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Remember, it ends in 'se'
Jul 28, 2004
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THE SAFAVID DYNASTY IN THE TIME OF THE PROVOSTS


What Has Come Before

I: My Kingdom From A Horse


The Safavid Shahs of Persia to 1788
Ismail I 1501–1524
Tahmasp I 1524–1576
Ismail II 1576–1578
Mohammed Khodabanda 1578–1587
Abbas I 1587–1629
Safi 1629–1642
Abbas II 1642–1666
Suleiman I 1665-1694
Husayn I 1694-1722
Suleiman II 1722-1751
Abbas III 1751-1769
Suleiman III 1769-1788


Sometimes history is changed by great and powerful events. The rise of Persia to prominence in world affairs and its tragic sundering in the 19th century will be attributed to a great many factors - most often the wholesale importation of Continental philosophy - and philosophers! - during the reigns of Suleiman II and Abbas III, and their increasing intellectual and political ties to powerful but ultimately-doomed France. Other histories emphasize the stunning victory in the Caucasus War, which simultaneously cowed and infuriated the Russian and Ottoman empires.

But the true cause is much more mundane. If one were to turn back the clock to November 5, 1659, around two P.M., and observe a specific woodland near Isfahan - one would see the young man who would someday become Suleiman I of Persia dismount his horse during a hunt.

In a different time, perhaps Suleiman would have dismounted the horse properly and nothing would have come of the day, or perhaps the kick of the horse would have come at a different angle and a different young man would ascend to the Peacock Throne on the death of Abbas II six years later.

But the horse kicked him squarely in the forehead, fracturing the youth's skull and throwing him into unconsciousness for some hours.

Suleiman was rushed to Isfahan and treated with great care. The recovery was miraculous - by many accounts, including that of the royal physician, young Suleiman seemed to have died - and the lad quickly recovered his physical strength and seemed to retain his mental faculties.

However, the blow seriously altered the future Shah's behavior and personality. He took a lingering distaste to the ostentation of the Persian monarchy, opting for simple dress and favoring the more withdrawn comfort of scholarship over the usual Shah's life of food, wine, and women. As Shah, he made reluctant and rare additions to the royal canon of poetry - preferring instead philosophy. His greatest enthusiasm in life seemed to be poring over the works of recent and contemporary philosophers: his translation of Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy is widely considered the finest in any language besides the original.

While his own output would not ultimately be noteworthy in the annals of philosophy - and was generally hindered by lingering bouts of melancholy resulting from his head injury - his devotion to the liberal arts would quickly attract scholarship from across the Islamic world, which the Peacock Throne lavishly subsidized.

More controversial was his policy towards the Jews of Persia: under his reign, they went from a widely marginalized and reviled group, often without any human rights at all, to a people guaranteed the protection of government and freedom to worship (albeit under the ubiquitous regime of the jizyah). While the freedoms granted to Persian Jewry were widely considered the results of the whim of a capricious monarch, Husayn I retained most of them out of respect for his predecessor. The ultimate result of the protection and growing tolerance of Jews in Persia was dramatic immigration to the country by wealthy and scholarly Jews from Europe and the Middle East. Almost every time a Christian prince or Sunni emir abused and disinherited his Jewish subjects, the population and influence of Persia grew.

The moody, scholarly Suleiman I passed away in 1694. He would pass a stronger Persian state to his progeny; perhaps more importantly, in the cofeehouses and libraries of Isfahan, Mashhad, and Tehran the beginnings of the Academy that would dominate Asia were swiftly and surely forming.

The 18th century saw the trends the late 17th had established continue: in philosophy and economics the Persians maintained a singular excellence, and they steadily industrialized and maintained a strong, modern military thanks to a strong friendship with France. A cordial relationship with Europe ensured that Persian influence could spread by the sea without serious interference; Persian traders joined Omanis in the Horn and Europeans in West Africa; Chinese goods (and, to a degree, their language) were introduced to European markets by Persian merchant companies; Spanish missionaries in Northern California in the beginning of the 19th century encountered Amerind tribes converted to Shi'a, including the numerous and widespread Miwok.

But the undoing of the golden age of the Safavid shahs would be the enemies that very dynamism would draw to the land of the Lion and Sun. While no one event was to bear sole responsibility, there is no doubt that the clashing of Persian and British interests in India lead directly to the the fateful strength of the alliance between Revolutionary France and Suleiman IV of Persia.

Next time: Suleiman IV
 
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This looks good. *subscribes*
 
It is funny the way things sometimes bunch. Looks interesting backstory your providing. It will be very interesting to see how this ends up comparing with Wannabe Tartars AAR, especially if you begin with the vanilla 2.01 setup.
 
All Hail Presidentse! Great to see you again!

Sounds like an interesting setup, indeed, and with an interesting culture, etc.

My time is severely restricted, but I will try to keep tabs on this.

Great start!

Rensslaer
 
II: Suleiman IV

Suleiman IV was born in 1773, and ascended to the Peacock Throne at the age of fifteen. Within a year of his coronation, Persia's principal ally among European states had taken its first great strides towards the abolishment of the monarchy.

While the Persian nobility watched in horror, the emerging bourgeois reacted to the Revolution with enthusiasm - and like those of his forefathers, the sensibilities of Suleiman IV lay beyond those of his petty-noble roots.

Within Persia, revolutionary sentiment reached its height in 1791; the Shah, apparently moved by personal conviction and the heavy weight of tradition, announced on November 8 that a new assembly was to be formed in Esfahan: one house for the nobility, one house whose members were to be elected by every man who had completed a higher education.

As the fires of the Revolution climbed higher, the Assembly of Lords grew increasingly uncomfortable with the sympathies of the Shah and the Assembly of Deputies. At the end of the 1792 session, the Lords voted to relocate to Mashhad, ostensibly in order to increase the legally mandated separation between the internal concourse of the Assemblies.

Then the French executed Louis XVI and all hell broke loose. Suleiman IV considered it his grudging duty to support the new French Republic; the Deputies followed his lead, and the Lords essentially seceded, eventually setting up a pretender Shahanshah and parallel government.

The Wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars would see the legitimate government of Persia consistently aligned with France; it pummeled its neighbors on their remote frontiers, and its only serious problem was Qajar Persia - propped up by Britain, considered legitimate by a disproportionate amount of the nobility and army, and in absolute control of the wilder, less centralized east.

The history of the Napoleonic Wars is well-known and need not be related here. Upon its final victory over the armies of Napoleon at Eindhoven in 1816, the triumphant Coalition set out to establish a new balance of power for the Earth.

Persia was, at first, impossible to bludgeon into that balance - but the problem was quickly and ingeniously solved: several of the few nobles still loyal to Safavid Persia until that time were offered new crowns upon Suleiman IV's defeat. Seizing the country's southern ports, they isolated the strategically vital Persian Navy; not only were efforts to dislodge the insurrectionaries unsuccessful, but in the climactic battle of the Insurrection, Suleiman's brother was captured. The ransom would bring an uneasy and ultimately temporary peace, but that was all the Coalition required.

Suleiman IV inherited a Persia stretching from Anatolia to Sindh in 1788; his brother rose to the throne in a Persia a fraction that size in 1820.

By the time Abbas V ascended to the throne in 1835, the people of Persia, and the Academy that to an increasing degree governed them, were itching to see the nation restored - and her accounts settled.

postnapoleonicpersia.png


What was once the Persian Empire; erstwhile borders in red. In blue: Safavid Persia. In yellow, Qajar Persia. In purple, Baluchistan. In teal, Iraq. In pea-green, Armenia. In orange, Azerbaijan. Red circles denote capitals.


The Safavid Dynasty In The Time Of The Provosts explores a Persia whose influential Safavid dynasty plunged into the scientific revolution, joining Europe in the Enlightenment. As a consequence, as of 1836 it is not only civilized but readily the most advanced Asian state, but its miniscule size will preclude it from attaining power status until later in the game - if I have balanced things right, at least not until it could have that status historically.
Worthy of note is the government. The establishment of the Assembly of Deputies resulted in what Victoria would categorize as a constitutional monarchy, but the state will, barring unforeseen developments, be essentially technocratic (e.g. authoritarian) in nature for the duration. The game does not, unfortunately, allow an in-depth simulation of the effects of a government by the educated elite - a bourgeois answer to proletarian dictatorship - but that should come out in the AAR.

This AAR follows my general schema for these kinds of thing: big world, small update. I enjoy a good deal of historical detail, but it
is a game and will basically be reported as such.

The next update will be when the small mod I am playing this on is complete.

Enjoy!
 
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Now that looks a very interesting set-up. I am curious to see what techs precisely you have given yourself and so on so forth, and have you modded in new parties?
 
Very interesting!

Nice challenge you've set up for yourself, to counterbalance the advantage of a forward-looking government.

I'll be interested to see how this proceeds!

Rensslaer
 
el presidentse said:
The history of the Napoleonic Wars is well-known and need not be related here. Upon its final victory over the armies of Napoleon at Eindhoven in 1816...

haha of course... Waterloo is just a small town in Belgium known for its bottled water
 
An interesting alternate history!
 
This is certainly a different Persia from the ones we have read about in the past. Good luck and I'll be reading with interest.
 
coz1 said:
This is certainly a different Persia from the ones we have read about in the past. Good luck and I'll be reading with interest.
Seems like I read about that sometime, too! :D

All right, Presidentse! What's up with this? Very promising start. Can we go on?

Rensslaer
 
Ech - bit more of a rush on schoolwork than I had expected. I'll see to it I get something done in pre-finals week (in other words, Real Soon Now).

Deepest apologies, onlookers! There'll be something here soon, I promise.