Misplaced Pages

#706293

182-582: Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād ( c. 1455/60–1535), also known as Kamal al-din Bihzad or Kamaleddin Behzād ( Persian : کمال‌الدین بهزاد ), was a Persian painter and head of the royal ateliers in Herat and Tabriz during the late Timurid and early Safavid Periods. He is regarded as marking the highpoint of the great tradition of Islamic miniature painting. He was well known for his very prominent role as kitābdār (the chairman of

364-408: A "religious bigot". He was accused of never leaving the harem and it was said that he divided his time between sexual liaisons with his favourites and foretelling the future. This characterisation has made an obscure figure out of Tahmasp as a king and a person. However, there are several instances recorded by the contemporary historians which denoted the more favourable sides of the shah's character:

546-688: A "third force" in the Safavid administration and bureaucracy with the Turkomans and Persians and became a main rival to the other two during the later years of the Safavid Empire. Although this "third force" came to power two generations later during the reign of Tahmasp's grandson, Abbas the Great ( r.  1588–1629 ), it began infiltrating Tahmasp's army during the second quarter of his reign as gholams (slave warriors) and qorchis (royal bodyguards of

728-638: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to

910-638: A European power were sent in 1540 to Doge of Venice Pietro Lando ( r.  1538–1545 ). In response, the Doge and the Great Council of Venice commissioned Michel Membré to visit the Safavid court. In 1540, he visited Tahmasp's encampment at Marand , near Tabriz. Membré's mission lasted for three years, during which, he wrote the Relazione di Persia , one of the few European sources which describe Tahmasp's court. In his letter to Lando, Tahmasp promised to "cleanse

1092-578: A Georgian slave) participated in state affairs. Tahmasp had seven known consorts: He had thirteen sons: Tahmasp probably had thirteen daughters, eight of whom are known: Tahmasp I's reign started in an era of civil wars between the Qizilbash leaders after the death of Ismail I, whose charismatic characterisation as Messiah, which had driven the Qizilbash to follow him, came to an end with Tahmasp's succession. In contrast to his father, Tahmasp did not possess charisma in any political or spiritual sense, nor

1274-415: A Shamlu guardian) as their candidate. The rebels then contacted Suleiman and asked him for support in enthroning Sam Mirza, who promised to follow a pro-Ottoman policy. Suleiman recognised him as ruler of Iran, which panicked Tahmasp's court. Tahmasp reconquered the seized territory when Suleiman went to Mesopotamia , and Suleiman led another campaign against him. Tahmasp attacked his rearguard, and Suleiman

1456-556: A choice of conversion, death, or exile. From this, a power vacuum emerged which allowed the Shia ulama to create a clerical aristocracy filled with seyyid (descendant of Muhammad ) and mujtahid (Islamic scholar expert in the Islamic law ) landowners. Ismail established the Qizilbash Turkoman tribes as inseparable members of the Safavid administration since they were

1638-794: A city in Khorasan. He replaced the Shamlu and Mawsillu governors of Khorasan, who did not join his army during the Battle of Chaldiran for fear of famine. Placing Tahmasp in Herat was an attempt to reduce the growing influence of the Shamlu tribe, which dominated Safavid court politics and held a number of powerful governorships. Ismail also appointed Amir Ghiyath al-Din Mohammad, a prominent Herat figure, as Tahmasp's religious tutor. A struggle for control of Herat emerged between

1820-488: A civil war. The Ostajlu faction was quickly excluded and their leader, Kopek Sultan, was killed by order of Chuha Sultan. During the civil war, the Uzbeks raiders temporarily seized Tus and Astarabad . Div Sultan Rumlu was blamed for the raids and was executed. His execution was performed by Tahmasp himself. At the behest of the young king, Chuha Sultan, the sole remaining member of the triumvirate, became de facto ruler of

2002-536: A courageous and able commander who maintained and expanded his father's empire. His reign saw a shift in the Safavid ideological policy; he ended the worshipping of his father as the Messiah by the Turkoman Qizilbash tribes and instead established a public image of a pious and orthodox Shia king. He started a long process followed by his successors to end the Qizilbash influence on Safavid politics, replacing them with

SECTION 10

#1733086161707

2184-499: A decree in which he described the painter as  “...[a] miracle of our century, a model for painters and an example for goldsmiths, master Kemal-od-Din Behzad, who with his brush shamed Mani and humiliated the pages of Arzhang with his draftsman's pencil ...".   In 1524, Shah Ismail suddenly died. Behzad's later work is usually associated with the name of Shah Ismail's son, Shah Tahmasp I (ruled 1524–1576). Behzād continued to serve in

2366-453: A designated heir and the two factions in his court clashed for the throne. Haydar Mirza was murdered not long after his father's death, and Ismail Mirza became king and was crowned Ismail II ( r.  1576–1577 ). Less than two months after his enthronement, Ismail ordered a mass purge of all male members of the royal family. Only Mohammad Khodabanda, already nearly blind, and his three toddler sons survived this purge. Tahmasp's reign after

2548-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in

2730-490: A greater sense of energy and emotions to the paintings. Likewise, Behzād utilized a method of painting that relied upon geometric formulas and a flattening of the visual plane to present the whole narrative in one painting and ensure the viewer's eyes would move across the entire painting. Behzād's technical mastery was coupled by a keen artistic eye as he was able to create a visually complex but compelling scene. The fluidity of Behzād's compositions reflect his capacity to create

2912-500: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian

3094-704: A library) in the Herat Academy as well as his position in the Royal Library in the city of Herat. His art is unique in that it includes the common geometric attributes of Persian painting, while also inserting his own style, such as vast empty spaces to which the subject of the painting dances around. His art includes masterful use of value and individuality of character, with one of his most famous pieces being "The Seduction of Yusuf" from Sa'di's Bustan of 1488. Behzād's fame and renown in his lifetime inspired many during, and after, his life to copy his style and works due to

3276-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from

3458-421: A long-established acknowledgment and patronage of Christian Armenians. In his youth, Tahmasp was inclined towards calligraphy and art and patronised masters in both. His preeminent and acclaimed contribution to the Safavid arts was his patronage of Persian miniature manuscripts that took place during the first half of his reign. He was the namesake of one of the most celebrated illustrated manuscripts of

3640-424: A master of Fabian tactics . Tahmasp knew that he could not replace his father as a charismatic spiritual leader, and while he struggled to restore his family's legitimacy amongst the Qizilbash, he also had to craft a public figure of himself to convince the wider population of his right to rule as the new Safavid shah. Thus, he became a devout follower of Shi'ism and maintained this image with exaggerated piety until

3822-402: A military review in 1530 show that the Safavid army was armed with several hundred light canons and several thousand infantrymen. Gollar-aghasis , military slaves developed by Tahmasp from Caucasus prisoners, commanded the tufangchiyan and tupchiyan . To lessen Qizilbash power, he discontinued the titles of amir al-umara and vakil . The qurchi-bashi (the commander of

SECTION 20

#1733086161707

4004-435: A monoscenic composition and to make all regions visible to the eye allowed for the inclusion of the most possible narrative elements. If we contrast Jami's words with Bihzad's illustration, we can see that one is an allegory of the soul's quest for heavenly love and beauty, and the latter is an invitation to mystical contemplation. All of the stylistic features included help the artist communicate something. The magnificent palace

4186-529: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and

4368-477: A prestigious Behzād came to be a central figure to the Herat school of painting, eventually becoming the head of the Herat academy in 1486 and leaving in 1506. As the head of the Herat academy he held large influence over the students, influencing the styles and techniques of future generations of Persian painters. Behzād's fame and artistic renown would inspire imitation or other artists to learn from his paintings as well as more formally Behzād had large authority over

4550-511: A realistic scene by reducing it to the most important elements. It is not to say that Behzād created unrefined works, rather, what he did choose to include was masterfully rendered and ripe with emotion and a masterful control of the brush and color. Behzād's reputation was well-founded within his own lifetime with nearby rulers, such as the Mughal emperors, being willing to pay large sums for his paintings further adding to his fame and legacy. With such

4732-517: A regent. Hossein Khan Shamlu circumvented this challenge by having himself named as the steward to Tahmasp's newborn son, Mohammad Mirza . Hossein Khan constantly undermined the shah's power and had angered Tahmasp many times. His confidence in his power, combined with the rumours that Hossein Khan intended to depose Tahmasp and place his brother, Sam Mirza, on the throne, finally led Tahmasp to rid himself of

4914-580: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are

5096-445: A story about an old woman confronting the sins of Sanjar, the amazing cosmopolitan variety of humans working on the wall in the sample image. This surprising individuality of character and narrative creativity are some qualities that distinguish Bezhad's works and that match their literary intent. Behzād also uses Sufi symbolism and symbolic colour to convey meaning. He introduced greater naturalism to Persian painting, particularly in

5278-612: A strong Safavid empire a threat to his ambitious plans in the west and northwest of his realm. During the first decade of Tahmasp's reign, however, he was preoccupied with fighting the Habsburgs and the unsuccessful attempt to seize Vienna . In 1532, while the Ottomans were fighting in Hungary, Suleiman sent Olama Beg Takkalu with 50,000 troops under Fil Pasha to Iran. Olama Beg was one of many Takkalu members who, after Chuha's death, took refuge in

5460-515: A work to his brother, Bahram Mirza . The painting was a humorous composition of a gathering of Safavid courtiers, featuring music, singing, and wine-drinking. In the spring of 1524, Ismail became ill on a hunting trip to Georgia and recovered in Ardabil on his way back to the capital. But he soon developed a high fever which led to his death on 23 May 1524 in Tabriz . The ten-year-old Tahmasp ascended

5642-644: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian

Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād - Misplaced Pages Continue

5824-610: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of

6006-736: Is a representation of the material world; the seven rooms represent the seven climes ; and Yusuf's beauty is a metaphor for that of God. Moreover, the absence of a witness in the painting has the purpose of showing Yusuf's devotion to God. He could have yielded to Zulaykha's fervor, but he realized that God was all-seeing and all-knowing. This image surpasses both the literal standards and the prevalent mystical elements in modern literature and society. One of Behzād's lasting influences stems from his proficient depiction of humans and other organic motifs, bringing new depths to his painting's narratives and characters. Behzād's human figures were less stiff in their stances and more dynamic in their movements, creating

6188-812: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian

6370-654: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting

6552-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of

6734-420: Is mentioned throughout Orhan Pamuk 's novel, My Name is Red , in which a workshop of Ottoman miniaturists regards him as one of the greatest Persian miniaturists. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to

6916-516: Is no longer the only language used, in his fals ( folus-i shahi ) coins, the phrase "May be eternally [condemned] to the damnation of God / He, who alters [the rate of] the royal folus" is minted in Persian . Old copper coins were released anew with the countermarks folus-i shahi , ' adl-e shahi , etc. that showed their new value. Tahmasp, unlike his ancestors who married Turkomans, took Georgians and Circassians as wives; most of his children had Caucasian mothers. His only Turkoman consort

7098-455: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with

7280-472: Is of utmost importance. The narrative continues when Zulaykha and Yusuf enter the innermost chamber. He escapes her hands as she throws herself at him. The seven locked doors suddenly open, and help him avoid being seduced by her. The most dramatic part of the story is depicted in the picture by Bhizad, when the helpless Zulaykha reaches out to grab Yusuf. Once again, architecture serves as the medium for this effective visual narrative. The painter's decision to use

7462-680: Is often problematic (and, many academics would now argue, unimportant), but the majority of works commonly attributed to him date from 1488 to 1495. "The Seduction of Yusuf", a tale found in both the Bible and the Qur’an , describes a series of interactions between Joseph and Zulaykha , the wife of Potiphar. This story had previously appeared in Sadi's Bustan , written 200 years earlier. The mystical poet Jami , who served in Husayn Bayqara ’s court, also narrated

Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād - Misplaced Pages Continue

7644-468: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),

7826-570: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became

8008-486: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting

8190-510: The vizier (minister and head of the bureaucracy) in authority. The holder of the title was the vicegerent of Ismail and represented him in the royal court. The creation of this new superior title could not cease the clashes between the Qizilbash leaders and Persian bureaucrats, which eventually climaxed in the Battle of Ghazdewan between the Safavids and the Uzbeks, in which Ismail's vakil ,

8372-474: The qurchi s ), formerly subordinate to the amir al-umara , became the chief Safavid military officer. After the Peace of Amasya in 1555, Tahmasp became an avaricious person who did not care how and where his troops obtained their pay, even if it was through criminal means. By 1575, Iran's troops had not been paid for four years. They are said to have accepted this because, as one chronicler put it, 'they loved

8554-486: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes

8736-502: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on

8918-563: The Shahnameh , which was commissioned by his father around 1522 and completed during the mid-1530s. He encouraged painters such as Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād , bestowing a royal painting workshop for masters, journeymen , and apprentices with exotic materials such as ground gold and lapis lazuli . Tahmasp's artists illustrated the Khamsa of Nizami , and he worked on Chehel Sotoun's balcony paintings. The Tarikh-e Alam-ara-ye Abbasi calls Tahmasp's reign

9100-510: The Timurid Empire's cultural and economic capital. Not much is known of Behzad's childhood, but according to the author Qadi Ahmad, Behzād was orphaned at an early age and raised by the prominent painter and calligrapher Mirak Naqqash , a director of the Timurid royal library. Behzād was also a protégé of Mir Ali Shir Nava'i , a vizier, poet, and humanist, and the in the court of Herat during

9282-482: The Battle of Chaldiran against the Ottoman Empire . Before the war with the Ottomans, Ismail promoted himself as a reincarnation of Ali or Husayn . This belief weakened after Chaldiran, and Ismail lost his theological-religious relationship with the disappointed Qizilbash tribes who had previously seen him as invincible. This affected Ismail, who began drinking heavily and never again led an army; this permitted

SECTION 50

#1733086161707

9464-525: The Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, in which the Ottoman Turks defeated the Persian army, Shah Ismail I hid Behzād in a cave as a treasure. In 1522, Behzād was employed by Shah Ismail I in Tabriz (the capital of the new Safavid Empire), where, as director of the royal atelier, he had a decisive impact on the development of later Safavid painting. According to Muhammad Khwandamir, Shah Ismail I employed Behzād with

9646-651: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of

9828-595: The Caucasus , especially Georgia, for two reasons: to reduce the influence of the Ostajlu tribe (who kept their lands in southern Georgia and Armenia after the 1526 civil war) and a desire for booty, similar to that of his father. Since the Georgians were mainly Christian, he used the pretext of Jihad (Islamic armed struggle against nonbelievers) to justify the invasion. Between 1540 and 1553, Tahmasp led four campaigns against

10010-560: The Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It

10192-665: The Iranian plateau , Muhammad Shaybani , Khan of Bukhara ( r.  1500–1510 ), had conquered Khwarazm and Khorasan . Ismail defeated and killed Muhammad Shaybani in the Battle of Marv in 1510, returning Khorasan to Iranian possession, though Khwarazm and the Persianate cities in Transoxiana remained in Uzbek hands. Thereafter the possession of Khorasan became the main bone of contention between Safavids and Shaybanids. In 1514, Ismail's prestige and authority were damaged by his loss in

10374-529: The Mughal court of India. Tahmasp is known for his religious piety and fervent zealotry for the Shia branch of Islam. He bestowed many privileges on the clergy and allowed them to participate in legal and administrative matters. In 1544 he demanded that the fugitive Mughal emperor Humayun convert to Shi'ism in return for military assistance to reclaim his throne in India. Nevertheless, Tahmasp still negotiated alliances with

10556-660: The Mughal Empire , who faced rebellions by his brothers. Humayun fled to Herat, travelled through Mashhad , Nishapur , Sabzevar , and Qazvin , and met Tahmasp at Soltaniyeh in 1544. Tahmasp honoured Homayun as a guest and gave him an illustrated version of Saadi 's Gulistan dating back to the reign of Abu Sa'id Mirza ( r.  1451–1469, 1459–1469 ), Humayun's great-grandfather; however, he refused to give him political assistance unless he converted to Shia Islam. Humayun reluctantly agreed, but reverted to Sunni Islam when he returned to India; however he did not force

10738-635: The Qizilbash leaders until 1532, when he asserted his authority and began an absolute monarchy . He soon faced a long-lasting war with the Ottoman Empire , which was divided into three phases. The Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent , tried to install his own candidates on the Safavid throne. The war ended with the Peace of Amasya in 1555, with the Ottomans gaining sovereignty over Iraq , much of Kurdistan , and western Georgia . Tahmasp also had conflicts with

10920-403: The Shahnameh , Tahmasp is the father of Zaav , the penultimate shah of the mythical Persian Pishdadian dynasty . Tahmasp was the second shah of the Safavid dynasty, a family of Kurdish origin, who were sheikhs of a Sufi tariqa (school of Sufism) known as the Safavid order and centred in Ardabil , a city in the northwestern Iran. The first sheikh of the order and eponym of

11102-455: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of

SECTION 60

#1733086161707

11284-464: The Timurid dynasty , that followed the Turco-Mongol tradition of appointing the eldest son of a sovereign to govern a prominent province like Khorasan. The centre of this major province, the city of Herat, would go on to be the city where Safavid crown princes were raised, trained, and educated throughout the sixteenth century. In 1517, Ismail appointed the Diyarbakr governor Amir Soltan Mawsillu as Tahmasp's lala (tutor) and governor of Balkh ,

11466-439: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of

11648-411: The Uzbeks of Bukhara over Khorasan , with them repeatedly raiding Herat . In 1528, at the age of fourteen, he defeated the Uzbeks in the Battle of Jam by using artillery . Tahmasp was a patron of the arts and was an accomplished painter himself. He built a royal house of arts for painters, calligraphers and poets. Later in his reign, he came to despise poets, shunning many and exiling them to

11830-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian

12012-493: The occult science of geomancy . According to the Venetian diplomat, Vincenzo degli Alessandri , the shah was so devoted to practice geomancy that he had not left his palace for a decade. He also observed that Tahmasp was worshipped by his people as a godlike being possessing a frail and old body. Tahmasp wanted the poets of his court to write about Ali, rather than him. He sent copies of the Quran as gifts to several Ottoman sultans; overall, during his reign, eighteen copies of

12194-479: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,

12376-446: The "men of the sword" who brought him to power. These "men of the sword" clashed with the other major part of his bureaucracy, the "men of the pen", who controlled the literati and were mainly Persian . Ismail created the title of vakil-e nafs-e nafs-e homayoun (deputy to the king) to resolve the dispute. The title of vakil surpassed both the amir al-umara (commander-in-chief; mostly bestowed upon Qizilbash leaders), and

12558-572: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to

12740-445: The Christian powers of the Republic of Venice and the Habsburg monarchy who were also rivals of the Ottoman Empire. His succession was disputed before his death. When Tahmasp died, a civil war followed, leading to the death of most of the royal family. Tahmasp's reign of nearly fifty-two years was the longest of any member of the Safavid dynasty . Although contemporary Western accounts were critical, modern historians describe him as

12922-418: The Georgian forces who tried to reconquer Tbilisi under Simon I and his father, Luarsab I of Kartli, in the Battle of Garisi ; the battle ended in a stalemate , with Luarsab and the Safavid commander Shahverdi Sultan both slain in battle. One of the most celebrated events of Tahmasp's reign was the visit of Humayun ( r.  1530–1540 ), the eldest son of Babur ( r.  1526–1530 ) and emperor of

13104-458: The Georgian kingdoms. The Safavid army looted Tbilisi , including its churches and the wives and children of the nobility, in the first campaign. Tahmasp also forced the governor of Tbilisi, Golbad, to convert to Islam. The King of Kartli , Luarsab I ( r.  1527/1534–1556/1558 ), managed to escape and went to hiding during Tahmasp's raiding. During his second invasion, ostensibly to ensure

13286-517: The Iranian Shias, who came with him to India, to convert. Tahmasp also demanded a quid pro quo in which the city of Kandahar would be given to his infant son, Morad Mirza. Humayun spent Nowruz in the Shah's court and left in 1545 with an army provided by Tahmasp to regain his lost lands; his first conquest was Kandahar, which he ceded to the young Safavid prince. Morad Mirza soon died, however, and

13468-407: The Magnificent, the most successful Ottoman sultan. It was during Tahmasp's reign that the Safavid right to rule was established and gradually accepted among the Shia people, who were endeared to the idea of a descendent of Ahl al-Bayt (Family of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad) ruling over them. Thus the Safavid dynasty gained an ideological underpinning much stronger than the initial premise of

13650-612: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it

13832-406: The Ostajlu held Khorasan and the Safavid capital, Tabriz. Rumlu proposed a triumvirate to the two leaders which was accepted, the terms were for sharing the office of amir al-umara . The triumvirate proved unsustainable, since all sides were dissatisfied with their share of power. In the spring of 1526, a series of battles in northwest Iran between these tribes expanded into Khorasan and became

14014-532: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After

14196-456: The Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans seized Tabriz and Kurdistan, and tried to obtain support from Gilan province . Tahmasp drove the Ottomans out, but news of another Uzbek invasion prevented him from defeating them. Suleiman sent his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha , to occupy Tabriz in July 1534 and joined him two months later. Suleiman peacefully conquered Baghdad and Shia cities such as Najaf . Whilst

14378-413: The Ottoman Empire. However, he successfully laid the foundation for Abbas the Great's transformation of the Safavid polity by bringing Caucasian slaves into his realm. He thus created the core of the force that changed the political balance of the empire in his grandson's time. Tahmasp I made little impression on Western historians, who often compared him with his father. He is portrayed as a " miser " and

14560-538: The Ottomans were on the march, Tahmasp was in Balkh, campaigning against the Uzbeks. The first Ottoman invasion caused the greatest crisis of Tahmasp's reign. Its events however are difficult to reconstruct; on an unknown date, an agent from the Shamlu tribe unsuccessfully tried to poison Tahmasp; they revolted against the shah, who had recently asserted his authority by removing Hossein Khan. Seeking to dethrone Tahmasp, they chose one of his younger brothers, Sam Mirza (who had

14742-419: The Peace of Amasya in 1555 to his death in 1576, he was still active during this period. A 1564 rebellion in Herat was suppressed by Masum Bek and the Khorasan governors, but the region remained troubled and was raided by the Uzbeks two years later. Tahmasp became seriously ill in 1574 and neared death twice in two months. Since he had not chosen a crown prince, the question of succession was raised by members of

14924-547: The Persian Najm-e Sani , commended the army. The Uzbek victory, during which Najm was captured and executed afterwards, was the result of the desertion of many of the Qizilbash. The Uzbeks of Bukhara were a recurring problem on the Iranian eastern borders. The Safavids and the Shaybanids rose to power almost simultaneously at the turn of the sixteenth century. By 1503, when Ismail I had taken possession of large parts of

15106-521: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian

15288-476: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in

15470-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under

15652-848: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,

15834-519: The Qizilbash leaders (worshipping Ismail I as the promised Mahdi ) urged the young Tahmasp to continue in his father's footsteps; that year, he had a spiritual rebirth, performed an act of repentance and outlawed irreligious behaviour. Tahmasp rejected his father's claim of being a mahdi, becoming a mystical lover of Ali and a king bound to sharia , but still enjoyed villagers travelling to his palace in Qazvin to touch his clothing. Tahmasp held firmly to

16016-533: The Quran were sent to Istanbul and all were encrusted with jewels and gold. Tahmasp saw Twelverism as a new doctrine of kingship, giving the ulama authority in religious and legal matters, and appointing Shaykh Ali al-Karaki as the deputy of the Hidden Imam . This brought new political and court power to the mullahs (Islamic clerics), sayyids , and their networks, intersecting Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan, and

16198-614: The Safavid claims to sayyid heritage and called him "the Husaynid ". Tahmasp embarked on a wide-scale urban program designed to reinvent the city of Qazvin as a centre of Shiite piety and orthodoxy, expanding the Shrine of Husayn (son of Ali al-Rida , the eighth Imam). He was also attentive to his ancestral Sufi order in Ardabil, building the Janat Sarai mosque to encourage visitors and hold Sama (Sufi spiritual ceremony). Tahmasp ordered

16380-533: The Safavid fold. The incorporation of Gilan in particular was vital to the Safavids. To ensure his permanent control on the province, Tahmasp arranged royal marriages with the influential families in Gilan. Qazvin's non-Qizilbash population allowed Tahmasp to bring new members to his court who were unrelated to the Turkoman tribes. The city, associated with orthodoxy and stable governance, developed under Tahmasp's patronage;

16562-479: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised

16744-575: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)

16926-508: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of

17108-461: The Shah's workshop until his death in 1535. Behzad's tomb is located in Herat, beneath Kôh-i Mukhtâr (“Chosen Hill”). Behzād is the most famous of Persian miniature painters, though he is more accurately understood as the director of a workshop (or kitabkhāna) producing manuscript illuminations in a style he conceived. In 1486, Behzād became the head of the Herat Academy under the support of Sultan Ḥusayn Bayqarah. He left that position in 1506, at

17290-457: The Sultan to lead another campaign against Tahmasp. The new invasion sought the quick capture of Tabriz in July 1548; it soon became clear, however, that Alqas Mirza's claims of support from all the Qizilbash leaders were untrue. The long campaign focused on looting, plundering Hamadan, Qom , and Kashan before being stopped at Isfahan. Tahmasp did not fight the exhausted Ottoman army but laid waste

17472-498: The Turco-Mongol tradition of shifting between summer and winter pastures with the herds, ending Ismail I's nomadic lifestyle. The idea of a Turkoman state with a center in Tabriz was abandoned for an empire centered on the Iranian plateau . Moving into a city that linked the realm to Khorasan through an ancient route , allowed a greater degree of centralisation as distant provinces such as Shirvan, Georgia, and Gilan were brought into

17654-417: The Uzbeks, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Jam. Safavid superiority in the battle was due to many different factors, one of them being their use of artillery, which they had learned from the Ottomans. The then governor of Herat and Tahmasp's regent, Hossein Khan Shamlu, distinguished himself during the battle and earned the respect of the shah. The victory, however, reduced neither the Uzbek threat nor

17836-649: The academy reached its greatest period. In 1506, Sultan Hussein Bayqarah died, and a month after his death, Herat was captured by the troops of the Bukhara Khanate , led by Mohammed Sheibani Khan . Some researchers believe that between 1507 and 1510, Behzād was in Bukhara, as he followed Sheibani Khan and other artists from Herat (although Babur reports that he was in Herat during those years).   Behzad's fame reached its zenith during this period. A fable states that during

18018-432: The apprehensive Yusuf from room to room. Here one observes architecture as a means of dividing space, creating the possibility of reading space as time. The duration of the viewer's experience of the image is emphasized in this composition. The variety of places present, however, defines the piece of art or architecture. The continuity of these spatial zones, each of which enters into the distinctive atmosphere of each monument

18200-493: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before

18382-425: The auspicious hour arrived, the young boy was presented to Ismail and astrologers foresaw his future to be one entwisted with war and peace and that he would have many sons. Ismail named the boy Tahmasp after Ali, the first Imam , told him to do so in his dream. In 1516, when Tahmasp Mirza was two years old, the province of Khorasan became his fief by Ismail's order. This appointment was specially done to emulate

18564-471: The city became a bone of contention between the two empires: the Safavids claimed that it had been given to them in perpetuity , while the Mughals maintained that it had been an appanage that expired with the death of the prince. Tahmasp began the first Safavid expedition to Kandahar in 1558, after the death of Humayun, and reconquered the city. Another notable visitor to Tahmasp's court was Şehzade Bayezid ,

18746-569: The civil wars between the Qizilbash leaders became a " personal rule " that sought to control Turkoman influence by empowering the Persian bureaucracy. The key change was the 1535 appointment of Qazi Jahan Qazvini , who extended diplomacy beyond Iran by establishing contact with the Portuguese , the Venetians , the Mughals, and the Shiite Deccan sultanates . English explorer Anthony Jenkinson , who

18928-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being

19110-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by

19292-450: The controversial Shia belief in the imminent coming of the Mahdi . He refused to allow his favourite sister, Shahzada Sultanim, to marry, because he was keeping her as a bride for the Mahdi. He claimed connections with Ali and Sufi saints, such as his ancestor Safi al-Din, through dreams in which he foresaw the future. Tahmasp had other superstitious beliefs too; for instance, his obsession with

19474-526: The depiction of more individualised figures and the use of realistic gestures and expressions. Behzad's most famous works include "The Seduction of Yusuf" from Sa'di 's Bustan of 1488, and paintings from the British Library's Nizami manuscript of 1494–95 – particularly scenes from Layla and Majnun and the Haft Paykar (see accompanying image). The attribution of specific paintings to Behzād himself

19656-518: The dynasty, Safi-ad-din Ardabili (d. 1334), married the daughter of Zahed Gilani (d. 1301) and became the master of his father-in-law's order, the Zahediyeh . Two of Safi-ad-Din's descendants, Shaykh Junayd (d. 1460) and his son, Shaykh Haydar (d. 1488), made the order more militant and unsuccessfully tried to expand their domain. Tahmasp's father, Ismail I ( r.  1501–1524 ), who inherited

19838-574: The earlier chronicles of the dynasty. This new definement has its roots in the change of the capital and the urbanisation of the Safavid nomadic lifestyle. Historians such as Charles Melville and Sholeh Quinn thus consider Tahmasp's reign as the start of the "real flourishing of Safavid historiography". The Safavid military evolved during Tahmasp's reign. The first corps of gunners ( tupchiyan ) and musketeers ( tufangchiyan ), developed initially during Ismail I's reign, came to be used in his army. A court chronicle's retelling of Battle of Jam and

20020-522: The earth of [Ottoman] wickedness" with the help of the Holy League . The alliance, however, never bore fruit. One of the most important events of Tahmasp's reign was his relocation of the Safavid capital, which began what is known as the Qazvin period. Although the exact date is uncertain, Tahmasp began preparations to have the royal capital moved from Tabriz to Qazvin during a 1540s period of ethnic re-settlement. The move from Tabriz to Qazvin discontinued

20202-498: The east at the end. These weight reductions were the results of Ottoman and Uzbek invasions as well as the Ottoman trade ban which had a devastating impact on trade, and thus on the shah's revenues. According the Venetian Michel Membré, no merchant could have travelled to Iran through Ottoman borders without permission from the sultan. All travellers were stopped and arrested if they had no royal permit. In his coins, Arabic

20384-437: The end of Bayqarah's reign. In 1522, Behzād moved to the city of Tabriz, following Tahmasp , son of Shah Ismail I, who had been named governor of Herat in 1514. It was in this city where he became the head of the Safavid royal library. He worked there until his death in around 1536. Persian painting of the period frequently uses an arrangement of geometric architectural elements as the structural or compositional context in which

20566-590: The end of his reign. This zealous image helped him to break the influence of the Qizilbash, and he became able to take the reins of power within ten years, after the realm had been through the civil war between the plotting tribal chieftains. He thus established a standard public image for Safavid kings: a zealous monarch who functioned as a representative of the Hidden Imam. However, none of his successors kept this image as zealously as him. Even after consolidating his power, Tahmasp had little political leverage compared to

20748-654: The entire region from Tabriz to the frontier; the Ottomans could not permanently occupy the captured lands, since they soon ran out of supplies. Eventually, Alqas Mirza was captured on the battlefield and imprisoned in a fortress, where he died. Suleiman ended his campaign, and by the fall of 1549 the remaining Ottoman forces retreated. The Ottoman sultan launched his last campaign against the Safavids in May 1554, when Ismail Mirza (Tahmasp's son) invaded eastern Anatolia and defeated Erzerum governor Iskandar Pasha. Suleiman marched from Diyarbakr towards Armenian Karabakh and reconquered

20930-464: The era's foremost building is Chehel Sotoun . From the transition of capitals, a new era in history-writing emerged under Tahmasp's rule. The Safavid historiography, which until then relied only on historians outside of Safavid's influence, matured and became a valued project in Tahmasp's new court. Tahmasp is the only Safavid monarch to have recorded his memories, known as Tazkera-ye Shah Tahmasb . On

21112-436: The events in details. The painting features both of their contributions; two couplets from Jami's poetry are inscribed in white on blue around the painting's central arch, while Sadi's poem is etched in the cream-colored panels at the top, middle, and bottom of the page. Jami claims that the narrative is set in a place that Zulaykha built and embellished with sensual portraits of herself and Yusuf. Doors were locked as she escorted

21294-584: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak

21476-404: The eye throughout the picture plane. He uses value (dark-light contrast) more emphatically, and skillfully than other medieval miniaturists. Another quality common to his work is narrative playfulness: the almost hidden eye and partial face of Bahram as he peers out the blinds to watch the frolicking girls in the pool below, the upright goat that looks like a demon along the edge of the horizon in

21658-528: The fact that, despite his greed, piety led him to forgo taxes of about 30,000 tomans because collecting them would offend the religious law; his speech to the envoys of Suleiman the Magnificent, who had come to collect the fugitive Şehzade Bayezid, showed his political skill; he patronised the arts and had a highly cultured mind. According to Colin P. Mitchell, it is an achievement that he was able to not only maintain his father's empire from dissolution but also expanded it whilst being contemporaneous with Suleiman

21840-536: The figures are arranged. Behzād is equally skilled with the organic areas of landscape, but where he uses the traditional geometric style Behzād stretches that compositional device in a couple ways. One is that he often uses open, unpatterned empty areas around which action moves. Also he pins his compositions to a mastery at moving the eye of the observer around the picture plane in a quirky organic flow. The gestures of figures and objects are not only uniquely natural, expressive and active, they are arranged to keep moving

22022-503: The following phylogenetic classification: Tahmasp I Tahmasp I ( Persian : طهماسب یکم , romanized :  Ṭahmāsb or تهماسب یکم Tahmâsb ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 until his death in 1576. He was the eldest son of Shah Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum . Tahmasp ascended the throne after the death of his father on 23 May 1524. The first years of Tahmasp's reign were marked by civil wars between

22204-562: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to

22386-471: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like

22568-479: The fugitive Ottoman prince who rebelled against his father, Suleiman the Magnificent, and went to the Shah in the autumn 1559 with an army of 10,000 to persuade him to begin a war against the Ottomans. Although he honoured Bayezid, Tahmasp did not want to disturb the Peace of Amasya. Suspecting that Bayezid was planning a coup, he had him arrested and returned to the Ottomans; Bayezid and his children were immediately executed. Although Tahmasp rarely left Qazvin from

22750-523: The holding of Omar Koshan (a festival commemorating the assassination of the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab ) and expressing hatred towards the Rashidun caliphs , who are held dear by the Sunni Muslims. The Ottomans allowed Iranian pilgrims to travel freely to Mecca , Medina , Karbala , and Najaf. Through this treaty, Iran had time to increase its forces and resources as its western provinces had

22932-461: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed

23114-400: The later years of his life, however, he came to despise poets and poetry; as his devotion to the Quran increased, he no longer counted poets as pious men, for many of them were addicted to wine, an irreligious behaviour. Tahmasp refused to allow poets in his court and ceased to regard them with favour. According to Tazkera-ye Tohfe-ye Sāmi by his brother, Sam Mirza, there were 700 poets during

23296-560: The leadership the Safavid order from his brother, Ali Mirza , became shah of Iran in 1501, a state mired in civil war after the collapse of the Timurid Empire . He conquered the territories of the Aq Qoyunlu tribal confederation , the lands of the Chinggisid (Descendant of Genghis Khan) Uzbek Shaybanid dynasty in the eastern Iran, and many city-states by 1512. Ismail's realm included

23478-522: The lost lands. Tahmasp divided his army into four corps and sent each in a different direction, indicating a Safavid army that had grown much larger than it was in the previous wars. With Tahmasp's Safavids holding the advantage, Suleiman had to retreat. The Ottomans negotiated the Peace of Amasya , in which Tahmasp recognised Ottoman sovereignty in Mesopotamia and much of Kurdistan; furthermore, as an act of obeisance towards Sunni Islam and Sunnis, he banned

23660-461: The massacre of his tribe is dubbed "the Takkalu pestilence". Hossein Khan Shamlu thereafter assumed Chuha Sultan's position with the consent of the Qizilbash leaders. While the civil war was ongoing among the Qizilbash, the Uzbeks under Ubayd Allah Khan conquered the borderlands. In 1528, Ubayd reconquered Astarabad and Tus and besieged Herat. Fourteen-year-old Tahmasp commanded the army and defeated

23842-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following

24024-525: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as

24206-461: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created

24388-448: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal

24570-433: The newly introduced 'third force' containing Islamized Georgians and Armenians . "Tahmasp" ( Persian : طهماسب , romanized :  Ṭahmāsb ) is a New Persian name, ultimately derived from Old Iranian *ta(x)ma-aspa , meaning "having valiant horses." The name is one of the few instances of a name from the epic poem Shahnameh ( The Book of Kings ) being used by an Islamic-era dynasty based in Iran. In

24752-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian

24934-662: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became

25116-529: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in

25298-457: The oldest surviving text regarding Safi-ad-din Ardabili and the Sufi beliefs of the Safavids, in order to legitimise his sayyid claim. All of the historians under Tahmasp's patronage centred their works around one main goal: to tell the history of the Safavid dynasty. They defined themselves as 'Safavid' historians, as living in a Safavid period of Iranian history, a concept that had not been seen in

25480-461: The opportunity to recuperate from the war. This peace also demarcated the Ottoman-Safavid frontier in the north-west without the cession of large areas of territory on the Safavid side. These terms, in circumstances favourable to the Safavids, were evidence of the frustration felt by Suleiman the Magnificent at his inability to inflict a greater defeat on the Safavids. Tahmasp was interested in

25662-406: The plot and informed Tahmasp; the shah, who was still fond of his son, ordered him to be guarded by Afshar musketeers. Tahmasp, recovered from his illness, returned his attention to affairs of state. Remaining court tensions, however, triggered another civil war when the shah died on 14 May 1576 from poisoning. The poisoning was blamed on Abu Naser Gilani, a physician who attended Tahmasp when he

25844-414: The powerful Shamlu amir. Thus Hossein Khan was overthrown and executed in 1533. His fall was a turning point for Tahmasp, who now knew that each Turkoman leader would favour his tribe. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash and gave the "men of the pen" bureaucracy greater power, ending the regency. Suleiman the Magnificent ( r.  1520–1566 ), sultan of the Ottoman Empire, may have considered

26026-481: The practice of Sufi rituals and had Sufis and mullahs come to his palace and perform public acts of piety and zikr (a form of Islamic meditation) for Eid al-Fitr (and renew their allegiance to him). This encouraged Tahmasp's followers to see themselves as belonging to a community too large to be bound by tribal or other local social orders. Although Tahmasp continued the Shia conversion in Iran, unlike his father he did not coerce other religious groups; he had

26208-628: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian

26390-562: The production of manuscripts, and thus their appearance. Within contemporary times much of the scholarly focus has been upon ensuring correct attribution to Behzād as there are concerns that some previously attributed works may not be from Behzād. With certain works attribution can be relatively confident from properly dated and placed signatures, but others were attributed in the 16th century and only contain stylistic similarities to Behzād's works. Thus, raising questions of whether some works are skillful imitations, or if they are genuine. Behzād

26572-479: The realm from 1527 to 1530. Chuha tried to remove Herat from Shamlu dominance, which led to a conflict between the two tribes. In early 1530, the Herat governor, Hossein Khan Shamlu, and his men killed Chuha and executed every Takkalu in the retinue of the shah in the royal camp. This provoked the Takkalu tribe to rebellion, and a few days later, in an act of retaliation, they attacked the shah's retinue in Hamadan. One of

26754-509: The realm's internal chaos, since Tahmasp had to return to the west to suppress a rebellion in Baghdad. That year, the Uzbeks captured Herat; however, they allowed Sam Mirza to return to Tabriz. Their occupation did not last long, and Tahmasp drove them out in the summer of 1530. He appointed his brother, Bahram Mirza, governor of Khorasan and Ghazi Khan Takkalu, as Bahram's tutor. By this point, Tahmasp had turned seventeen, and thus no longer needed

26936-486: The recently incorporated centres of Rasht , Astarabad, and Amol . As observed by Iskandar Beg Munshi , the court chronicler , the sayyids as a class of landed elite enjoyed considerable power. During the 1530s and 1540s, they hegemonised the Safavid court in Tabriz and according to Iskandar Beg, "any wish of theirs was translated into reality almost before it was uttered… although they were guilty of unlawful practices". During Tahmasp's reign, Persian scholars accepted

27118-578: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in

27300-544: The region they were minted in. The akçe was used in Shirvan; in Mazandaran , tanka was minted, and Khuzestan used the larin currency. By the 1570s, most of these autonomous monetary were unified. The weight of the shahi coins decreased significantly from 7.88 grams (0.278 oz) at the beginning of Tahmasp's reign to 2.39 grams (0.084 oz) in the western parts of the realm and 2.92 grams (0.103 oz) in

27482-540: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali

27664-476: The reign of Timurid Sultan Husayn Bayqarah (ruled 1469–1506). In several manuscripts issued in the 1480s in the Sultan Hussein Bayqarah's kitabkhana (library), Behzad's participation is seen, which evidences his work in the court in the period. In 1486, with a decree of Sultan Hussein Bayqarah, Behzād was appointed head of the royal ateliers in Herat and succeeded Mirak Naqqash. Under his leadership,

27846-556: The reigns of the first two Safavid kings. After Tahmasp's religious conversion, many joined Humayun; those who remained and wrote erotic ghazals ( sonnets ), such as Vahshi Bafqi and Mohtasham Kashani , were shunned. Other poets such as Naziri Nishapuri and 'Orfi Shirazi chose to leave Iran and emigrate to the Mughal court, where they pioneered the rise of Indian-style poetry ( Sabk-i Hindi ), known for its high-rhetorical texts of metaphors, mystical-philosophical themes and allegories. Tahmasp I's coins were characterised by

28028-511: The revival of Iranian artistic and cultural life. The reigns of Tahmasp and his father, Ismail I, are considered as the most productive era of the history of the Azeri Turkish language and literature . The renowned poet, Fuzuli , who wrote in Azeri Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, flourished during this era. In his memoir, Tahmasp denotes his love for both Persian and Turkish poetry. During

28210-444: The revolt of Alqas Mirza , another one of Tahmasp's younger brothers, who had led the Safavid army during the 1534–35 Ottoman invasion and was governor of Shirvan . He led an unsuccessful revolt against Tahmasp, who conquered Derbant in the spring of 1547 and appointed his son Ismail as governor. Alqas fled to Crimea with his remaining forces and took refuge with Suleiman. He promised to restore Sunni Islam in Iran and encouraged

28392-548: The royal caravan camp in some village. The royal caravan thus headed to Shahabad. The kadkhoda (warden) of the village was a Sunni and did not let Tajlu Khanum enter his house, but a Shia resident of the village welcomed her into his modest house. By then, Tajlu Begum's pain had made her faint, and shortly after entering the house gave birth to a son. When the news reached Ismail, he was reportedly "heaped" with utmost joy and happiness, but refrained from seeing his son until his astrologers gave him an auspicious date to do so. When

28574-474: The royal family and Qizilbash leaders. His favourite son, Haydar Mirza , was supported by the Ustajlu tribe and the powerful Georgian court faction; the imprisoned prince Ismail Mirza was supported by Pari Khan Khanum , Tahmasp's influential daughter. The pro-Haydar faction tried to eliminate Ismail by winning the favour of the castellan of Qahqaheh Castle (where Ismail was imprisoned), but Pari Khan learned about

28756-545: The seizure of power by the Qizilbash tribes which overshadowed Tahmasp's early reign. Abu'l-Fath Tahmasp Mirza was born on 22 February 1514 in Shahabad , a village near Isfahan , as the eldest son of Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum . According to the narrative told by Iranian naqqal s ( coffeehouse storytellers), on the night of Tahmasp's birth, a storm erupted, with wind, rain, and lightning. Tajlu Khanum, feeling her labour pains beginning, suggested that

28938-463: The shah so much'. Tahmasp described himself as a "pious Shia mystic king". His religious views and the extent to which they influenced Safavid religious policy is the most interesting aspect of his reign for historians, both contemporary and modern. As the Italian historian Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti has noted, "the modern originality of Persian Shi'ism has its roots [with Shah Tahmasp]". Until 1533,

29120-423: The shah's behalf, Abdi Beg Shirazi , a secretary-accountant in the royal chancellery, wrote a world history named Takmelat al-akhbar , which he dedicated it to Pari Khan Khanum, Tahmasp's daughter. Although intended to be a world history, only the last part of the book which covers the reigns of Ismail I and Tahmasp up until 1570 was published. He also commissioned Abol-Fath Hosseini to rewrite Safvat as-safa ,

29302-723: The shah) and became more influential at the apex of the Safavid empire. In 1555, following the Peace of Amasya, eastern Georgia remained in Iranian hands and western Georgia was ruled by the Turks. Never again did Tahmasp appear on the Caucasus frontier after the treaty. Instead, the Governor of Georgia, Shahverdi Sultan , represented Safavid power north of the Aras River . Tahmasp sought to establish his dominance by imposing several Iranian political and social institutions and placing converts to Islam on

29484-607: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced

29666-484: The stability of Georgian territory, he looted the farms and subjugated Levan of Kakheti ( r.  1518/1520–1574 ). One year before the Peace of Amasya in 1554, Tahmasp led his last military campaign into the Caucasus. Throughout his campaigns, he took many prisoners, and this time he brought 30,000 Georgians to Iran. Luarsab's mother, Nestan Darejan was captured during these campaigns, but committed suicide upon incarceration. The descendants of these prisoners formed

29848-561: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses

30030-458: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,

30212-481: The throne after his father's death under the guardianship of Div Sultan Rumlu, his lala , the de facto ruler of the realm. Rule by a member of the Rumlu tribe was unacceptable to the other Turkoman tribes of the Qizilbash, especially the Ostajlu and Takkalu. Kopek Sultan, governor of Tabriz and leader of Ostajlu, along with Chuha Sultan, leader of the Takkalu tribe, were Div Sultan Rumlu's strongest opponents. The Takkalu were powerful in Isfahan and Hamadan , and

30394-479: The thrones of Kartli and Kakheti ; one was Davud Khan , brother of Simon I of Kartli ( r.  1556–1569, 1578–1599 ). Son of Levan of Kakheti, Prince Jesse also appeared in Qazvin during the 1560s and converted to Islam. In return, Tahmasp granted him favours and gifts. The prince was given the old royal palace for his residence in Qazvin, and became the governor of Shaki and adjacent territories. The conversion of these Georgian princes did not dissuade

30576-405: The tribesman attempted to abduct the young Tahmasp, who had him put to death. Then Tahmasp ordered the general slaughter of the Takkalu tribe; many were killed, and many fled to Baghdad, where the governor, himself a Takkalu, put some to death to prove his loyalty. Eventually, the remaining Takkalu managed to flee to the Ottoman Empire. In the contemporary chronicles, the downfall of Chuha Sultan and

30758-479: The two tutors. Amir Soltan arrested Ghiyath al-Din and executed him the following day, but was ousted from his position in 1521 by a sudden raid by the Uzbeks who crossed the Amu Darya and seized portions of the city. Ismail appointed Div Sultan Rumlu as Tahmasp's lala , and the governorship was given to his younger son, Sam Mirza Safavi . During his years in Herat, Tahmasp developed a love for writing and painting. He became an accomplished painter and dedicated

30940-422: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in

31122-435: The whole territory of modern Iran , in addition to sovereignty over Georgia , Armenia , Daghestan , and Shirvan in the west, and Herat in the east. Unlike his Sufist ancestors, Ismail believed in Twelver Shia Islam and made it the official religion of the realm. He forced conversion on the Sunni population by abolishing Sunni Sufi orders, seizing their property, and giving the Sunni ulama (Islamic clergymen)

31304-461: The wide praise they received. Due to the great number of copies and difficulty with tracing origin of works, there is a large amount of contemporary work into proper attribution. Behzād's full name is Ustād Kamāluddīn Be[i]hzād. His exact year of birth is unknown, and according to different sources, it varies from 1455 to 1460. He was born and lived most of his life in Herat , a city in modern-day western Afghanistan and an important center of trade and

31486-475: The zenith of Safavid calligraphic and pictorial art. Tahmasp lost interest in the miniature arts around 1555 and, accordingly, disbanded the royal workshop and allowed his artists to practice elsewhere. His patronage of arts, however, has been praised by many modern art historians such as James Elkins and Stuart Cary Welch . The American historian, Douglas Streusand, calls him 'the greatest Safavid patron'. Colin P. Mitchell associates Tahmasp's patronage with

31668-416: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of

31850-427: Was forced to retreat to Istanbul at the end of 1535 after losing all his gains except Baghdad. After confronting the Ottomans, Tahmasp rushed to Khorasan to defeat his brother. Sam Mirza surrendered and sought mercy from Tahmasp. The shah accepted his brother's pleads and banished him to Qazvin but otherwise executed many of his advisors, namely, his Shamlu guardian. Relations with the Ottomans remained hostile until

32032-424: Was he old enough to prove himself a fierce warrior on the battlefield, a quality valued by the Qizilbash. Eventually, Tahmasp did overcome that challenge; he proved himself a worthy military commander in the Battle of Jam against the Uzbeks and, instead of facing the Ottomans directly in the battlefield, he preferred to loot their rearguards. Even the ability to survive against the much larger Ottoman army marks him as

32214-453: Was his chief wife, Sultanum Begum of the Mawsillu tribe (a marriage of state ), who gave birth to two sons: Mohammad Khodabanda and Ismail II. Tahmasp had a poor relationship with Ismail, whom he imprisoned on suspicion that his son might attempt a coup against him. However, he was attentive to his other children; On his orders, his daughters were instructed in administration, art, and scholarship, and Haydar Mirza (his favourite son, born of

32396-441: Was ill. According to Tarikh-e Alam-ara-ye Abbasi , "He unwisely sought recognition of his superior status vis-à-vis the other physicians; as a result, when Tahmasp died, Abu Nasr was accused of treachery in the treatment he had prescribed, and he was put to death within the palace by members of the qurchi ". Tahmasp I had the longest reign of any member of the Safavid dynasty: nine days short of fifty-two years. He died without

32578-484: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in

32760-420: Was received at the Safavid court in 1562, also sought to promote trade. The Habsburgs were eager to ally with the Safavids against the Ottomans. In 1529, Ferdinand I ( r.  1558–1564 ) sent an envoy to Iran with the objective of a two-front attack on the Ottoman Empire the following year. The mission was unsuccessful, however, since the envoy took over a year to return. The first extant Safavid letters to

32942-488: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in

33124-425: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راه‌آهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in

#706293