forced to convert and non-Muslims or Dhimmis remained the majority of the population throughout most of the empire. Dhimmis paid land tax in addition to a poll tax from which Arab Muslims, the original conquerors, were exempt. In addition Muslim Arabs also received a state stipend.

As more non-Arab subjects converted to Islam, revenues flowing into the central treasury decreased. The Umayyads attempted to replenish revenues with ambitious land reclamation and irrigation schemes to increase agricultural productivity.

The revenues from these projects went to the state. Under Caliph Hisham (r. 724–743) land tax was to be paid whether one had converted or not, although converts did become exempt from the poll tax.

The non-Arab Muslim population was gradually absorbed into society although the social cleavages between the elite Arab population, represented by the Umayyads, and more recent converts remained. Slaves were at the bottom rung of the social and economic strata. Most slaves were acquired as property in wars, but some were purchased through slave trading.

By the eighth century the Umayyads faced mounting economic problems. Revenues for the state and its huge army declined as conquests largely ceased. Unpaid soldiers posed a constant dilema of rebellions in the provinces.

In its tanggapan years the Umayyad Empire was also plagued with internal problems over succession to the caliphate. In 750 the Umayyads lost a major battle to the rebellious Abbasids, who enjoyed support from the Khursasan province. The caliph Marwan fled to Egypt but was pursued and killed.

Except for Abd al-Rahman most of the Umayyad family was also assassinated. Abd al-Rahman managed to escape and established an Umayyad dynasty in Córdoba, Spain. With the end of the Umayyad dynasty a new Muslim elite of Persian and then Turkish origins emerged under the Abbasid empire.

Although it had been built on Islamic conquests, the Umayyad Empire was essentially a secular dynasty. Umayyad rulers, with the exception of the pious Umar II, were known for their lavish secular lifestyles and sumptuous courts.

They were pragmatic rulers who opposed those who wanted to establish a religious state. Under the Umayyads, Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) was a confident, largely self-sufficient empire that covered vast territories made up of many diverse peoples.