The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran PDF Author: Colin P. Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857715887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here, Colin P. Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse, reflecting the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics and Middle East studies.

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran PDF Author: Colin P. Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857715887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here, Colin P. Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse, reflecting the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics and Middle East studies.

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran PDF Author: Colin P. Mitchell
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781780760964
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here, Colin P. Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and molded a unique and vibrant political discourse, reflecting the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics and Middle East studies.

New Perspectives on Safavid Iran

New Perspectives on Safavid Iran PDF Author: Colin P. Mitchell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136991948
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Dedicated to the renowned Safavid historian Roger Savory, this book brings together a collection of studies on the Safavid state of Iran (1501-1722) from the perspectives of political, social, literary, and artistic history. Savory, a doyen of Safavid studies in the 1960s and 1970s, was responsible for expanding and popularizing the study of Iran in the 16th and 17th century. To celebrate this legacy, well-established scholars of medieval and early modern Iran have contributed specific studies reflecting an array of research interests and specializations, which include critical re-examinations of issues of gender, literature, art and architecture, cultural and linguistic currents, illustrated historical chronicles, and courtly and administrative practices under the Safavid dynasty. This unique compilation is indicative of a growing interest in Iran and Iranian studies in both the academic and public spheres, and as such contains a number of new perspectives which will serve to supplement and re-interpret the existing corpus of Safavid scholarly literature to date. It will be an important text for scholars of world history and Middle East studies, as well as to historians in general.

The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran

The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran PDF Author: Rudolph P. Matthee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521641319
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Using a wide range of archival and written sources, Rudi Matthee considers the economic, social and political networks established between Iran, its neighbours and the world at large, through the prism of the late Safavid silk trade. In so doing, he demonstrates how silk, a resource crucial to state revenue and the only commodity to span Iran's entire economic activity, was integral to aspects of late Safavid society, including its approach to commerce, export routes and, importantly, to the political and economic problems which contributed to its collapse in the early 1700s. In a challenge to traditional scholarship, the author argues that despite the introduction of a maritime, western-dominated channel, Iran's traditional land-based silk export continued to expand right up to the end of the seventeenth century. The book makes a major theoretical contribution to the debates on the social and economic history of the pre-modern world.

Mysticism in Iran

Mysticism in Iran PDF Author: Ata Anzali
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611178088
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
An original study of the transformation of Safavid Persia from a majority Sunni country to a Twelver Shi'i realm "Mysticism" in Iran is an in-depth analysis of significant transformations in the religious landscape of Safavid Iran that led to the marginalization of Sufism and the eventual emergence of 'irfan as an alternative Shi'i model of spirituality. Ata Anzali draws on a treasure-trove of manuscripts from Iranian archives to offer an original study of the transformation of Safavid Persia from a majority Sunni country to a Twelver Shi'i realm. The work straddles social and intellectual history, beginning with an examination of late Safavid social and religious contexts in which Twelver religious scholars launched a successful campaign against Sufism with the tacit approval of the court. This led to the social, political, and economic marginalization of Sufism, which was stigmatized as an illegitimate mode of piety rooted in a Sunni past. Anzali directs the reader's attention to creative and successful attempts by other members of the ulama to incorporate the Sufi tradition into the new Twelver milieu. He argues that the category of 'irfan, or "mysticism," was invented at the end of the Safavid period by mystically minded scholars such as Shah Muhammad Darabi and Qutb al-Din Nayrizi in reference to this domesticated form of Sufism. Key aspects of Sufi thought and practice were revisited in the new environment, which Anzali demonstrates by examining the evolving role of the spiritual master. This traditional Sufi function was reimagined by Shi'i intellectuals to incorporate the guidance of the infallible imams and their deputies, the ulama. Anzali goes on to address the institutionalization of 'irfan in Shi'i madrasas and the role played by prominent religious scholars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in this regard. The book closes with a chapter devoted to fascinating changes in the thought and practice of 'irfan in the twentieth century during the transformative processes of modernity. Focusing on the little-studied figure of Kayvan Qazvini and his writings, Anzali explains how 'irfan was embraced as a rational, science-friendly, nonsectarian, and anticlerical concept by secular Iranian intellectuals.

The Safavid World

The Safavid World PDF Author: Rudi Matthee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000392899
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 961

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Book Description
The Safavid World brings together thirty chapters on many aspects of the complex Safavid state, 1501–1722. With the latest insights and arguments, some offer overviews of the period or topic at hand, and others present new interpretations of old questions based on newly found sources. In addition to political history and religious life, the chapters in this volume cover economic conditions, commercial links and activities, social relations, and artistic expressions. They do so in ways that stretch both the temporal and geographical perimeters of the subject, and contributors also examine Safavid Iran with an eye to both its Mongol and Timurid antecedents and its long afterlife following the fall of the dynasty. Unlike traditional scholarship which tended to view the country as unique, sui generis, and barely affected by the outside world, The Safavid World situates Iran in a wider, regional or global context. Examining the Safavids from their foundations in the fourteenth century to their relations with the rest of the world in the eighteenth century, this study is essential reading for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars of the Safavid world and the history and culture of Iran and the Middle East.

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran

The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran PDF Author: Colin Paul Mitchell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780755607600
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here Colin Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse which reflected the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. He focuses on the large corpus of epistles, letters and missives produced by a developed Safavid chancellery which show how the Safavids forged and negotiated their political and religious sovereignty in a diverse and complex environment. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, "The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran" is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics as well as the wider world of Middle East studies."--Bloomsbury publishing.

Pahlavi Iran and the Politics of Occidentalism

Pahlavi Iran and the Politics of Occidentalism PDF Author: Zhand Shakibi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786726246
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
Zhand Shakibi presents a new interpretation of the political and social dynamics of the last decade of the Shah's rule that challenges the binary view of pro-West Shah and anti-West Ayatollah by drawing attention to the Pahlavi state's reaction to the intellectual and societal backlash against cultural and moral Occidentalism in its last decade. Revising the dominant historiography of the Pahlavi ideological and discursive approach to the West, this book draws attention to the changes in the attitude of the Shah, the Empress and state intellectuals towards the position and imagery of the West in state conceptions of the authenticity of Iranian national culture and identity. Drawing on a wide-range of primary sources, Shakibi presents the multi-faceted relationship of the Pahlavi state to the West and the institutions that were created to manage this such as the Rastakhiz Party. This study argues that the Pahlavi state, having recognized this backlash, attempted to limit the threat to its legitimacy by reformulating intellectual discourses of anti-West Occidentalism and incorporating them into the ideology of the Rastakhiz Party. In so doing it played a critical role in exacerbating societal sensitivities about the spread of Western influences.

Medieval Persia 1040-1797

Medieval Persia 1040-1797 PDF Author: David Morgan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317415663
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Medieval Persia 1040-1797 charts the remarkable history of Persia from its conquest by the Muslim Arabs in the seventh century AD to the modern period at the end of the eighteenth century, when the impact of the west became pervasive. David Morgan argues that understanding this complex period of Persia’s history is integral to understanding modern Iran and its significant role on the international scene. The book begins with a geographical introduction and briefly summarises Persian history during the early Islamic centuries to place the country’s Middle Ages in their historical context. It then charts the arrival of the Saljūq Turks in the eleventh century and discusses in turn the major political powers of the period: Mongols, Timurids, Türkmen and Safawids. The chronological narrative enables students to identify change and consistencies under each ruling dynasty, while Persia’s rich social, cultural, religious and economic history is also woven throughout to present a complete picture of life in Medieval Persia. Despite the turbulent backdrop, which saw Persia ruled by a succession of groups who had seized power by military force, arts, painting, poetry, literature and architecture all flourished in the period. This new edition contains a new epilogue which discusses the significant literature of the last 28 years to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the latest historiographical trends in Persian history. Concise and clear, this book is the perfect introduction for students of medieval Persia and the medieval Middle East.

A History of Islamic Societies

A History of Islamic Societies PDF Author: Ira M. Lapidus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139991507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1019

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Book Description
This new edition of one of the most widely used course books on Islamic civilizations around the world has been substantially revised to incorporate the new scholarship and insights of the last twenty-five years. Ira Lapidus' history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion. The history is divided into four parts. Part I is a comprehensive account of pre-Islamic late antiquity; the beginnings of Islam; the early Islamic empires; and Islamic religious, artistic, legal and intellectual cultures. Part II deals with the construction in the Middle East of Islamic religious communities and states to the fifteenth century. Part III includes the history to the nineteenth century of Islamic North Africa and Spain; the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; and other Islamic societies in Asia and Africa. Part IV accounts for the impact of European commercial and imperial domination on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present.