Newman’s "Safavid Iran"

The Safavids were the longest-ruling state in Iran after the founding of Islam, and its duration marks the boundary between the medieval and the modern. Such is Andrew Newman’s assertion, taking issue with what he calls the “conventional understanding” of Safavid history, that of a notional state exercising power, with modern Iran as the point of reference, a situation that Newman hopes to demonstrate is too simplistic. In his short work, Safavid Iran, Newman seeks to buck tradition by asking how the Safavids retained power, rather than examining their “decline.” Intended as a primer for specialists and non-specialists alike, Safavid Iran follows the rise and fall of an empire about which “an intimidating array of primary and secondary sources” has been written, largely in response to the Iranian Revolution. But however much Newman would like for his work to stand out, it is perhaps yet another entry in the “intimidating array,” as non-specialists shall likely find the book a challenge to engage.

The Safavid dynasty actually originated as a brotherhood of militant Sufis (Sufi Islam being a mystical denomination of Mohammed’s religion) that came to power in seventeenth century Iran, and as such their principal means of control was manipulation of the various forms of Islam. Their first shah, Ismail, is seen through his own writings as the ruler of a religious nobility that transcends and unites the urban and tribal elements from all nationalities and faiths in his new realm. In addition to their native Sufism, the Safavids embraced Twelver Shi’ism, a form of Islam in which it is believed that the Twelfth Imam, aka the “Hidden Imam,” will return as a savior to the Muslims. As a means of maintaining his control, Ismail tapped into this belief and encouraged a self-appreciating messianic message, cementing the position of shah as the “apex of the spirituo-political and cultural discourses of the polity’s key constituencies,” a policy that united his tribal (and rival) Tajik and Turkish subjects. As emperors died and passed on their authority, their sons each became the head of the Sufi order and many also propagated the Twelver ideology and messianic persona. But by the time of Sulayman I, Sufi Islam was under attack, though the shah was still the head of Safavid Sufism. Yet the very presence of criticism bespoke of a popular adherence to Sufism and a desire to explore the causes of natural and man-made disasters that proliferated during the empire’s latter years.

Having carved out a state through the gathering of nomadic tribes, it should come to no surprise that violence and factionalism characterized the first several succession disputes in the empire. The Safavids of Newman’s book seem to spend every other succession fighting yet another civil war and when not engaged in such struggles, fighting off the Ottomans and Uzbeks and regaining lost territories taken by the same (interestingly, the Safavids never seem to initiate international conflict but are largely seen as the subjects of unwarranted violence). Yet as the empire matured and the central administration solidified, the successions became more and more confined to the political center. This progression was remarkably steady and predictable: Ismail’s death in 1524 resulted in civil war to establish the dominant tribe – the royal person remaining above the bloodshed – though upon the demise of his successor, Tahmasp, extermination of royal contenders, familiar to students of European and Ottoman succession disputes, entered the political strategy. Following that fiasco, Abbas I (r.1587-1629) altered the dominance of tribal forces by creating a slave army called the ghulam, though the tribes did retain their importance. But with the ascension of Abbas’ grandson, Safi, the tribal struggles took backseat to a flurry of political assassinations and a healthy dose of external strife, while a new center of power drawn from Turks, Tajiks, and ghulam was established. By the ascension of Abbas II in 1642, interpersonal succession conflict was restricted to the court while the dominant government structure remained intact. Similarly, the customary external threats were also unusually quiet. Sulayman’s ascension in 1666 was the smoothest yet as the inner circle quietly elected Abbas II’s successor, the borders again remaining undisturbed. The rise of Sulayman’s son, Husayn, followed a similar path.

Despite the obvious excitement that should animate this Safavid history, Newman’s delivery serves to render the tale purely academic. Each chapter is broken up into largely the same categories of military overview, marriage lists, politico-religious interaction, and artistic expression of the new era, leaving the text with the feel of a catalogue of antiquarian scholarship. Information is Newman’s watchword, and the author mercilessly crams as much data onto each page as he can, often at the expense of the narrative. Safavid history is clearly brimming with drama and intrigue, yet Newman considers his task to be analytical in the larger scheme, eschewing potentially exhilarating adventure for truncated accounts of wars and interpersonal struggles. Such is the attempted coup by Ismail’s half-brother, Sulayman; his bid to oust his brother and gain popular support is delivered with dry indifference and his summary execution left uninterestedly ambiguous – one does not even get any idea of just how the plot failed. Such drama aside, it is the political alliances that interest Newman, and each chapter has its allotted section devoted to marriages and attempts at the same. As the Safavids depended upon unreliable and semi-autonomous tribes, such ties were key to promoting unity. But Newman seems preoccupied with enumerating in detail the various alliances and near-alliances engaged in through this practice, and in his characteristic fashion these accounts come across as catalogues with little apparent meaning for the monarch in question, the sheer volume of Dickensian interconnection leaving the reader groping through the seemingly random names and relations. But unlike a novelist, Newman treats the narrative of such events as a necessary evil, the task of coloring and invigorating the tale a chore to which he is not about so subject himself.

Semantics also enter the picture as Newman appears convinced that his readers (both specialists and non) are as concerned as he is himself with haggling over the proper word-choice to accurately reflect his erudite studies. Pity the casual reader who picks up Safavid Iran, for the author takes issue with words like “state,” a term troubling to Newman as it carries too many “preconceived notions;” i.e. “a highly centralized administrative apparatus with a monopoly on military and, in its totalitarian versions, political power and formal lines of administrative practice and procedure, as well as fixed, internationally agreed-upon borders, a single language, and a generally homogenous population.” Unless the reader comes to the same conclusion, he will be perplexed to find Newman attempting to alleviate all such unpleasant “confusion” by inserting “project,” “polity,” and “realm” as alternative terms, as though these first two somehow impart greater clarity. Much of Newman’s political jargon follows a similar pattern.

Safavid Iran is at its very basic level an informative introduction to the empire that divides the medieval Middle East from the modern. Though troublesome to follow at times, it nonetheless breaks down each epoch in detail so as to aid the reader in grasping the development of the empire, blow-by-blow. Whether Newman’s approach aids or hampers the reader is subject to opinion.

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