The Safavids were a dynastic family that ruled over modern-day Iran. They sustained one of the longest running empires of Iranian history, lasting from 1501 to 1736. At the height of their reign, the Safavids controlled not only Iran, but also the countries we now know as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Soon after the Safavids rose to power, they established Twelver Shiism (the largest branch of Shi’a Islam), as the official religion of their dynasty. This distinguished the Safavids from their neighboring and rival empires—the Ottomans (to their west in Turkey), and the Mughals (to their east in India). The Ottomans and Mughals adhered to Sunni Islam. While Shi’a and Sunni share many core Islamic beliefs, the main difference has to do with who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad upon his death in 632. The Sunnis believed the leader should be elected amongst the people, while the Shi’a believed the leader should follow the lineage of Prophet Muhammad’s family.
Safavid art and architecture reflected this adoption of a Shi’a identity. They invested a great deal of their capital into the building and decoration of shrines of Shi’a saints. This encouraged pilgrimages across the great stretch of the Safavid empire, in places such as Karbala and Najaf, two cities in central Iraq. Shi’a Islam is still the official state religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Safavids are therefore widely known for bringing this historic change to the region. However, the original ancestral line of the Safavids was a religious order of Sufi mystics that lived in Ardabil, a city now in Azerbaijan (Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam that originated during the Umayyad caliphate).
Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, rejoined the western and eastern halves of the Iranian plateau through military achievement. Prior to the rise of the Safavids, the region was broken up into a mosaic of autonomous states, all governed by local rulers. The emergence of the Safavids marked the first time the region was ruled by Persian kings since the Sasanian dynasty (an empire dating back to the seventh century). Because the Safavids forged an empire of vastly different regions, each with unique artistic tastes and styles, early Safavid artists worked diligently to create a cohesive visual identity that nevertheless reflected the diversity the new Safavid dynasty controlled. This aesthetic was developed even further by Shah Abbas I (who reigned from 1588–1629), the dynasty’s most prolific builder and patron of the arts. Collectively, the Safavids produced one of the richest eras of art production in Islamic history, spanning arts of the book, exquisite textiles, and monumental architecture.
