[30] The Safavid Shh Ism'l I established the Twelver denomination of Sha Islam as the official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. The Very Best of John Lennon. Majlisi's works emphasized his desire to purge Twelver Shiism of the influences of mysticism and philosophy, and to propagate an ideal of strict adherence to the Islamic law (sharia). Under Safavid rule eastern Persia became a great cultural centre. They in turn would be replaced by the Shamlu, whose amir, Husain Khan, became the chief adviser. During the first 30 years of his long reign, he was able to suppress the internal divisions by exerting control over a strengthened central military force. The Safavid dynasty was founded about 1501 by Shh Ism'l I. [106] The siege of Herat thus ended in 1583 without Ali Quli Khan's surrender, and Khorasan was in a state of open rebellion. 113131. The highest level in the legal system was the Minister of Justice, and the law officers were divided into senior appointments, such as the magistrate (darughah), inspector (visir), and recorder (vakanevis). This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Safavid-dynasty, Khan Academy - The Safavids, an introduction, Efahn, Iran: Masjed-e Shaykh Luf Allh (Sheikh Lofollh Mosque), Efahn, Iran: interior of Masjed-e Shaykh Luf Allh (Sheikh Lofollh Mosque). And in spite of being transported for more than thirty days, they were fresh when they reached Isfahan After melons the finest fruits were grapes and dates, and the best dates were grown in Jahrom. Isfahan became one of the world's most elegant cities. Mainly recruited among Georgian, Armenian and North Caucasian renegades, they were employed in increasingly great number starting with the end of the 16th century in both the army and the administration (although they were present and . [167][failed verification].mw-parser-output .ambox{border:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.ambox{margin-top:-1px}html body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .ambox.mbox-small-left{margin:4px 1em 4px 0;overflow:hidden;width:238px;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em}.mw-parser-output .ambox-speedy{border-left:10px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6}.mw-parser-output .ambox-delete{border-left:10px solid #b32424}.mw-parser-output .ambox-content{border-left:10px solid #f28500}.mw-parser-output .ambox-style{border-left:10px solid #fc3}.mw-parser-output .ambox-move{border-left:10px solid #9932cc}.mw-parser-output .ambox-protection{border-left:10px solid #a2a9b1}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-text{border:none;padding:0.25em 0.5em;width:100%}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image{border:none;padding:2px 0 2px 0.5em;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imageright{border:none;padding:2px 0.5em 2px 0;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-empty-cell{border:none;padding:0;width:1px}.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image-div{width:52px}html.client-js body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .mbox-text-span{margin-left:23px!important}@media(min-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .ambox{margin:0 10%}}, Shah Tahmasp introduced a change to this, when he, and the other Safavid rulers who succeeded him, sought to blur the formerly defined lines between the two linguistic groups, by taking the sons of Turkic-speaking officers into the royal household for their education in the Persian language. And with the assistance of the Muscovy Company they could cross over to Moscow, reaching Europe via Poland. Blow, D.; Shah Abbas: The ruthless king who became an Iranian legend; p. 211. The Safavids' archrivals, the neighbouring Ottomans, invaded western and northwestern Safavid Iran and took swaths of territory there, including the city of Baghdad. After the death of Babur, his son Humayun was ousted from his territories and threatened by his half-brother and rival, who had inherited the northern part of Babur's territories. The Spanish demanded Abbas break off relations with the English before they would consider relinquishing the town. Thvenot and Tavernier commented that the Iranian caravanserais were better built and cleaner than their Turkish counterparts. iii. The Safavid order soon gained great influence in the city of Ardabil, and Hamdullah Mustaufi noted that most of the people of Ardabil were followers of Safi al-Din. These three empires all had military strength, Sovereign Pride, Religious commitment, and Aesthetic sophistication in common to varying degrees. [119] As mentioned by the Encyclopaedia Iranica, lastly, from 1600 onwards, the Safavid statesman Allhverd Khan, in conjunction with Robert Sherley, undertook further reorganizations of the army, which meant among other things further dramatically increasing the number of ghulams to 25,000.[120]. They ruled their provinces like petty shahs and spent all their revenues on their own province, only presenting the Shah with the balance. Abbas offered trading rights and the chance to preach Christianity in Iran in return for help against the Ottomans. The name "Iran" disappeared from official records of the Saffarids, Samanids, Buyids, Saljuqs and their successor. The art of the Safavids is simply magnificent. [96], The amirs demanded that she be removed, and Mahd-i Ulya was strangled in the harem in July 1579 on the ground of an alleged affair with the brother of the Crimean khan, Adil Giray,[96] who was captured during the 15781590 Ottoman war and held captive in the capital, Qazvin. [195] Abbas himself was able to speak Georgian as well. In 1514, Sultan Selim I marched through Anatolia and reached the plain of Chaldiran near the city of Khoy, where a decisive battle was fought. The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, considered the active recruitment of Turkmen tribes of Anatolia for the Safavid cause as a major threat. Crown prince Hamza Mirza, now 21 years old and director of Safavid affairs, led a force to confront the Ottomans, but in 1586 was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Central Press / Getty Images. [16], c Court,[17][18][19] religious dignitaries, military,[15][20][21][22] mother tongue,[15] poetry. Moreover, Shah Abbas's conversion to a ghulam-based military, though expedient in the short term, had, over the course of a century, weakened the country's strength by requiring heavy taxation and control over the provinces. religious differences led to much hostility between . He admired their consideration towards foreigners, but he also stumbled upon characteristics that he found challenging. [32] Sam Mirza, the son of Shah Ismail as well as some later authors assert that Ismail composed poems both in Turkish and Persian but only a few specimens of his Persian verse have survived. "The Safavid Period" in Jackson, Peter; Lockhart, Laurence. Murder was punishable by death, and the penalty for bodily injuries was invariably the bastinado. The Safavid dynasty (/sfvd, s-/; Persian: , romanized:Dudmne Safavi,[1] pronounced[dudmne sfvi]) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736. PORTRAIT OF A SUFI SAINT MUGHAL INDIA, FIRST HALF 17TH CENTURY Painting 3 1. By the time of the orders fourth leader, Sheikh Junayd, it had become explicitly Shii. Persian culture was revived under the Safavids, fanatical Shiites who fought with Sunni Ottomans for over a century and influenced the culture of the Moguls in India. Following his conquest of Iran and Azerbaijan, Ismail I made conversion mandatory for the largely Sunni population. Most of the improvements were in and around some major coastal cities and the major islands such as Cuba, with its tobacco plantations, and a renewed growth of precious metals mining in America. Sultan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in Qandahar from Sunni to Twelverism. [134] For his part, Abbas declared that he "preferred the dust from the shoe soles of the lowest Christian to the highest Ottoman personage. [243], The Safavids by the time of their rise were Azerbaijani-speaking although they also used Persian as a second language. Almost simultaneously with the emergence of the Safavid Empire, the Mughal Empire, founded by the Timurid heir Babur, was developing in South-Asia. The Safavid Empire was strengthened by important Shi'a soldiers from the Ottoman army who had fled from persecution. What remained unchanged, was the "crop-sharing agreement" between whoever was the landlord, and the farmer. Password Strength: Weak . After a long and bloody siege led by the Safavid grand vizier Hatem Beg, which lasted from November 1609 to the summer of 1610, the Kurdish stronghold of Dimdim was captured. According to the Encyclopdia Iranica, for Tahmasp, the background of this initiation and eventual composition that would be only finalized under Shah Abbas I, circled around the military tribal elite of the empire, the Qizilbash, who believed that physical proximity to and control of a member of the immediate Safavid family guaranteed spiritual advantages, political fortune, and material advancement. After subsequent campaigns, the Safavids recaptured Baghdad in 1623 during the OttomanSafavid War (162339) yet lost it again to Murad IV in 1638 after Abbas had died. Soleymn agreed to permit Safavid Shia pilgrims to make pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina as well as tombs of imams in Iraq and Arabia on condition that the shah would abolish the taburru, the cursing of the first three Rashidun caliphs. As a quote relating to Shah Abbas the Great . The idea of such an anti-Ottoman alliance was not a new oneover a century before, Uzun Hassan, then ruler of part of Iran, had asked the Venetians for military aidbut none of the Safavids had made diplomatic overtures to Europe. According to William Cleveland and Martin Bunton,[232] the establishment of Isfahan as the Great capital of Iran and the material splendor of the city attracted intellectual's from all corners of the world, which contributed to the city's rich cultural life. [180], The Akhbari movement "crystalized" as a "separate movement" with the writings of Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (died 1627 AD). The people of the Empire soon embraced the new faith with enthusiasm, celebrating Shi'ite festivals with great piety. The Safavid and Ottoman empires are usually compared because of the wars that broke . He was eventually successful in making the eastern Georgian territories an integral part of the Safavid provinces. [207], The Safavid economy was to a large extent based on agriculture and taxation of agricultural products. Also, there were the quazi-religious fraternities called futuvva, which were run by local dervishes. Clothes that became soiled in any way were changed immediately. In 1732 by the Treaty of Resht and in 1735 Treaty of Ganja, he negotiated an agreement with the government of Empress Anna Ioanovna that resulted in the return of the recently annexed Iranian territories, making most of the Caucasus fall back into Iranian hands, while establishing an Irano-Russian alliance against the common neighbouring Ottoman enemy. 36 tracks completely remixed from the original multitracks in Stereo, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. As the scale and frequency of Ottoman military successes declined, however, the proportion of slaves on the Ottoman market supplied by the Tatars increased. According to the French jeweller Jean Chardin, the variety in agricultural products in Iran was unrivaled in Europe and consisted of fruits and vegetables never even heard of in Europe. In 1511, the ahkulu rebellion was a widespread pro-Shia and pro-Safavid uprising directed against the Ottoman Empire from within the empire. One such strength would have to be its military. According to official Safavid history, before passing away, Ali had designated his young brother Ismail as the spiritual leader of the Safaviyya.[31]. The Safavid shahs ruled over one of the Gunpowder Empires. This class is granted special privileges because they have aided the Ottoman Empire with expansion efforts. Numbers of Red Heads, Safavid followers because of their red headgear increased. Ya'qub allied himself with the Shirvanshah and killed Haydar in 1488. Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts. However, strategically it remained inconclusive. The Qizilbash tribes were essential to the military of Iran until the rule of Shah Abbas I- their leaders were able to exercise enormous influence and participate in court intrigues (assassinating Shah Ismail II for example). He then besieged the capital of Isfahan, until Shah Soltan Hoseyn abdicated and acknowledged him as the new king of Iran. The Byzantine Empire saw itself as a continuation of the Roman Empire. "Review of Emile Janssens'. . Not only did the invasions bring about the end of the Abbasid empire and leave the centre of eastern Islamdom fractured, but the arrival of new Turkic peoples and dynasties throughout much of Islamdom shifted the axes of power into the hands of Turkic clans. The Ilkhanid ruler ljait converted to Twelver Shiism in the 13th century. But his responsibilities also included that of being the treasurer of the Shah's properties. This system avoided an entrenched aristocracy or a caste society. Poetry lacked the royal patronage of other arts and was hemmed in by religious prescriptions. It would seemthat the poet and miniaturist Sadeqi Afshar (15331610), whose mother tongue was not Azerbaijani Turkish, but Chaghatay (although he was born in Tabriz), was the first to refer to speakers of Qizilbashi (motakallemin-e Qizilbash), but he, and one century later Abdol-Jamil Nasiri, were the exception to this general rule of calling the language "Turki". Among these, the founder of one of the most successful f orders, Shh Ni'matullh Wal (d. 1431), traced his descent from the first Isml Imam, Muhammad ibn Isml, as evidenced in a poem as well as another unpublished literary composition. She was by no means content to exercise a more or less indirect influence on affairs of state: instead, she openly carried out all essential functions herself, including the appointment of the chief officers of the realm. Religious and political power were completely intertwined, and encapsulated in the person of the Shah. After Uzun Hassan's death, his son Ya'qub felt threatened by the growing Safavid religious influence. Humayun was not the only royal figure to seek refuge at Tahmasp's court. [104] The following year the loyal Qizilbash forces (the Turkmen and Takkalu who controlled Qazvin), with vizier Mirza Salman and crown prince Sultan Hamza Mirza at their head, confronted the rebelling Ustajlu-Shamlu coalition which had assumed control of Khorasan under the nominal rule of young Abbas. Women from the provinces and slaves pierced their left nostrils with rings, but well-born Persian women would not do this. [110] Before he could begin to embark on the first stage, he needed relief from the most serious threat to the empire: the military pressure from the Ottomans. There were no particular place assigned for the administration of justice. Read more. But in spite of a weak economy, a civil war and foreign wars on two fronts, Tahmsp managed to retain his crown and maintain the territorial integrity of the empire (although much reduced from Ismail's time). [6] It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin,[7] but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman,[8] Georgian,[9] Circassian,[10][11] and Pontic Greek[12] dignitaries, nevertheless they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified. "[135] Abbas would take active and all measures needed in order to seal the alliances. Abbs I, byname Abbs the Great, (born Jan. 27, 1571died Jan. 19, 1629), shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629, who strengthened the Safavid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops from Persian soil and by creating a standing army. In 1503, the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti were made his vassals as well. [172] The rest of the masses of deportees and importees, a significant portion numbering many hundreds of thousands, were settled in various regions of mainland Iran, and were given all kinds of roles as part of society, such as craftsmen, farmers, cattle breeders, traders, soldiers, generals, governors, woodcutters, etc., all also part of the newly established layer in Iranian society.[173]. The Shirley brothers arrived in 1598 and helped reorganize the Iranian army, which proved to be crucial in the OttomanSafavid War (160318), which resulted in Ottoman defeats in all stages of the war and the first clear pitched Safavid victory of their archrivals. But the Portuguese ambassador to the Safavids, De Gouvea, still mentions the Council of State[188] in his records, which perhaps was a term for governmental gatherings of the time. Traditional pre-1501 Safavid manuscripts trace the lineage of the Safavids to the Kurdish dignitary, Firuz-Shah Zarrin-Kolah. Contacts with the Pope, Poland and Moscow were no more fruitful. He was responsible for introducing all guests, receiving petitions presented to the Shah and reading them if required. Although Turkish was widely spoken in Safavid Iran this fact is rarely mentioned. [71] Putting aside internal dissension, the Safavid nobles responded to a threat to Herat in 1528 by riding eastward with Tahmsp (then 17) and soundly defeating the numerically superior forces of the Uzbeks at Jm. just another region to be gained and lost according to geopolitical circumstances and military strength or weakness. [238] He wrote the Al-Hikma al-mutaaliya fi-l-asfar al-aqliyya al-arbaa ("The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect"),[239] a meditation on what he called 'meta philosophy' which brought to a synthesis the philosophical mysticism of Sufism, the theology of Shi'a Islam, and the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies of Avicenna and Suhrawardi. [209], In the period prior to Shah Abbas I, most of the land was assigned to officials (civil, military and religious). While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Alireza Shapur Shahbazi (2005), "The History of the Idea of Iran", in Vesta Curtis ed., Birth of the Persian Empire, IB Tauris, London, p. 108: "Similarly the collapse of Sassanian Eranshahr in AD 650 did not end Iranians' national idea. [83] This was a huge impedance for the authority of the Shah, and furthermore, it undermined any developments without the agreeing or shared profit of the Qizilbash. Open Document. "IRAN ix. They in turn provided for the safety of the travelers, and both Thevenot and Tavernier stressed the safety of traveling in 17th century Iran, and the courtesy and refinement of the policing guards. [194] As a result of Abbas' reforms, they held high offices in the army, the administration and the royal household. It was a grading system used by the Mughals to fix rank, salary and military responsibilities. [220][221] With the later end of the Portuguese Empire, the British, Dutch and French in particular gained easier access to Persian seaborne trade, although they, unlike the Portuguese, did not arrive as colonisers, but as merchant adventurers. The impressive achievements of its 400,000 residents prompted the inhabitants to coin their famous boast, "Isfahan is half the world". The siege of Isfahan was a six-month-long siege of Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, by the Hotaki -led Afghan army. Moreover, he began to strengthen Shii practice by such things as forbidding in the new capital of Qazvin poetry and music which did not esteem Ali and the Twelve Imams. He also reduced the taxes of districts that were traditionally Shii, regulated services in mosques and engaged Shii propagandists and spies. THE ULTIMATE MIXES. In 1659, the Kingdom of Kakheti rose up against the Safavid Iranian rule due to a change of policy that included the mass settling of Qizilbash Turkic tribes in the region in order to repopulate the province, after Shah Abbas' earlier mass deportations of between 130,000[143] 200,000[123][124][144] Georgian subjects to Iran's mainland and massacre of another thousand in 1616 virtually left the province without any substantial population. In the 10th and 11th centuries the Buwayhids, who were of the Zaidiyyah branch of Shia Islam, ruled in Fars, Isfahan and Baghdad. His primary job was to appoint and supervise all the officials of the household and to be their contact with the Shah. Justice Jamaica was the last British stronghold of importance in the Caribbean. According to, Amoretti, Biancamaria Scarcia; Matthee, Rudi. Mulla Sadra has become the dominant philosopher of the Islamic East, and his approach to the nature of philosophy has been exceptionally influential up to this day. [162], Since pre-Islamic times, the sport of wrestling had been an integral part of the Iranian identity, and the professional wrestlers, who performed in Zurkhanehs, were considered important members of the society. [1] One feature of the battle was that the Ottoman army used guns and cannons to defeat the cavalry corps. The growth of Safavid economy was fuelled by the stability which allowed the agriculture to thrive, as well as trade, due to Iran's position between the burgeoning civilizations of Europe to its west and India and Islamic Central Asia to its east and north. No act of the Shah was valid without the counter seal of the Prime Minister. [48] Although Ismil was defeated and his capital was captured, the Safavid empire survived. It is estimated that during Abbas' reign alone some 130,000200,000 Georgians,[176][124][123][125] tens of thousands of Circassians, and around 300,000 Armenians[177][178] had been deported and imported from the Caucasus to mainland Iran, all obtaining functions and roles as part of the newly created layer in society, such as within the highest positions of the state, or as farmers, soldiers, craftspeople, as part of the Royal harem, the Court, and peasantry, amongst others. Having started with just the possession of Azerbaijan, Shirvan, southern Dagestan (with its important city of Derbent), and Armenia in 1501,[60] Erzincan and Erzurum fell into his power in 1502,[61] Hamadan in 1503, Shiraz and Kerman in 1504, Diyarbakir, Najaf, and Karbala in 1507, Van in 1508, Baghdad in 1509, and Herat, as well as other parts of Khorasan, in 1510. Meeting with little success, Abbs engaged in a major army reform. Safavid Period. During these operations an agent of the Samlu (now supporting Sam Mizra's pretensions) attempted to poison the shah. [75] Temporary terms were followed by the Peace of Amasya in June 1555, ending the war with the Ottomans for the next two decades. Richard Wilson, When Golden Time Convents: Twelfth Night and Shakespeare's Eastern Promise, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMunsh1978 (, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSstn (, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFJavakhishvili1970 (. In 1501, the Safavid Shahs declared independence when the Ottomans outlawed Shi'a Islam in their territory. In 1598, when Shah Abbas decided to move the capital of his Iranian empire from the north-western city of Qazvin to the central city of Isfahan, he initiated what would become one of the greatest programmes in Iranian history; the complete remaking of the city. He moved the capital to Efahn and made it the centre of Safavid architectural achievement, manifest in the mosques Masjed-e Shh (renamed Masjed-e Emm after the 1979 Iranian Revolution), Masjed-e Sheikh Lofollh, and other monuments including the Al Qp, the Chehel Sotn, and the Meydn-i Shh. [74] The goal of the Ottomans in the 1534 and 15481549 campaigns, during the 15321555 OttomanSafavid War, was to install Tahmsp's brothers (Sam Mirza and Alqas Mirza, respectively) as shah in order to make Iran a vassal state. He had all his relatives killed except for his older brother, Mohammad Khudabanda, who, being nearly blind, was not a real candidate for the throne, and Mohammad's three sons, Hamza Mirza, Abbas Mirza and Abu Talib Mirza. [63] Furthermore, by the early 1510s Ismail's expansionistic policies had pushed the Safavid borders in Asia Minor even more westwards. The consequences of the defeat at Chaldiran were also psychological for Ismil: the defeat destroyed Ismil's belief in his invincibility, based on his claimed divine status. [95] Mohammad would rule for 10 years, and his sister at first dominated the court, but she fell in the first of many intrigues which continued even though the Uzbeks and Ottomans again used the opportunity to threaten Safavid territory. Throughout the Ottomans expansion, they rapidly improved their military . Go to the primary resource. Safavid history begins with the establishment of the Safaviyya by its eponymous founder Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252-1334). Initially founded by Shah Ismail I, the Safavid Empire grew out of a much older Shi'a Muslim religious order with roots in Sufism. [45] There were many local states prior to the Iranian state established by Ismil. These three empires all had military strength, Sovereign Pride, Religious commitment, and Aesthetic sophistication in common to varying degrees. In fact, it was the founder of the Safavid Empire, Shah Ismail I, who forcibly converted Iran . Much of the early art was devoted to celebrating the glories of the earlier Iranian kingdom, and thus, by implication, making legitimate the Safavids as that kingdom's current heirs. During the early 17th century the power of the Qizilbash drastically diminished, the original militia that had helped Ismail I capture Tabriz and that had gained many administrative powers over the centuries. Iranian rule had been fully restored over eastern Georgia, but the Georgian territories would continue to produce resistance to Safavid enroachments from 1624 until Abbas' death. 900901, tr. [242] As such, the status of medicine in the Safavid period did not change much, and relied as much on these works as ever before. The Safavid dynasty (/sfvd, s-/; Persian: , pronounced [dudmne sfvi]) was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran, often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history. [228], By the end of the 17th century, the Dutch had become dominant in the trade that went via the Persian Gulf, having won most trade agreements, and managed to strike deals before the British or French were able to. 2205. JOHN LENNON. Which would be the most useful source of evidence to support McNeill's contention that "the Safavid [Safavid] empire remained a profoundly disturbing force in the Moslem [Muslim] world?" Units 3 - 4 practice test! H.R. . Particularly important in this regard were the Gilan and Mazandaran provinces, which produced Iran's single most important export; silk. Not taken care of accordingly, these were a serious threat to the ruler, or worse, could bring the fall of the former or could lead to unnecessary court intrigues. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. "Iran and Pre-Independence Lebanon" in Houchang Esfandiar Chehabi. Mongols and Mamluks were military elites that hailed from the Eurasian Steppe. An angry mob gathered and Tahmasp had Bayezid put into custody, alleging it was for his own safety. By 1595, Allahverdi Khan, a Georgian, became one of the most powerful men in the Safavid state, when he was appointed the Governor-General of Fars, one of the richest provinces in Iran. In place of the usual royal audience, these high dignitaries had to assemble each morning at the entrance to the womens apartments in order to receive the Begums orders.

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