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The Long Fall of the Safavid Dynasty: Moving beyond the Standard Views

Author(s): John Foran

Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 281-304

Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/164299

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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 24 (1992), 281-304. Printed in the United States of America

John Foran

THE LONG FALL OF THE SAFAVID DYNASTY:

MOVING BEYOND THE STANDARD VIEWS

If the Revolution of Persia has been so astonishing, when taken only in a generalView, and according to the very imperfect Ideas we can form of it from the Gazettesand other publick News Papers, we may affirm, it will appear still more amazing,when we come to give a particularAccount of the remote Causes and Events that

prepar'd he Way to it for above twenty Years ...

FatherJudasz Tadeusz Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia'

The Safavid dynasty ruled Iran from 1500 to 1722, the longest-lasting Persian dy-nasty in the past thousandyears. In 1722 this powerful empire finally fell to a fairlysmall invading party of Afghan tribesmen, the event that the Polish Jesuit Krusin-ski found so astonishing. This constituted a crucial turning point in Iranianhistory,for the 18th centurywitnessed subsequentcivil and foreign wars, economic devas-

tation, and political fragmentationthat the historian Jean Aubin referredto as "cat-

astrophic ... by far the blackest period in the whole history of Islamic Iran."2Whatcombination of "remote causes" and historically contingent events brought theSafavids to the ground?What roles were played by politics, economics, and ideol-

ogy or culture in this process? The search for answers to these questions reveals amultitude of truths and realities concerning the system and the nature of social

change in the Safavid era. The argumentadvanced here is that the empire sufferedintertwinedpolitical, economic, and ideological crises, partlyexternal in origin but

primarilyendogenousto the Iranian

political economyof the time.

Changesin the

underlying political economy of Iranpromptedthe state to take political and mili-

tary measures that further underminedits legitimacy and capacity to rule. This es-

say develops a fuller, more multi-causal and theoretically informed account of themain causes of the fall of the Safavids than has hitherto been achieved.

A great many historians and observers have recognized that decline set in wellbefore the fall. The first of these, the FrenchtravelerChardin,noted already in the1670s that the reign of 'AbbasI (r. 1588-1629) had been a pinnacle from which de-cline seemed inevitable: "Once this greatandgood prince hadceased to live, Persiaceased to prosper."3In this judgment Roger Savory has concurred, calling thewhole

periodfrom 1629 to 1722 one of

"gradualbut continuous

decline," thoughhe acknowledges that'AbbasII (r. 1642-66) checked, but did not stop, the reverse.4Du Cerceau, writing in the 1730s, was perhapsthe first to pinpoint the accession of

? 1992 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/92 $5.00 + .00



282 John Foran

Sulayman in 1666 as an irreversible turningpoint: "It was under this Prince, that

Persia began to decay."5The mid-19th century Iranianhistorian Reza Quli Khan

Hidayat spoke of dynasties going throughphases of childhood, adolescence, matu-rity, and old age, until by Sultan Husayn's assumption of the throne in 1694, "the

signs of decline (inhitdt), nay, rather,of extinction (inqirdi) of the life of the dy-

nasty became from day to day [more] manifest."6There is general agreement, then,that the Safavid decline was a long process, though the date of its startingpoint var-

ies from 1629 to the end of the century.VladimirMinorsky'sclassic theses on "the more conspicuous factors"among the

causes of decline constitute the fullest explanatory account of the Safavids' fall.

These factors are: "(a) The complete disappearanceof the basic theocratic nucleus

round which Shah Ismacil had built up his state, without the substitution of some

otherdynamic ideology. (b) Greatopposition between the old and the new elementsin the Persianmilitaryclass. (c) The disturbanceof the equilibriumbetween the ma-

mdlikand khdssah, the expansion of the latterhaving diminishedthe interest of the

service classes in the cause which they were supporting.(d) The irresponsiblechar-acter of the 'shadow government' representedby the harem,the Queen Mother and

the eunuchs. (e) The degenerationof the dynasty whose scions were brought up in

the atmosphereof the harem,in complete ignorance of the outside world."7Minor-

sky's arguments have been essentially restated by subsequent historians such asLaurence Lockhart and Roger Savory. Lockhart stressed the personal shortcomingsof the last two Safavid shahs; Savory emphasized the first three, more structural,contradictions.8A much smallergroupof scholars have hinted at economic problems

rangingfrom "a greatconcentrationof wealth at the court,"9 o declines in trade and

revenues,10o the deleterious effects of the 17th-century"traderevolution."1'

The present essay seeks to move this debate forward by following up on these

structuralhints to uncover the full dimensions of the economic difficulties faced

by the late Safavid state. Drawing on the best secondary historiography and con-

temporary European travelers' accounts as well as some key Persian sources in

translation, it offers a sociological approachto the history of Safavid decline and

fall by establishing the links between diverse causes and by sorting out the several

temporaldimensions that combined to

producethe result. The fiscal crisis had mil-

itary, political, and ideological consequences; individual miscalculations and mo-

narchic inadequacies had their place in these events, but must be situated within

larger structuralparameters.When the long-term trend was exacerbated by me-

dium-termpolitical and military factors in the last decades of the 18th century, the

stage was set for a transition from a process of decline to an accelerating collapseof the dynasty. Finally, a series of revolts and disaffections throughoutthe empire,which might normally have been avoided or subdued, only too surely sealed the

fate of a state that had cut itself off from its own supporters.

LONG-TERM FACTORS: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SAFAVID

DECLINE

Let us begin with a look at the principal long-term political economic trends in

17th-century Iran. This may be done through empirical evidence pointing to a



TheLong Fall of the Safavid Dynasty 283

balance-of-trade deficit and an inflationary dynamic, and through the growingfiscal problems of the Safavid state and their impact on the social formationby the

late 17th or early 18th century. Iran'spredicamentwas partof a worldwide trend.Beginning in the 16th century and continuing into the 17th, the steady flow of sil-

ver and, to a lesser degree, gold from Latin American mines into Spain spread

throughoutEuropeand was carriedby the East India fleets into Asia. From Asia to

the West, the reverse trade routes tended to carryvaluable commodities-silk and

spices above all. The question that arises is what was Iran's overall balance of

trade? A qualitative answer, at best, can be attempted. The export of Iran's vastsilk productiondrew specie into the country, but how much is difficult to say. Fer-rier estimates the value of an average year's silk exports at perhaps ?1,750,000,with wide fluctuations. In the 16th century most of this silk may have been paidfor with cash, but with the growth of importsof English cloth and Dutch spices inthe 17th, much less was paid for in this manner.12The English East India Com-

pany (EIC) exported to all of Asia the enormous sum of ?15,486,187 (mostly in

silver) between 1659/60 and 1719/20, an average of ?281,703 for the fifty-fiveyears that figures are available (the yearly average increased from ?238,559 for1659/60-1687/88 to ?329,537 for 1691/92-1719/20).13 But much of this musthave gone to Mughal India, and only an unknownportion to Iran.The other majorsource of specie was the Levant, both from the Ottomans themselves and the Eu-

ropean companies there. Ferrier makes an "inspired guess" of ?700,000 worth of

imports annually from Turkey in the mid-17th century, much of it in the form of

specie.14The amounts were great enough, in Inalcik's view, that "in Persia, the

currencyin circulation was kept supplied by gold and silver earned in the Ottomanmarkets."'15The amounts most likely increased after the Ottomanwars and prohi-bitions of the 16th century gave way to more peaceful relations in the 17th, but

again the figures are simply unknown.The money obtained by a favorable balance in the silk trade with the West then

flowed to the East, as spices, drugs, and cotton goods were importedinto Iranandhad to be paid for in part with cash. The main sources that drained specie awayfrom Iran were the Dutch and the Indians. The Dutch, in Fryer's famous words,"carryoff... many Tunn of Gold and Silver,

Yearly."16This

theydid

by supply-ing Iran with expensive spices from their Asian trade. And since Mughal India hadno need for the raw silk of Iran, the cotton and other textile goods it exported hadto be paid for with cash. Fryer said that at Bandar cAbbas on the Persian Gulf inthe 1670s the largest trade was that of Indian cloth; Ferrier feels that one-third oftotal Indian productionmay have gone to or throughIran.'7

Chardin calls the Indian moneylendersat Isfahan"truebloodsuckers [who] drawall the gold and silver out of the country and send it to their own."'18Thus, in 1660du Mans could compare Iranto a caravanseraywith two gates passing coins from

Turkey to India, and conclude that "the wealth of Persia is only like the humidityof water which attaches itself to the channels it

passes throughinto

its basin . . . lit-tle remains in the country."19Concrete evidence of this is the Dutch cargo worth

988,000 florins that left Bandar'Abbas for Ceylon and Surat in 1697/98, of which88.5 percent consisted of Europeangold ducats.20The result inside Iran was thelack of money in circulation, which was commented on in the later 17th century by



284 John Foran

Chardin and Thevenot; this shortage was compounded by royal hoarding. Chardinreferred to the Treasury as "a bottomless pit (un vrai gouffre), for all is lost there

and but little comes out."21The key changes that occurred in Iran's commerce between 1630 and 1722 had

mainly to do with the silk trade. Iran'saverage annualexports in the 17th century,based mainly on silk, have been estimated at ?1-2 million.22 Silk productionseems to have risen from 1620 to 1670: an English estimate of 1620 is that

1,350,000 pounds of silk were exported to Europe, while Olearius put the total

crop in the mid-1630s at 4,300,000 pounds, and Chardin in 1670 put it at

6,072,000 pounds.23These are all guesses, however, and a plausible inferencewould be that by 1670 the export of silk reached a peak and may thereafterhavedeclined through 1720.24The East India companies found a cheaper source of silk

in Bengal by 1650; this led to a drop in demand in the Persian Gulf. Though Iran'sArmenian middlemen continued to ply the overland routes, the price in Europefell, which must have had an impact on their abilities to sell Iran's silk in the Le-vant. As less silk was sold and new exports of wool failed to make up the differ-

ence, it became necessary to spend more and more cash for the spices the Dutch

brought from Asia.

Judging from such evidence we may cautiously infer that the balance of tradewas on the whole becoming less positive or even negative by the latterdecades ofthe 17th century. In the emerging patternof world trade, then, Iran fit neither theclassic Europeancore or Asian peripheryrole-it bought Asian products (as the

Europeansdid) and sold its own silk (as the Asians did), but the European compa-nies profitedtwice on these transactions,for they broughtthe silk to market in Eu-

rope and the spices to market in Iran, adding costs to the latter and deductingprofits from the former. From the European point of view, Iran was as much ashort circuit as a conduit in this trade.

While large-scale commerce with the Dutch and with India drained currencyaway from Iran,the continued overland silk tradeexposed Iran to the Ottoman Em-

pire's inflation problems, part of another worldwide trend. In Europe in the last

quarterof the 16th century there was a three- to fourfold increase in prices for

goodsand services

comparedwith 1500.

Originatingin western

Europe,inflation

spreadto Italy and central Europe, and then, by the 1580s, to the OttomanEmpire.How much inflation did Iran, midway geographically and commercially between

the OttomanandMughalempires, in fact experience?Emerson notes thatdue to the

scarcity of coins the prices of foreign goods were falling, which would imply a

strengtheningof Iran'scurrency.25Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of a cer-

tain amount of internalinflation. Safavid currencyhad generally high standardsof

weight and fineness through the time of Shah 'Abbas and beyond.26But in 1677,Chardinremarked,"The money itself has been altered. One no longer encounters

good coins."27By 1684, most of the coins in circulation were seriously debased;thebazaars at Isfahan were

closed,and new

moneywas orderedminted.28Another kind

of inflation is alleged by Krusinski to have occurred due to the frequent changingof provincial intendants. Since they minted the local copper currencyin their own

name, these coins decreased in value by half each time a new governor was ap-pointed. They were also worth only half as much outside their region of origin.29



The Long Fall of the Safavid Dynasty 285

TABLE 1 Prices in Safavid Iran, 1581-1716

Year/ Place Bread (dinars/lb.) Rice (dinars/lb.) Hens (dinars) Wood (dinars/lb.)

1581/ Isfahan 1.52 10.6 1.52

1588-1629/ Sultaniyya 62.5

1629-42/ Isfahan 3.70

1636-38/ Isfahan .95

1668/Isfahan 15.75

1667-94/ Isfahan 25.0 75.0 4.17-5.21

1716/ Isfahan 5.36

Source: Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life, 119-20. Calculations, with corrections, mine.

Prices on the few commodities for which we have even roughly comparablein-

formation suggest a generally rising patternin the later 17th century. In an econ-

omy that was not yet "national," prices naturally varied from place to place.Chardinfound Khuzistan inexpensive, with Qandahartwice as cheap and Kirmanand the Gulf more costly. Tabriz (closer to the Ottoman inflation perhaps?) wasconsidered inexpensive by Chardin and De Rhodes.30Table 1 provides a rough in-dex of the long-term trends. It should be noted that the price of bread at Isfahan in1668 is anomalous; there had been a bad harvest in 1666 followed by an outbreak

of famine and disease.31Prices of all the goods listed rose in the course of the 17th

century: wood, for example, by over 11 percent a year from 1636 to 1716, andfoodstuffs by ratherless. These trends are confirmed by such Europeanobserversas Struys in 1672, FatherJohn Baptist at Shiraz in 1678, Sanson in 1683, and Bellin 1715-18, as well as the Ottomanenvoy DurriEfendi in 1719.32

To reconcile these two majornegative trends-a drain of currencyfrom the im-balance of foreign trade and an internal rise in prices-is not a simple matter.

Logically the first should have caused prices to fall by increasing the demand forcoins. The only hint of a mutual resolution of these counteractingtrends is the factthat Indian

moneylenders,Armenian merchants, and the Safavid state itself took

the best coins either out of the country or out of circulation, leaving only the leastfine and thus debasing the currency that circulated internally. Other explanationsmay be necessary. What seems to have happenedwas that good currencywas hardto find, resulting in an undermonetarizedeconomy that limited overall trade, andthat prices rose as well, with inevitably negative consequences for the urbanpoorand those living on fixed incomes-a group that included some, perhaps many,who worked for the Safavid state, including holders of suyurghdl (a form of tax

immunity) and other tax benefits and those paid in lump sums ratherthan in a per-centage of the land revenues. In a society with little wage labor, inflation seemsmost

likelyto have harmed those who had no

productto sell or those

whosein-

come could not be raised to compensate; thus the urbanpoor and marginal popu-lations undoubtedly suffered more than merchants, artisans, or state officials did.

Peasants, paying a fixed portion of their crop and living in a subsistence economy,probably were not too badly affected, and tribespeople even less.



286 John Foran

Whatever their ultimate explanation, both these trends contributedto what maynow be characterized as the fiscal crisis of the Safavid political economy. Roem-

er's account of the Safavid period provides some hints of a growing shortfall ofstate funds by the mid-17th century. Referring to Mirza Muhammad Taqi, the

grandvizier from 1634 to 1645, Roemer notes, "Efficientadministrativemeasures,

especially in finance, enabled him to raise revenues to a level never before knownin Iran."33Known for his integrity, he used a system of spies to crack down on

corruption,which led to a murderplot against him that succeeded on 11 October1645. The grandvizier from 1653 to 1661 was a Tabriz Armeniannamed Muham-mad Beg, who as overseer of the royal workshops had acquired a reputationas a

competent fiscal agent. "The problems he was required to solve, however, were

beyond his capabilities. He did not succeed in reducing the immoderateoutlay on

the court and the high militaryexpenditureas the situation demanded, not even bytaking the necessary measures to reduce the quality of the coinage, attempting tofoster mining, and further increasing the crown lands."34Thus, it would appearthat despite a high point in revenue collection in the 1640s, a deficit had arisen

only a decade later. In the 1670s, Chardin, who was admittedly only guessing,posited revenues of 700,000 tumans (32 million livres) against expenditures of

744,000 (34 million livres); he, certainly, had some sense that there was a deficitto be taken into account.35Upon leaving Iran in 1677 he reflected on the changesbetween his firstjourney in 1665 and the present: "Wealth seemed diminished byone-half, from one time to the next, in this period of only twelve years.... "36

Two principal causes of fiscal crisis were the large outlays on the army and the

costs of maintainingthe harem. Minorsky puts expenditure on the regulararmy in

1722 at only 10.5 percent of the total, but this covers only the salaries of the four

corps commanders;another 56 percent went to provincial governors serving a mil-

itary function. Chardin felt that the army accounted for 38.2 percent of total

spending in the 1670s.37While this component of the state's expenditures wasratherhigh, it was perhaps stable in the period underconsideration. Such was not

the case with the harem.Chardinput the haremat 11.8 percent of total spending in

the 1670s, with the royal family and its attendantsat another 29.4 percent (some 4

and 10 millionfrancs, respectively,

out of 34 million inall).

When SultanHusayncame to the throne in 1694 the harem grew to huge proportions; one chronicler

says there were 500 wives and daughtersin the royal family and some 4,500 slave

girls (kaniz).38Krusinski writes of Sultan Husayn's harem that its "Expences. . . swallowed up the Greatest Part of his Finances" and that he had "trebledthe

Expence of it to what it was in the Time of his Predecessors." A pilgrimage to

Mashhadin 1706-08 included the entire haremand some 60,000 men, "which not

only compleatly drein'd his Exchequer, but also ruin'd all the Provinces throughwhich he pass'd."39 ultan Husayn exacerbatedthese expenses with a penchantfor

building as well-palaces, pleasure gardens, mosques, and hospitals-"in which

he buried immense Sums, and even exhausted the Treasuresof the Kings that hadreign'dbefore him."40

Given these fiscal pressures, the last two Safavid shahs resorted to the sale of

offices and a limited amount of tax-farming. Tax-farmingon the scale of the abso-

lutist states of Europe did not occur. Chardinin fact comments that its absence in




Iran provided a certain relief from excessive taxes since when the harvest was

poor, the taxes declined in proportion; Minorsky notes perceptively that tax-

farming presupposes a more highly monetarized economy than that of SafavidIran.41 n 1674, however, Shah Sulayman began to farm the customs at Bandar

'Abbas, which owing to fraud had fallen from 1,100,000 livres in the reign of

CAbbasI (1642-66) to less than 500,000 in the early 1670s. The position of chiefcustoms officer (shdhbandar) thus went from being a salaried post to one that

"cost" its occupant some 1,200,000 livres (24,000 tumans) for the privilege of

keeping the customs receipts.42Krusinski confirms that under Sulayman and Sul-tan Husayn, "Offices were disposed of, not to the most deserving, but to the high-est bidder." Though their offices were expensive to acquire, the provincial"appointees"used the pretext of having to provide "presents"to the court to raise

"ten Times as much upon the People." Those below the new officer used the ex-cuse of providing receptions for him to lay "extraordinaryContributions"on the

population, themselves gaining "six Times as much by it." All of this is contrasted

by Krusinski to the former practices of appointment by merit, and for life unlessone committed serious abuses.43 An 18th-century chronicle describes Sultan

Husayn's stay at Qazvin in 1719, criticizing those courtiers who "began to selloffices and take contracts."44

The inevitable result of such state responses to fiscal crisis was economic hard-

ship for the population. Chardinnotes thatby 1677, "The impoverished great men

everywherescorched the

people,to

keep uptheir standardof

living."45Krusinski

writes of provincial extortion a generation later:

. . . everyGovernor . . hasten'do fillhisPurse, hathemighthavewherewithalopurchasea newPalace,orto defendhimselfagainstanyProsecution e hadto apprehendor his Op-pressions, hewhole attheExpenceof thepoorPeople,who were fleeced n all Respectsbythose toofrequentAlterations . . thePeoplehada greatdeal to sufferunderGovernorswhoregardedheirPost no morethana Place to baitat,made t moretheirStudy o pillagetheCitiesandProvinces,han okeepup goodOrder; nd histheydid withthe less Caution ndReserve,because heywereverysensible hat heymightdo it withImpunity.46

Corruptionand briberyin high places caused excessive taxes to be levied,leadingto less well-off peasant and urbanpopulations. Some peasants fled their land, be-

coming nomadic pastoralists or bandits. Public safety on the roads, so secure inthe time of 'Abbas I, and even in the 1670s, according to Tavernier, broke downunder Sultan Husayn, as highway robbers and peasants plundered travelers, andrecourse to the local authorities,often alleged to work together with highwaymen,no longer led to compensation for stolen goods.47Famines broke out in Isfahan it-self in 1666/67 and 1707 (the latterleading to a revolt), and the situation was suchin 1717 that a German soldier described widespread poverty there: "Breadwas soscarce that the poor people used to devour dead camels, horses and mules. Once,when a horse died in the Dutch

compound,its

bodywas thrown into the

street;within an hour, all the flesh had been picked from its bones."48Such conditionswere not the rule at all times in all parts of Safavid Iran, but that they were acuteat least three times in the capital over fifty years gives some idea of the impact ofthe trends discussed here.



288 John Foran

My contention is that the result of these various developments was economic de-terioration at all levels of society. The drain of currency and debasement of the

coins in circulationhurt the merchantclasses (and the ulama who dependedon their

contributions).Militaryand haremexpendituresled to fiscal crisis at the apex of the

state, and underminedthe Safavid family and the vast numbersof courtiers and oth-ers it supported.In turn this unleashed new abuses such as the sale of offices, cor-

ruption,and higher taxes. These hurtthe whole population,especially the peasantryand urbanworking classes, who were further hardpressed by the rise in prices that

most burdenedthe urbanpoor. By the beginning of the 18thcentury,the flourishingpolitical economy of Shah CAbbas nd his immediate successors appears to havebeen lurchinginto a crisis whose repercussionsaffected the entire social formation.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE MEDIUM RUN: THE POLITICAL AND

IDEOLOGICAL CRISES

Economic deterioration found its counterpartin political conflict, and the reper-cussions of political and ideological squabbles further undermined the position of

the Safavid royal family. During the entire Safavid period (1500-1722) the most

far-reaching political struggles tended to be inter- and intra-elite conflicts at the

top of the social structure ratherthan class conflicts between dominant and domi-

nated groups. This is not to deny the objective existence of numerous classes in

17th-centuryIranian

society,which was a

complex hybridof tribal, settled

peas-ant, and urban economic sectors.49Moreover, numerous popular movements of

peasants, tribespeople, and bazaarclasses occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries,but the obstacles to organizing resistance across economic sectors rendered suc-

cess at the level of national political power or the attainment of local indepen-dence illusory. The elite conflicts of most relevance for the present discussion

were the failure of the long-standing struggle by tribal chiefs to enhance their

power at the expense of the state, the rise of factions centered around the harem

over the last Safavid shahs at the court, and the negative consequences of the in-

fluence of certain high-ranking ulama in the state, whose persecution of non-

Shicite minorities rent the social fabric.Struggles for power at the top of the social structure were common throughout

the Safavid period. One way to conceptualize these changes is in terms of the de-

gree of centralization/decentralizationof the Safavid state, the key to which was

the shah's relation to the Qizilbash tribes-the Turcoman cavalrymen who had

originally brought the dynasty to power in 1501. The leading tribal chiefs chal-

lenged royal authorityrepeatedly in the 16th century, first after Ismacil's death in

1524 and again after Tahmaspdied in 1576. In the 1590s, Shah 'Abbas spent most

of the first ten years of his reign restoringorder. This he accomplished by system-

atically reducing tribal power, building up a new state-paid standing army, and

bringing in Georgian captives (called ghulams) and more native Iranians as pro-vincial governors and court bureaucrats.The form and degree of resistance of tribal chiefs to royal authority gradually

changed as the balance of power shifted; Banani highlights the different contexts

of the tribal "civil wars" of 1526-33 and 1576-90:




TABLE 2 Central vs. decentralized state

power in Iran, 1500-1800

Strong Central Control/ Decentralized Power/

Absolutism Tribal State

1500-24/6

1526-33

ca. 1530-76

1576-90s

1600-90s

1700-1800

An estimate of Tahmasp I's measure of success in reducing the actual power of Turcoman

tribes and in increasing autocraticpower may be gained by comparing the Qizilbash disor-ders at the beginning and at the end of his reign. Whereas in the beginning the Qizilbashamirs were fighting as independent chiefs for prospects of greater autonomy, at the end

they were squabblingas partisansof rival aspirantsof the dudmdn[Safavid royal family] to

the throne, in expectation of relative royal favors.50

Local tribal groups also engaged in a type of independence movement known as

qazaq, rebellions which often occurred on the peripheryof the Safavid empire-inGeorgia and the Caucasus, and in Kurdistan,Khuzistan,Khurasan,Sistan, and Bal-

uchistan.5'The frequency of such uprisings is evident from Monshi's chronicle en-

try for 1571/72: "Otherpositive achievements of the Shah in regardto the salvationof the country include the chastisement of rebels in various outlying districts-in

Kurdestan,Larestan,Tales, and Rostamdar.If I were to describe all the local rebel-lions which were suppressed by officers of the Safavid state, I would become pro-lix."52This underlines the salient fact that despite the frequency of attemptedrebellions, all were sooner or later successfully suppressed by the state. By 1600,the great amirs (tribal chiefs) had declined in wealth, territory,and military man-

power,and their ambitions had shrunk from political control of

provincial gover-norships to a desperate attemptto hold onto their social bases in the local pastoralunits. 'Abbas'sreform measures sealed the fate of the 16th-centurytribal state sys-tem and heralded a new Safavid absolutism that lasted well into the 17th century.53Table 2 offers a periodization of this process in the Safavid period. 'Abbas's abso-lutist project endured for several generations after his death in 1629, until a con-stellation of factors led to a decline in Safavid hegemony by the early 18thcentury.

One of the key elements in the centralization process of the 17th century wasthe conversion of state provinces (mamalik) administered by Qizilbash tribalchieftains who retained the bulk of the tax revenues generated in exchange for

providingthe shah with a

contingentof

troopson demand(an institution known as

tuyiil), into crown provinces (khassah) administereddirectly by an official of thecentral bureaucracy.This reduced Qizilbash power in both economic and militaryterms, and thus as viable political rivals of the state as well. This policy was urgedupon Shah 'Abbas'ssuccessor, Safi, by his grandvizier SaruTaqi, who arguedthat



290 John Foran

"since there were no wars to wage, nor plans to undertake any, he could do with-

out having the goods of his empire consumed by the governors."54 The wealthy

central province of Fars with its capital at Shiraz was the first area converted tocrown land; Olearius counted as crown territory in the 1630s the cities of Qazvin,

Isfahan, Kashan, Tehran, Mashhad, Kirman, Hurmuz, and parts of Georgia.55 Dur-

ing the reign of 'Abbas II the crown holdings were extended to Gilan and Mazan-

daran, Yazd, some parts of Khurasan and Azarbayjan, and to the Bakhtiari

territory, Hamadan, and Ardabil.56 Tribal governors were reinstated only if mili-

tary threats arose, as in 1668-69 when Cossacks raided Gilan and Mazandaran

from across the Caspian and Uzbek and Ottoman threats to Khurasan and Az-

arbayjan were taken seriously as well.57 Kaempfer's list of the crown territories in

1684 included the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, Yazd, and "Isfahan," and the

towns of Qazvin, Kashan, Qum, Lar, and Shiraz.58 The number of court-appointed

ghuldms (mainly Georgians) serving as provincial administrators rose from 8 out

of 14 "important" provinces in 1629 to 23-25 out of 37 newly appointed governor

generals in the reign of 'Abbas II.59

Chardin suggested that the consequences of converting state to crown lands

were quite negative for the Iranian people, the economy, and the state's military

preparedness:

The Persians find this a very bad policy, saying that the intendants are insatiable bloodsuck-

ers, who drain the subjects to fill up the royal treasury,and in so doing neglect the people's

complaints about this oppression, pretendingthat the king's interest does not permitthem toheed them as they would like, while in reality they plunder to enrich themselves; whereasthe governors, looking on the province as a kingdom belonging to themselves, consumethere what they raise, supporting many officials and a numerous court. The Persians also

say that the new practice weakens the empire because it prevents the raising of good sol-

diers, and that there are no longer so many great lords supportedfrom among whom to findin case of need brave leaders well-versed in militarydiscipline; which exposes the kingdomto easy invasion by its enemies while the governors had been its defense and strength.Fi-

nally, they say that the new practice also impoverishes the kingdom because it bringsmoney to the king's coffers which should circulate throughout the country; which is the

same as if one had buried it in the earth.... 60

Chardin felt that the abuses of provincial governors were less grave than those of

the royal administrators, since the former needed their provinces to flourish in or-

der to live off them and had no incentive constantly to raise taxes in order to re-

main in place, while the royal comptrollers, on the contrary, had to "buy" their

appointments, then increase revenues to keep them, and this led to corruption on

their part and exploitation of the taxable population.61 This interpretation has

found favor with modern historians, including Minorsky, Lambton, Lockhart, and,

most recently, Savory, who claims that the conversion policy "contributed largelyto Safavid decline."62

Thesejudgments

are on the whole valid, but the economic,political, military,and social implications of the process need to be specified more clearly. The most

concrete evidence of the damage is the case of Shiraz, which Chardin considers to

have somehow lost more than 80,000 people (more than half its population), after

it was made a crown territory by Shah Safi. But Chardin also acknowledges that




the shah's revenues in Shiraz and the surrounding province of Fars increased byeight million livres as a result of the change.63What is certain is that the tribal

amirs, who used to serve as provincial governors, were losing politically and eco-nomically to the Safavid state. This would disclose its negative side when no pro-vincial army rallied to the Safavids during the siege of Isfahan in 1722.

The impact on more ordinary people is harder to assess, but some partialobjec-tions to the standardinterpretationshould be raised: First, why did the new-styleadministratorsnot need to maintain as flourishing an economy to keep up revenuelevels as the old-style governors? The reply usually cites their short term in officeand need to enrich themselves and satisfy the shah, but the tribal governors werenot in fact permanentor completely secure in their tenure either. Second, the factthat little surplus was remitted to the center under the old system does not mean

that this greatly benefited ordinary people who had to provide this surplus for thegovernors. A counter-argumentwould be that the money remainedin the provinceand was spent on patronage projects that supported a segment of the provincialcourt-its artists, poets, scholars, and builders-but this was just a form of"trickle-downeconomics" as far as the majoritywas concerned. Exploitation doesseem to have increased in the later 17th century, but this appearsto have been due

more to the tendencies toward fiscal crisis already noted than to the conversionfrom state to crown lands per se.

Did the conversion process affect land tenure relations in other ways? The avail-able evidence is too scanty to be certain, let alone quantified,but various inferences

have been attempted.The Safavids probablyranthroughthe usual Iraniancycle ofcentral control and reshuffling of agrarianpower, followed by gradual encroach-ments of private owners on the royal holdings. Banani and Lambton noted tenden-cies for members of the ulama to gain control over land as the 17th century woreon.64Chardinclaimed that holders of tuyuil of whom the largest were the provin-cial governors) considered their assignments as their own private property.65Though Fragner hypothesizes that there may not have been "any large-scale weak-

ening of the great landholders,"the expansion of crown land from the 1590s to the1660s must have had an effect in this direction.66Control over some of the crownlands claimed by the shahs does seem to have passed throughthem to office hold-ers, government troops, and others; thus, Lambtonwrites, "As the central govern-ment weakened in the later Safavid period the gradualtendency was for both tuyiuland suyurghal to be usurped and converted into private propertyover which theofficials of the state exercised little or no control."67A most interesting argument s

put forward by Daryoush Navidi, who sees privatization tendencies in the evolu-tion of crown land, waqf endowments, suyuirghalgrants, and reclamation of deadlands, all of which put the peasantrymore directly in contact with the holders ofthe rights to the agrariansurplus.Navidi interpretsthis not as privatepropertyin it-

self, but as a significant transitionaldevelopment, shifting the status of the peasantfrom a "communal man"to a "man subordinatedto a privileged man who had ac-

quiredthe right to possess the revenue from the lands."In the post-Safavid era thiswould lead to a furtherbreakdown of the communal village and lay the basis for

private owners and landlords. Rather than the governors or bureaucrats, it was"less autonomousand less powerful people, mainly city dwellers, who were highly



292 John Foran

controlled by the central government, [who] were to become the land owners."68The problem is knowing the shifting balance of crown-controlled territoryversus

de facto privateestates in the course of the 17thcentury.The main fact of politicalconsequence is clearly the alienation of the tribal military elite from the Safavid

state, resulting in the attenuation of the loyalties of the underlying population astheir hardship grew.

The key institution of the army, too, underwent changes in the later 17th cen-

tury that can be in part attributed to the royal land-conversion project. Shah'Abbas'sreforms of ca. 1600 included bringing in peasants, Iraniantribesmen, andslave convert (ghuldm) soldiers all paid by the state, as a counterbalance to the old

provincial Qizilbash tribal levies. When new areas were incorporated into thecrown lands this furtherreduced the tribalcomponent in the Safavid armies;more-

over, the centrally paid army did not always increase correspondingly to keeppace.69The total numbers in the army were constantly diminished under Shah Safiin the 1630s, and only partly restored under 'AbbasII, who retook Qandahar romthe Mughals in 1648.70Many of the troops existed only on paper: "During a re-view held in 1660 cAbbas II discovered that the same arms, horses, and men

passed before him 10-12 times."71By the 1670s the troops lived at home and

rarely, if ever, drilled together, merely showing up once or twice a year to be in-

spected. After Chardinleft Iranin 1677, he felt the situation had deteriorated evenfurther:pay had fallen by a quarter,and, as expenses rose, many soldiers were de-

serting the army for other jobs and failing to bring up their children as soldiers.

Chardin noted that the court tolerated the diminution of the army, seeing it as a

savings.72The decline in numbers,pay, and training;the corruptionand neglect in

high places; the long peace with the Ottomans-all these combined seriously toerode the morale and preparednessof the army. As Roemer notes, "It was eventu-

ally said of the army that it was quite useful for military paradesbut no use at allfor war."73This deteriorationwould begin to be felt after about 1700 as border re-volts took place and would culminate in the disaster of 1722.

Shifting to the plane of intra-elite conflicts within the Safavid court itself, twobasic developments must be mentioned. The first of these is the rise to power ofthe harem as a political weight in the Safavid state, particularlythe most importanteunuchs and the shah's mother and most forceful wives and concubines. This cameabout in consequence of a significant change in the upbringingof the royal princesinauguratedby Shah 'Abbas. Rather thancontinuing the practice of appointing the

young princes to provincial governorships with a tribal tutor acting as guardian,'Abbas, fearing Qizilbash intrigues such as the series of events surroundinghisown rise to power, began the practice of confining the princes to the harem,where

they learned little of statecraft or military science. Brought up in isolation fromthe world, the eldest son was not told he was heir apparent;he learned (some-times) to read, to pray, to shoot a bow, and little else, and came under the influ-ence of the eunuchs and women of the harem.74The result of this

upbringingseems to have been a marked decline or "degeneration" n the personal capacitiesof the Safavid rulers who followed 'Abbas I. Krusinski writes of Shah Safi

(r. 1629-42): "He meddled very little with Affairs of the Government,passing hiswhole Life with his Bottle, his Wives, or in Hunting, so that had it not been for the




numerous Cruelties, which stained his Reign with Blood, it would have been

scarce perceivable that he ever was King."75Abbas II (r. 1642-66) was only about

nine years old when he assumed the throne;less influenced by the harem,he had abetterreputationfor active leadershipin the political and militaryfields, but he toodrank and could be ruthless with members of the court, and during the last yearsof his reign he governed "irregularly," probably ill with syphilis.76The last two

Safavids, Sulayman (r. 1666-94) and Sultan Husayn (r. 1694-1722), exhibited

few redeeming qualities. Sulayman drank heavily, abused his officials (and hadsome executed), and is said to have once spent seven years in the harem without

emerging.77Several Europeantravelers concur as to the overindulgences, neglectof duty, and extraordinary ncompetence of Sultan Husayn.78

Correspondingto the personal degeneration of these later Safavid shahs was a

rise in the status and power of the harem environment that produced them. A pri-vate "harem council," consisting of the most importanteunuchs, was formed in

Sulayman's reign, and under Sultan Husayn, they became "the Arbiters of Affairs,the Dispensers of Employments and Favors, and Absolute Masters of the Govern-

ment,"deciding issues of war and peace, conducting foreign relations, and making

appointmentsto all offices.79The titular ministers of the Council of State and theCourt Assembly devolved into "mere executive organs of this privy council.... Sovereignty resided in the harem, where eunuchs, princesses and concubines

intrigued incessantly."80Harem infighting and provincial bureaucraticabuses were

linked, as alliances formed and positions were bought and sold, with intra-elite

rivalries at court leading to frequent changes in both military and provincialappointments.81

Another elite that attained a new degree of power at the shah's expense in thelater years of the 17th century was the highest-rankingulama. Already in the 17th

century, Chardinnoted the increasing challenges of the ulama to royal legitimacyover the issue of who representedthe Hidden Imam (the Safavids seem to havebeen put on the defensive in this controversy after 1650).82But there was not justa struggle to evolve a power base independent of the state83;the ulama alsoachieved notable successes in directly controlling the last two shahs in the years1666-1722.84 This attempt to influence the government from within intensifiedwith the appointmentof the eminent mujtahidMuhammadBaqirMajlisi as shaykhal-islam of Isfahan in 1687. Until his death in 1699, Majlisi exercised much influ-ence over Shah Sultan Husayn in such policies as prohibition of drinking (whichlasted only for a time), banishment of sufis, and large-scale conversions and perse-cutions of minorities. Around 1712, the office of mulldbashi (supervisor of the ul-ama and sayyids) was created for Mir MuhammadBaqir Khatun-abadi,the shah's

tutor, and laterpassed to Mulla MuhammadHusayn, who together with the haklm-bdshi (chief physician) was the most dominant minister in the cabinet up to thefall of the dynasty.85One of Majlisi's most historically consequential actions wasthe initiation of

campaignsof

persecution againstnot

onlythe non-Muslim reli-

gious minorities, but against sufis, "philosophers,"and Sunnis as well: "Farfrom

unifying the population of the country, this policy of intolerance, which was also

pursued by MuhammadBaqir's grandson and successor Mir MuhammadHusayn,tended to sow dissension because it encouraged people to denounce one another.It



294 John Foran

was one of the factors that subsequently, in the hour of need, renderedreligiouscommitment ineffective as a stimulus to popularresolve to defend the country."86

Not only would supportfrom areas with substantial Sunni populations-the Cau-casus, Kurdistan,and Khurasan-not be forthcoming at the siege of Isfahan, butthe Afghan invaders, who were Sunnis themselves, developed religious grievancesstemming from these persecution campaigns.

To sum up, then, despite the large number of popular movements, particularlyin the 16th century, all were unsuccessful in altering the basic terms of power. In-

stead, under Shah 'Abbas, an absolutist state had triumphedby 1630, but it wasone that requireda strong, independent,active shah to direct the bureaucracy,con-duct foreign relations, command the army, enforce justice, and foster trade.87Thecrown land-conversion project and the immuringof the royal princes in the harem

revealed their limitations in the next generations, allowing a several-sided andfractious struggle for influence to arise among the ulama, led by Majlisi; the

harem, itself internally divided, and an excluded, discontended old-line Qizilbashtribal and Iranianbureaucratic court and provincial administration. More than the

popular mass-based social movements, these inter- and intra-elite conflicts at the

top of the social formation had gradually undermined the absolutist Safavid state

by the beginning of the 18th century.

SHORT-TERM CONJUNCTURES: THE COURSE OF EVENTS, 1698-1722

We are now in a position to draw together the diverse strandsof this argumentonthe process of Safavid decline with a look at the actual historical sequence of

events throughwhich these long- and medium-term trendsexpressed their efficacy.As early as 1698-99, four years after Sultan Husayn had come to the throne, Bal-uchi tribesmen raided Kirman,threateningYazd and Bandar'Abbas. These distur-bances were quelled, not by a Qizilbash tribal chief nor by a state ghulamcommander, but by Giorgi XI, a Georgian prince, with his own contingents. Be-tween 1700 and 1703 Giorgi was first made governor of Kirman and then com-

manderin chief of the Iranianarmy, as well as being restored as vail (governor) of

Georgia, with his nephew Wakhtangsent to administer the region in his absence;

his brother Levan became divdn-bigi (chief justice) of Iran, and the latter's sonKhusrau Khan was appointeddairuighahmayor) of Isfahan.88 n 1704 the Baluchi

attacked Qandahar,and across the empire in Kurdistan an uprising against an ex-

tortionategovernor-generalhad to be put down. From 1706 to 1708 the shah went

on a costly pilgrimage to Mashhadwith a massive retinue; in his absence a revolt

broke out in Isfahan during a famine in the summer of 1707. Crowds demandingthe release and enthronement of Sultan Husayn's brother, 'Abbas, were dispersedby KhusrauKhan, who had been sent back from Mashhadby the shah. The spateof provincial unrest continued with an uprising in Georgia in 1706 by the Lezghitribes in the Caucasus because their subsidy had not been reaching them from Iran,

and, in 1709, a revolt in nearby Shirvan led by an Iraniancommander.89A far more serious situation was developing among the Afghan tribes at Qanda-

har and Herat. The Ghalzais, numberingsome 50,000 families or 250,000 people,were centered at Qandahar; he Abdalis, who were estimated at up to 60,000 fami-

lies, had long inhabitedthe Qandahararea but were moved to Herat underpressure




from the Ghalzais early in the reign of 'Abbas I. Both tribes had favored the Safa-vids over the Mughals in the 17th century, but when Giorgi was sent to Qandahar

after 1704 his rough treatment of the Ghalzai population sparked an uprising ledby Mir Vais, chief of the Hotaki clan and a wealthy trader with India. Arrested and

sent to Isfahan, Mir Vais exploited the factional hostility he found against the

Georgians there, avowing his allegiance to the Safavids and accusing Giorgi of

treason. He was allowed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, where he obtained a

fatwa from the Sunni ulama authorizinghim "to undertakea holy war against the

infidel Georgian oppressors of the Sunni True Believers of Qandahar,and their

heretic Shici instigators."90 ent back to Qandahar,Mir Vais and his followers sur-

prised Giorgi outside the city in April 1709 and killed him, taking control of Qan-dahar. Giorgi's nephew, KhusrauKhan, was dispatched from Isfahan with 12,000

Georgians and Qizilbash and besieged Qandahar n 1711; after almost forcing itssurrender,they had to lift the siege, and when the Qizilbash detachments failed to

give him full support, the army was defeated while retreatingand Khusrau Khanhimself killed. Another expedition dispersed when its aged commander died at

Herat,and a third was beaten by the HeratAbdalis, now also in rebellion, who fur-

ther defeated the forces of the governor of Mashhad. By the time of Mir Vais's

death in 1715, the whole of Qandaharprovince was independent under the Ghal-

zais, and the Abdalis gained control of Herat in 1716-17. Mir Vais's eldest son,

Mahmud,assumed leadershipof the Ghalzais at this time; soon after subduing theAbdalis at Herat (and thus temporarily gaining the credulous Sultan Husayn's fa-

vor), he would begin making forays into Iran.The internal situation in Iran is well summed up in a report by the Capuchin

Pere Bernardde Bourges from Tabriz on 26 February1713: "Persia is in extreme

desolation, with no justice and each living according to his inclination and com-

mitting all the evils he can without punishment. Mir Vais advances his conquestsincreasingly without opposition, the Sophi [i.e., the shah] having neither the honornor the money to oppose him, the great men all opposed to each other, and aPrince who lacks judgment, concerned only with his pleasures and making a trafficof his decrees."9' Sultan Husayn did in fact move his court to Qazvin in 1717/18 toraise troops in the northwest, but the ministers quarreledand nothing was accom-

plished in the three years they spent there. By 1717-19, there were multiple signsof revolt-among the Kurds who occupied Hamadan and raided close to the Isfa-han area, the Lezghis in Shirvan and then Georgia, the Muscat Arabs in the Gulf,Baluchi raids in the Bam and Kirmandistricts, and an internal struggle for leader-

ship among the Musha'sha' Arabs in Khuzistan. Meanwhile, there were more dis-turbances at Isfahan in the shah's absence in 1718. Finally, in the summer of 1719Mahmud left Qandaharwith 11,000 men. He entered Kirmanunopposed when thelocal governor fled and the persecuted Zoroastrian inhabitants helped, or at leastwelcomed him. After staying for nine months, he returnedto Qandaharupon hear-

ing of a revolt there. In October 1720 the court moved a hundredmiles east, from

Qazvin to Tehran,on the advice of Fath'Ali KhanDaghistani, the i'timad al-daw-lah (chief minister), who proposed that they proceed to Khurasanand there joinforces with the army of Shiraz under his nephew Lutf 'Ali Khan. Instead, the twoministers with the most influence over the shah-the mullabdshi Muhammad

Husayn and the hakimbdshi (chief royal physician) Rahim Khan-arranged Fath



296 John Foran

'Ali Khan's fall from grace in December 1720 on a false charge of treason, as well

as the imprisonmentof Lutf 'Ali Khan,out of envy of their power and religious re-

sentment (the two Daghistanis were Sunnis). Their armies promptly broke up,leaving Iran with few good troops or competent military leaders.92

These mishaps set off a chain of events that furtherundermined the Safavids' in-

creasingly perilous position. When Fath cAli Khan, who was a Lezghi, was re-moved and maltreated,the Lezghis stepped up their rebellion, putting themselvesunder Ottoman rule. In Georgia, Wakhtang VI-whose claim to the throne ofKartli and to be vail of Georgia had been rescinded by the Safavids in 1714 onlyto be reinstated in 1719-had raised an army of 60,000 Georgians to subdue the

Lezghis in the summer of 1720. Fearing his power too, however, the hakimbashiand mulldbdshi persuadedthe shah to order him to disband the army when it was

in full operation the next winter: "So infuriated was he by this message that hedrew his sword in the presence of the Shah's courier, and swore never to use it

again in the service of the Safavi dynasty."93This removed yet anothercompetentmilitary commander and fighting force from the Iranianscene on the eve of the

Afghan invasion.94 It also furnished a ready pretext for Russian intervention inIran'saffairs. After Wakhtang'sdramaticestrangementthere was no one to checkthe Ghazi-Qumuqand QaraqaitaqLezghi tribes who sacked Shamakhi in August/

September 1721. Russian merchantsin the city lost between 472,000 and 4 million

rubles in goods, and Peter the Great's governor at Astrakhan advised him that he

now had both the right-the dangerto Russians mentioned in the Safavid-Russian

treaty of 1717-and the opportunityto invade.95As for the situation in the Gulf,the Dutch lost some ?20,000 worth of goods when 4,000 Baluchi tribesmen raided

Bandar 'Abbas in 1721, and trade was considerably reduced.96

The denouement came in the fall and winter of 1721, when the Ghalzai leader

Mahmud of Qandaharonce more entered Iran. With him were perhaps 10,000Ghalzais and several thousand Hazaras, and he was joined en route by Baluchitribesmen for a total force of about 18,000. Besieging Kirman from late October

1721 to January 1722, Mahmud lost 1,500 men in a direct assault, then marched

away in returnfor a sum of money. In February1722, he failed to take Yazd, after

which he immediately began an advance on Isfahan. A much larger Iranianarmy

(estimates vary from 30,000 to 80,000 men), some experienced but many hastilyassembled from among the peasants and townsmen of the area, marched out to

meet the Afghans at Gulnabad,thirty kilometers from Isfahan. There, on 8 March

1722, owing to their lack of training coupled with the indecision and perhaps

treachery of certain of their officers, among other factors, they were routed with

the loss of 5,000 soldiers to the Afghans' 500.97

Though Isfahan was not completely encircled by the rather limited Afghanforces until the end of April, the shah was advised to stay in the city by his incom-

petent ministers (including the treasonous vail of Arabistan, the commander in

chief who was in secret correspondencewith the Afghans).98Appeals for aid went

out to Wakhtang in Georgia, 'Ali Mardan Khan in Luristan, the Bakhtiari and

Shahsavantribes, and others. Wakhtang,true to his vow, refused to come and also

preventedhis son from setting out. 'Ali MardanKhan,the vail of Luristan,reached

Gulpaigan, 140 miles to the northwest, on 13 May; when his demand to be made




commander in chief was refused, he withdrew his forces. The Shahsavan tribes of

Azarbayjan failed to muster. One relieving force was routed by the Afghans in

early May; another under Malik Mahmud, governor of Tun, was bought off byMahmud. On the night of 7-8 June, Tahmasp Mirza, the shah's third son and heir

apparent, managed to get out of the city and reached Kashan, then Qazvin, where

he did nothing to raise any troops. By and large, the lack of interest of the prov-inces in rallying to the Safavids was conspicuous in its uniformity.99

Already in April, the price of bread had undergone a "marked increase" as the

Afghans besieged the city, which was swelled above its normally huge population

by villagers seeking refuge. Famine broke out in mid-June, Mahmud burned the

crops around Isfahan at the end of the month, and prices soared in July. The

chronicler Muhammad Khalil noted that "people who were clad in silk, ate leaves

like the silk-worm."'00 Money ceased to have any value-one foraging party foundfourteen 654-pound sacks in the cellar of a rich merchant, but as these turned out

to be filled with silver coins, not corn, they left, "bitterly disappointed."'101'Friar

Alexander of Malabar, who lived through the siege, has described the last stagesof it in graphic detail:

... all streets and gardenswere covered with dead bodies, so that it was not possible to putdown your feet without coming to a place where piles of two or three human bodies lay rot-

ting. For at the end of September .. horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, rats, mice and all thatseemed eatable were sold at very high prices, but when all this had been consumed nothingbut human flesh remained which could be purchased at the market,

althoughit was not

openly called by thatname. Yea, the sword of hungerwas sharpenedso much, that not onlywhen a person died, two or three men at once came who cut off pieces of the warm flesh,

eating it without any pepper with great relish, but even young men and girls were enticedinto houses and killed there to appease hunger. This sad banquetlasted to October, accom-

panied by such terrible circumstances that they cannot be described without sheddingtears.... Camel-hides, bark of trees, leaves, rotten wood pounded and boiled in watertasted as sweet as honey, and oh this unheard-of horror I saw with my own eyes, that

people had to satisfy their hunger with dried humanexcrement.'02

Famine, disease, vain efforts to escape through the Afghan lines, and a very lim-

ited amount of actual combat reduced the population by as many as 100,000

people.'03 Isfahan was utterly decimated by the siege; when James Morier visited

almost a century later, he wrote: "Houses, bazaars, mosques, palaces, whole

streets, are to be seen in total abandonment; and I have rode for miles among its

ruins, without meeting any living creature."'04 Finally, on 23 October 1722, Shah

Sultan Husayn left Isfahan and went to Mahmud's camp, where he placed his

crown on the Afghan's head, saying, "The Absolute King, God most High, is just;and to whom do they say, 'He makes him head'? At one time to me, now to you.At last, my son, I also submit to you. God alone be blessed."105 With these piouswords the long reign of the Safavid monarchy came to its abrupt end.

CONCLUSIONS

The present essay has attempted to move beyond the standard explanations for the

fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722. Historians of the period, such as Laurence



298 John Foran

Lockhartand, more recently but to a lesser a degree, Roger Savory, have tended to

focus on the woeful personal inadequacies of the last several shahs, sometimes

supplemented by a political factor or two. But as Perry Anderson has written inanother context on the fall of the Stuart monarchs in 17th-century England: "It

was not the lack of signal personal abilities, but of institutional foundations, that

prevented the consolidation of English absolutism."106The 222-year reign of the

Safavids was the longest in a millennium in Iran (and the longest since), and this

durability suggests the strengthand stability of their institutional foundations. But

for all its longevity and material and cultural accomplishments, the Safavid social

structureand its underlying political economy plunged into intertwinedeconomic,

political, and ideological crises by the beginning of the 18th century.Far more than the oft-cited negative consequences of state land conversion, the

economic crisis involved a tale of inflation, declining trade balances, state budget

problems,tax-farmingof the customs and sale of offices, corruptionandgrowing tax

exploitation of the population. The military impact came by the destruction of the

tribal armies through the replacement of Qizilbash provincial governors by state-

appointedintendants,often Georgians,which led to the dismantlingof the old-styletribal cavalries. If this had been compensated with increased spending by the state

on the standingarmy,there would have been little problem. But caught in a budgetdeficit and at peace with their powerful Ottomanneighbors, the later Safavid shahs

allowed themselves to be convinced by the privateharemcouncil to save money bynot spending it on the central army. The only competent military forces after 1700

were Georgian-led contingents, and we have seen that neither they, nor any tribal

provincial forces would rally to the side of the Safavids in their hour of need.

This long-term, entrenchedeconomic decay throughoutthe last half of the 17th

centurythen intersected with medium-termpolitical and ideological developments.The rise of faction-ridden new groups to power at court-the eunuchs, the shah's

harem, and the ulama-proved a disaster for the making of coherent state policywhen coupled with the bringing up of the royal princes in the highly artificialand

sheltered atmosphereof the harem.Among the ill consequences of fractious coun-

cillors and divided counsels were the unpreparednessof the army, the underminingdue to jealous rivalries of Georgian military and civil officers in the state, the fre-

quent replacement by bribery and personal animosity of provincial governors,which exacerbated economic exploitation, and general self-seeking on the part of

the highest and most influential Safavid courtiersat the country'sexpense. On the

ideological plane, the rise to influence of the ulama over Sultan Husayn likewise

had grave repercussions.Persecutionof ArmenianandHindu merchantsharmedthe

economy, and compelling Jews and Zoroastriansto convert to Islam caused manyof the latterto flee to Kirmanwhere, in 1719, they looked upon the Afghan invaders

as liberators.Most fatefully, the anti-Sunni hostility of militant Shi'ite clerics like

Majlisi contributedto the alienation of the Afghans who would eventually topplethe

dynasty,while from 1719 on uprisings occurred in numerous border regions

with non-Shi'ite populations, such as Shirvan, Kurdistan, Khuzistan, and Bal-

uchistan. Though the Iranianmasses were largely Shi'ite by the early 1700s, and

there was no organized anti-Safavid position among them, they too failed conspic-

uously to rally to the Safavids under siege. While Shi'ism had taken firm root, in




the 18thcenturyit was not strong enough to hold togethera disintegratingstate, es-

pecially one whose leading ulama promotedso exclusive a form of it.

These long- and medium-term structuralfactors combined with a series of con-tingent historical circumstances to bring about the fall of the dynasty. The indeci-

siveness of the shah, the treachery of certain lieutenants, and various bad

decisions taken during the siege of Isfahan capped the deeper trends that had al-

ready undermined the Safavids from within during more than half a century ofslow decay. Thus, both long-term processes of development and specific human

actions and errors were responsible for this fateful watershed in the history of

Iran, one that opened the door to serious internalrepression and external domina-

tion under subsequent dynasties in the 19th and 20th centuries.

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.

NOTES

'Father Judasz Tadeusz Krusinski, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia (London: J. Os-

borne, 1740).2Jean Aubin, "La politique religieuse des Safavides," in Le Shi'isme imdmite, Colloque de Stras-

bourg, 6-9 mai 1968 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), p. 142.

3JeanChardin,Voyages du Chevalier Chardin,en Perse, et autres lieux de l'Orient, 12 vols. (Paris:Le Normant, 1811), vol. 3, p. 291. Translations from Chardinare mine.

4RogerM. Savory, "The Safavid Administrative System," in Peter Jackson and LaurenceLockhart,eds., The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), vol. 6, The

Timuridand Safavid Periods, p. 367; and idem, "Safavid Persia,"in P. M. Holt, A. K. S. Lambton, and

BernardLewis, eds., The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1970),

pp. 423, 427.

5Du Cerceau's introductionto Krusinski's The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, p. 57. Sa-

vory concurs with this assessment, "Safavid Persia,"p. 424; and Iran under the Safavids (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 232; as does H. R. Roemer, "The Safavid Period," in Cam-

bridge History of Iran, 6: 304.

6Riza Quli Khan "Hidayat,"Rawzatal-Safd-yi ndsiri, vol. 8 (Tehran, 1853-56), n.p., cited by Lau-rence Lockhart, The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1958), p. 17.

7Vladimir M. Minorsky, ed. and trans., Tadhkirat al-mulak: A Manual of Safavid Administration(circa 1137/1725) (London: Luzac, 1943), p. 23.

8See Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 17-33; and Savory, "Safavid Persia," pp. 423-25;idem, "The Safavid AdministrativeSystem," pp. 367, 368; and idem, Iran under the Safavids, p. 226.

9Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam. Conscience and History in a World Civilization

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) vol. 3, The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times,

pp. 50, 55, 56.

10NikkiKeddie, "The Impact of the West on Iranian Social History" (Ph.D. diss., University of

California, Berkeley, 1955), pp. 35-37; idem, Roots of Revolution. An Interpretive History of Modern

Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 13.1 Leonard Michael Helfgott, "The Rise of the QajarDynasty" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland,

1973), pp. 47, 59-65. Helfgott makes a case for "structuralcontradictions" and undermines what mightbe termedthe "personalistexplanation" condemning the degenerationof the dynasty by pointing to theFrench case in the 18th century and asking if the successors of Louis XIV could have done any betterin blunting the discontent they faced.

12RonaldW. Ferrier,"Tradefrom the Mid-14th Centuryto the End of the Safavid Period,"pp. 412-90 in Cambridge History of Iran, 6: 433, 489.



300 John Foran

13K.N. Chaudhuri,"Treasure and Trade Balances: The East India Company's Export Trade, 1660-

1720," Economic History Review, 21, 3 (December, 1968), 497-98, appendix, Table 1. It should be

noted thatEngland profitedfrom these transactions because silver was worth more in Asia than in Lon-don. While the EIC's bullion exports for 1698-1703 totaled ?3,171,404 in silver and?128,229 in gold,

re-exports of Asian commodities to Europe and the Americas were worth double these amounts, a

profit of 100 percent: C. R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in War and Peace 1602-1799. A Short History ofthe Dutch East-India Company(Hong Kong: HeinemannAsia, 1979), p. 55.

14Ferrier,"Trade from the Mid-14th Century," p. 489.

15HalilInalcik, "Bursaand the Commerce of the Levant," Journal of Economic and Social Historyof the Orient, 3 (1960), cited by Ferrier,"Tradefrom the Mid-14th Century," p. 471.

16JohnFryer,A New Account of East India and Persia being Nine Years' Travels 1672-1681 (Lon-don: Hakluyt Society, 1912), vol. 2, p. 163.

17Ibid.; Ferrier,"Trade from the Mid-14th Century,"p. 483.

18Chardin,Voyages, 4: 64, cited by Minorsky, Tadhkirat al-muluk, p. 19. Likewise the EIC re-

marked in the early 1630s on the "Silver and Gould which is transportedyearely from hence into Indiain great quantities by merchaunts of these parts,"cited by Ferrier,"Trade from the Mid-14th Century,"

p. 484.

'9Raphael du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660, Ch. Schefer, ed. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1890),

pp. 192-93, translation mine.

20Kristoff Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620-1740 (Copenhagen: Danish Science Press/The

Hague: MartinusNijhoff, 1958), p. 67.

2tChardin,Voyages, 5: 429. The travelers Chardin and Thevenot are cited on the lack of money in

circulation by John Emerson, "Ex Occidente Lux. Some EuropeanSources on the Economic Structure

of Persia between about 1630 and 1690" (Ph.D. diss., CambridgeUniversity, 1969), p. 279.

22Issawi suggests ?1-2 million: Charles Issawi, ed., The Economic History of Iran: 1800-1914

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 12; Ferrier estimates ?1,750,000 in exports, or ?3

million in total trade, "Trade from the Mid-14th Century," pp. 489-90.23Figurescompiled by Issawi, Economic History of Iran, p. 12. Ferrier has a comparableset of esti-

mates: 125 tons in 1618, 192 tons in 1636, and 270 tons in the 1670s: "Tradefrom the Mid-14th Cen-

tury,"p. 478. On p. 457 Ferriersuggests that Olearius's estimate was 3,834,000 lbs. (18,000 bales of

213 lbs. each). He mistakenly says this is 192 tons, when in fact it is 1,917; likewise his figure on

Chardinshould read 3,036 tons, not 270.

24Lockhart,citing a Russian source, notes a possible drop by half in the silk exports of Gilan from

1670 to 1720, though he somewhat puzzlingly concludes that total production may have stayed the

same: Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 238, n. 2. Perhapsthis implies greaterinternaluse of raw silk, but

it is hardto see the evidence for this.

25Emerson,"Ex Occidente Lux," p. 279. This trend is confirmed by Krusinski as well as the Car-

melite mission in Iranwhich suggest that the tuman was stable relative to Italian, French, English, and

Spanish currencies until the 1670s, then appreciatedby about 33 percent by the 1690s or 1700s: AChronicle of the Carmelites in Persia and the Papal Mission of the XVIIthand XVIIIth Centuries,2 vols. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1939), pp. 775-76; Krusinski, History of the Late Revolu-

tions of Persia, pp. xvii-xix. To calculate the true value of the tuman vis-a-vis these currencies one

would want to know the rate of inflation in Europe, which had been fairly high a century earlier.

26Ibid.,p. 296, based on H. L. Rabino di Borgomale, Coins, Medals and Seals of the Shaihsof Iran,

1500-1941 (Hertford,Eng.: S. Austin and Sons, Ltd., 1945); Bert Fragner,"Social and Internal Eco-

nomic Affairs," CambridgeHistory of Iran, 6: 556.

27Chardin,Voyages, 3: 292.

28Ferrier,"Tradefrom the Mid-14th Century," p. 485; Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muluiik, . 27, n. 3.

29Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, p. 89; Fragner,"Social and InternalEco-

nomic Affairs,"pp. 562-63.

30Chardin,Voyages, 3: 292-93; Emerson cites Chardinand De Rhodes on Tabriz, "Ex OccidenteLux," pp. 279-80.

3'Emerson, "Ex Occidente Lux," p. 281, based on Chardin, Voyages, 10: 1-8; Roemer, "Safavid

Period,"pp. 305-6.




32Father ohn Baptist found that in 1678 things cost four to five times what they had previously (thissounds like a conjuncturalcrisis), A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia, p. 445. Durri Efendi found

that prices in general were twice those in the Ottoman Empire in 1719 due to a dearth of agriculturalworkers: cited by Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 125. Mehdi Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Lifein the Later Safavid Period. Contribution to the Socio-Economic History of Persia, Islamkundische

Untersuchungenno. 65 (Berlin: Klaus Schwartz Verlag, 1982), pp. 120-21, cites John Struys, Voyagesand Travels of John Struys through Italy, Greece, Muscovy, Tartary,Media, Persia ..., J. Morrison,trans. (London, 1684), p. 324; Pere Nicolas Sanson, Voyages ou relation de l'e'tatpre'sentdu royaumede Perse (Paris, 1695), p. 159; and John Bell, Travelsfrom St. Petersburg to Diverse Parts of Asia,2 vols. (Glasgow, 1763), vol. 1, pp. 121-22.

33Roemer,"The Safavid Period,"p. 282.

34Ibid.,p. 294.


36Ibid.,3: 292. It is true, however, that available incomplete figures for 1722 show state revenues of

783,862 tumans with expendituresof only 625,320, leaving a very healthy surplus of 158,532 tumans;Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muluk,pp. 105-9.

37Ibid.,pp. 105-9, 155; Chardin, Voyages, 5: 498.

38MuhammadHashimAsaf, Rustamal-tavarikh, MuhammadMushiri, ed. (Tehran, 1973), pp. 107-

8, cited by Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life, p. 189.

39Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutionsof Persia, pp. 119, 124, 127.

40Ibid.,pp. 125, 135; Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 48.

41Chardin,Voyages, 5: 407; Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muliik,p. 27.

42Chardin,Voyages, 5: 403-4; 8: 519; Ferrier,"Trade from the Mid-14th Century,"p. 487.

43Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, pp. 84-88.

44MuhammadMuhsin,Zubdatal-tavadrikh,ol. 205a, cited by Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muluk,p. 176.


46Krusinski, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, pp. 100, 104. See also Lockhart, Fall ofthe Safavi Dynasty, p. 44; and Roemer, "Safavid Period,"p. 307.

47Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, pp. 113-19; Emerson, "Ex Occidente

Lux," p. 218.

48This soldier, named Worms, accompanied the Dutch envoy Ketelaar in 1717, and is cited byLockhart,Fall of the Safavl Dynasty, p. 107, n. 2.

49Foran analysis of the class structure,see John Foran, "The Modes of Production Approach to

Seventeenth-CenturyIran,"International Journal of Middle East Studies, 20, 3 (August, 1988), 345-63.50AminBanani, "Reflections on the Social and Economic Structureof Safavid Persia at Its Zenith,"

Iranian Studies, 11 (1978), 92.

51See James J. Reid, "Rebellion and Social Change in Astarabad,1537-1744," International Jour-nal of Middle East Studies, 13, 1 (February,1981), 36, 38.

52EskandarBeg Monshi, History of Shah Abbas the Great (Tdrikh-i AlamAra-yi Abbasi), Roger M.Savory, trans., 2 vols. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978), p. 188.

530Onhe tribal state, or uymaq system, see James J. Reid, Tribalism and Society in Islamic Iran,1500-1629 (Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1983), p. 119.


55Olearius is cited by Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muluk, p. 26, n. 4. On Fars, see Minorsky, Tadhkirat

al-muluk,p. 26. Roemer adds the town of Lar to the list: "The Safavid Period,"p. 295.

56Chardin,Voyages, 5: 251-52; Roemer, "Safavid Period,"p. 295.


58Engelbert Kaempfer,Dar darbar-i shahanshah-i lran (At the Court of the Shah of Iran), Persiantranslation(Tehran, 1971), n.p., cited by Daryoush Navidi, "Socio-Economic and Political Changes inSafavid Iran, 16th and 17th Centuries"(Ph.D. diss., VanderbiltUniversity, 1977), p. 127.

59Klaus-MichaelRohrborn,Provinzen und ZentralgewaltPersiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert(Ber-lin: Walter de Gruyter& Co., 1966), p. 33. In between, however, in 1642, the proportionhad declinedto three out of eleven "important"provinces, ibid.

60Chardin,Voyages, 5: 252-53.




dom can one find such a fool among commoners, to say nothing of crowned heads,"cited by Minorsky,Tadhkiratal-muluk,p. 24.

79Krusinski,History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, p. 83; also pp. 76-84.80Roemer,"The Safavid Period,"p. 307. Father Sanson noted the power of the eunuchs under Shah

Sulayman: Pere N. Sanson, Voyages, n.p., cited by Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 29-30.

Chardincomments in a similar vein, writing ca. 1700, Voyages, 5: 240.

81Krusinski,The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia, pp. 98-100; Helfgott, "The Rise of the

QajarDynasty," pp. 61-67.

82Therelevantpassages are in Chardin,Voyages, 5: 208-12, 216; 6: 70-71; 7: 319. See also Aubin,"La politique religieuse des Safavides."

83This is the thrust of Said Amir Arjomand's argument at certain key points: The Shadow of God

and the Hidden Imam. Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shicite Iranfrom the Begin-

ning till 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 122, 211. See also Savory, Iran under

the Safavids, p. 234.

84Banani,"Reflections on the Social and Economic Structureof Safavid Persia,"pp. 86-87.85Minorsky,Tadhkiratal-muliik, p. 24; Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 119-22.

86Roemer,"The Safavid Period,"p. 313.

87This ormulationon 'Abbas's"system" s foundin Helfgott,"Rise of the QajarDynasty," p. 59. Onthe

theoretical and comparativedynamicsof centralization n precapitalist ocieties, see the sociological work

of MaxWeber,Economyand Society,2 vols. (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1978);AnthonyGid-

dens, TheNation-Stateand Violence(Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1987); and Michael Mann,The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1986). The implicationsof

the presentanalysisfor a widerstudyof decline in the OttomanandMughal empiresare too complex to dis-

cuss here,butit is instructive o realize that of the three,Iranhad the least intrusiveEuropean mpactin the

17th and 18thcenturies,andyet the Safaviddynastystill lost its gripon powerdue mostly to the deleterious

effects of its internaldevelopmental dynamics.On the largercomparison,see JohnForan,"Modesof Pro-

duction,European mpactand Social Changein the Pre-CapitalistMiddle East and South Asia: A Compara-tive Surveyof the Ottoman,Safavid and Mughal Empiresfrom the Sixteenthto the EighteenthCenturies,"

paperpresentedat the meetingsof the Middle East Studies Association,San Francisco,November 1985.

88Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 46; Savory, "Safavid Persia,"p. 425; D. M. Lang, "Geor-

gia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 14, 3

(1952), 527.

89Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 47, 49, 50.

90Lang, "Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty," p. 530, based on the Georgian interpreterJo-

seph's account of 1723 in the French Foreign Ministry Archives. At Isfahan, Mir Vais had suffered in-

sults as a Sunni; he brought several Shi'ite books to Mecca to make his case to the Sunni ulama:Hamid Algar, "Shi'ism and Iran in the Eighteenth Century,"pp. 288-302, in Naff and Owen, eds.,Studies in Eighteenth-CenturyIslamic History, p. 290. This paragraphdraws on Lockhart,Fall of the

Safavi Dynasty, pp. 82, 85-93, 95-99; Krusinski, The History of the Late Revolutions of Persia,pp. 156-58; and Minorsky, Tadhkiratal-muluik,pp. 9-10.

91De Bourges is cited by Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 114.

92Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 99, 109-12, 119-22; Roemer, "Safavid Period,"p. 318;on Isfahan in 1718, there is a letter of 14 October 1718, in Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia,

p. 542.

93Lang, "Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty," p. 535, based on Krusinski, History of theLate Revolutions of Persia, p. 269; and Sekhnia Chkeidze's Chroniquein Marie-Felicite Brosset, His-

torie de la Georgie (St. Petersburg, 1856-57), p. 35. See also Roemer, "Safavid Period,"pp. 319-20;and Lockhart,Fall of the SafaviDynasty, pp. 118-19.

94Krusinskinotes that Mir Vais's Afghans felt "That the Persians were but Women compar'dwiththe Afghans, and the Afghans but Women compar'dwith the Georgians,"History of the Late Revolu-

tions of Persia, p. 198. While Dickson feels the prowess of the Georgians, particularlyWakhtang,wasmuch overratedby Lockhart-see Martin B. Dickson, "The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty" (a review arti-cle on Lockhart's Fall of the Safavi Dynasty), Journal of the American Oriental Society, 82 (1962),512-Lang notes, "Clearly the fall of the Safavi dynasty was not caused by Wakhtang's defection



304 John Foran

alone.... Nevertheless, if any propcould have held up the edifice, it might have been the military sup-port of Georgia,""Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty,"

p.539. These events are

primeexam-

ples of what I would label "contingent"factors in the long fall of the Safavids.

95Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 128-29; Lang, "Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dy-nasty," p. 536. In 1717 this governor, Volinsky, had alreadyreported:"In my humble opinion, God is

leading this empire to its ruin.... As a result of the weakness here, we can begin a war with Persiawithout any apprehension,for without a complete army, but with simply a small force, a great partofit can be joined to Russia," cited in ibid., p. 535.

96Savory,Iran underthe Safavids, p. 125. The GombroonDiary of the EIC in a September 1721 en-

try "mentions frequentinvasions of Baluchis and "Ophgoons"(Afghans) "who range the country evenwithin sight of Spahaun [Isfahan] and many times carry away both Goods and Merchants, [and] have

very considerably reduced the Trade of Persia in general',"cited by Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dy-

nasty, p. 406.

97Ibid.,pp.130-43.

Minorskydates the battle of Gulnabad as 19 JamadaI 1134

(6March

1722),Tadhkiratal-muliik, p. 10. The French consul at Isfahan, Gardanne,reportedIranian losses at 1,200-

1,300, Afghans at 200-300: Lang, 'Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty,' p. 537, based on a let-ter of 19 March 1722, in the French Foreign Ministry Archives. Gardanne's nterpreter,an Armenianfrom Georgia named Joseph (Hovsep) Apisalaimian, provides the figures of 5,000 and 500 respec-tively; see T. H. Weir, "The Revolution in Persia at the Beginning of the 18thCentury(from a TurkishMS in the University of Glasgow)," pp. 480-90 in T. W. Arnold and Reynold A. Nicholson, eds.,'Ajabnameh.A Volume of Oriental Studies Presented to Edward G. Browne (Cambridge:Cambridge

University Press, 1922), p. 488.

98A good example of Lockhart's"personalist"mode of explanation is the following passage: "If the

foolish Shah had only listened to his son instead of paying heed to the false charges of the Mulld-bdshiand his other evil counsellors, the situation might yet have been saved. But ShaihSultan Husain was

fated always to take the wrong course," Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 148. On the valiof

Arabistan,see ibid., p. 154 and FriarAlexander of Malabar,"The Story of the Sack of Ispahan by the Afghans in

1722," Journal of the Royal CentralAsian Society, 23, 4 (October 1936), 648.

990n Wakhtang, see Lang, "Georgia and the Fall of the Safavi Dynasty," p. 538. On 'Ali Mardan

Khan, see Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 159; Savory says he got within forty miles of Isfa-

han in June, and demanded the shah's abdication in favor of his brother,which was refused: "Safavid

Persia,"p. 426. The relieving force referredto by Lockhart (Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 159) is un-

specified, except that it was "large"and approachingfrom the north.Krusinski attributesthe failure of

the Luris and Bakhtiaris to come to Isfahan'srescue to factional divisions within each tribe;History ofthe Late Revolutions of Persia, p. 97. On the Shahsavan, see Richard Tapper, "Black Sheep, White

Sheep and Red Heads. A Historical Sketch of the Shahsavan of Azarbaijan,"Iran, 4 (1966), 67. See

also Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, pp. 159, 161, 167; and Jean Aubin, "Les Sunnites du Lar-

estan et la chute des Safavides," Revue des etudes islamiques, 33 (1965), 151-71.l?Muhammad Khalil Mar'ashi Safavi, Majmacal-tavarikhdar tarikh-i inqirda-iSafdviyyah va va-

qdyi' bacd td sal-i 1207 hijri qamari (Collection of Histories on the Story of the Fall of the Safavids

and Events till the year 1207 [1792]), 'Abbais qbal, ed. (Tehran, 1949), p. 58, cited by Lockhart,Fall

of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 165; also, ibid., pp. 158, 161.

l'Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 166.

02Friar Alexander of Malabar,"Story of the Sack of Ispahan,"pp. 648-49.

103Lockhart, Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 169. The sufferinghit all social classes, as the Tadhkirat

al-muluik,pp. 76, 77, describes one bureaucraticdepartmentwhere eleven out of fifteen scribes lost

their lives during the siege or afterwards,and in another,"Most of the secretaries of the said Depart-ment are no [longer] in existence."

104JamesMorier, A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor (London, 1818),

p. 134, cited by Lockhart,Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, p. 169.05Sultan Husayn is quoted in Apisalaimian'smanuscript,Weir, "Revolution in Persia,"p. 489.

06Perry Anderson,Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974), p. 140, n. 37.

foran-fall of safavid

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