Ismail I (; 17 July 1487 – 23 May 1524) was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is one of the most vital in the history of Iran, and the Safavid era is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history. Under Ismail, Iran was unified under native rule for the first time since the Islamic conquest of the country eight-and-a-half centuries earlier.

Ismail inherited leadership of the Safavid Sufi order from his brother as a child. His predecessors had transformed the religious order into a military movement supported by the Qizilbash (mainly Turkoman Shiite groups). The Safavids took control of northwestern Iran, with Tabriz as the capital. In 1501, Ismail was crowned as shah (king). In the following years, Ismail conquered the rest of Iran and other neighbouring territories. His expansion into Eastern Anatolia brought him into conflict with the Ottoman Empire. In 1514, the Ottomans decisively defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Chaldiran, which brought an end to Ismail's conquests. Ismail fell into depression and heavy drinking after this defeat and died in 1524. He was succeeded by his eldest son Tahmasp I.

One of Ismail's first actions was the proclamation of the Twelver denomination of Shia Islam as the official religion of the Safavid state, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam, which had major consequences for the ensuing history of Iran. He caused sectarian tensions in the Middle East when he destroyed the tombs of the Abbasid caliphs, the Sunni Imam Abu Hanifa, and the Sufi Muslim ascetic Abdul Qadir Gilani in 1508. It also reasserted Iranian identity in large parts of Greater Iran. The legacy of the Safavid Empire was also the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between the East and the West, the establishment of a bureaucratic state, its architectural innovations, and patronage for fine arts. a panegyric history he himself commissioned. was the sheikh of the Safavid tariqa (Sufi order) and a direct descendant of its Kurdish founder, Safi-ad-Din Ardabili (1252–1334). In 1301, Safi-ad-Din had assumed the leadership of the Zahediyeh, a significant Sufi order in Gilan, from his spiritual master and father-in-law Zahed Gilani. The order was later known as the Safavid. Ismail also proclaimed himself the Mahdi and a reincarnation of Ali. Ismail was the last in this line of hereditary Grand Masters of the order, prior to his founding of a ruling dynasty.

His mother Halima Begum was the daughter of Uzun Hasan, the ruler of the Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu dynasty, by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora Megale Komnene, better known as Despina Khatun. Despina Khatun was the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond. She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect the Empire of Trebizond from the Ottoman Turks. Ismail was a great-great-grandson of Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and King Alexander I of Georgia.

Roger Savory suggests that Ismail's family was of Iranian origin, likely from Iranian Kurdistan, and later moved to Azerbaijan where they assimilated into the Turkic-speaking population. Ismail spoke both Persian and a Southern Turkic dialect, a precursor of modern Azeri Turkic, in which he wrote his poetry, as it was aimed at his Turkic qizilbash followers. His ancestry was mixed, consisting in Iranian (likely Kurd) ancestors often intermarrying with Türkmen princesses to form alliances (such as his Aq Qoyunlu mother Halima Begum and paternal grandmother Khadija Begum), supplemented by a mixed Byzantine Greek and Georgian component (from his maternal grandmother Theodora Megale Komnene).

The Safavids have been described as "Turkamans of remote Kurdish descent", and the Safavid conquest as "the third Türkmen wave" to hit Iran, after the Seljuks and the Qara Qoyunlu/ Aq Qoyunlu. At the same time, the majority of scholars agree that the resulting empire was an Iranian one,

A fabricated genealogy developed by the Safavids claimed that Sheikh Safi (the founder of the order and Ismael's ancestor) was a lineal descendant of the Seventh Twelver Shia Imam and therefore of Imam Ali and the Prophet Mohammad.

Early years

In 1488, Ismail's father was killed in a battle at Tabasaran against the forces of the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar and his overlord, the Aq Qoyunlu, a Turkic tribal federation which controlled most of Iran. In 1494, the Aq Qoyunlu captured Ardabil, killing Ali Mirza Safavi, the eldest son of Haydar, and forcing the seven-year-old Ismail to go into hiding in Gilan, where under the Kar-Kiya ruler Soltan-Ali Mirza, he received education under the guidance of scholars.

When Ismail reached the age of twelve, he came out of hiding and returned to what is now Iranian Azerbaijan along with his followers. Ismail's rise to power was made possible by the Turkoman tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan, who formed the most important part of the Qizilbash movement.

It is often assumed that Ismail led the Safavid movement to victory by himself, even though he was only twelve years old when he emerged from hiding to begin his conquests and not older than fourteen when he was crowned Shah. In fact, a group of seven advisers known as the ahl-i ikhtisas directed the Safavid revolution.

Reign

Conquest of Iran and its surroundings

thumb|The capture of [[Firuzkuh by the Safavids in 1504. Shah Ismail seated, looking at his enemy Kiya Husayn II suspended in a cage, while the Aq Qoyunlu general Murad Beg Jahanshahlu roasts on a spit. Shahnama-yi i Ismaʻil (Tabriz, 1540).]]

In the summer of 1500, Ismail rallied about 7,000 Qizilbash troops at Erzincan, including members of the Ustajlu, Rumlu, Takkalu, Dhu'l-Qadar, Afshar, Qajar, and Varsaq tribes. Qizilbash forces passed over the Kura River in December 1500 and marched towards the Shirvanshah's state. They defeated the forces of the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar near Cabanı (present-day Shamakhi Rayon, Azerbaijan Republic) or at Gulistan (present-day Gülüstan, Goranboy, Azerbaijan), and subsequently went on to conquer Baku. Thus, Shirvan and its dependencies (up to southern Dagestan in the north) were now Ismail's. The Shirvanshah line nevertheless continued to rule Shirvan under Safavid suzerainty until 1538, when, during the reign of Ismail's son, Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576), it was placed under the rule of a Safavid governor. After the conquest, Ismail had Alexander I of Kakheti send his son Demetre to Shirvan to negotiate a peace agreement.

The successful conquest alarmed the ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu, Alvand, who subsequently proceeded north from Tabriz and crossed the Aras River in order to challenge the Safavid forces. Both sides met at the Battle of Sharur, which Ismail's army won despite being outnumbered by four to one. Shortly before his attack on Shirvan, Ismail had made the Georgian kings Constantine II and Alexander I of the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti, respectively, attack the Ottoman possessions near Tabriz, on the promise that he would cancel the tribute that Constantine was forced to pay to the Aq Qoyunlu once Tabriz was captured. After eventually conquering Tabriz and Nakhchivan, Ismail broke the promise he had made to Constantine II and made the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti both his vassals.

thumb|left|Shāh Ismaʿīl in battle circa 1510. [[Shāhnāmah Shāh Ismaʿīl (Tabriz, 1541)|Shāhnāmah Shāh Ismaʿīl (Tabriz, 1541)]]

In July 1501, following his occupation of Tabriz, Ismail took the title Pādshāh-i Irān (King of Iran). He appointed his former guardian and mentor Husayn Beg Shamlu as the vakil (vicegerent) of the empire and the commander-in-chief (amir al-umara) of the Qizilbash army. His army was composed of tribal units, the majority of which were Turkmen from Anatolia and Syria with the remainder Kurds and Chagatai. He also appointed a former Iranian vizier of the Aq Qoyunlu named Amir Zakariya as his vizier. After proclaiming himself Shah, Ismail also proclaimed Twelver Shi'ism to be the official and compulsory religion of Iran. He enforced this new standard by the sword, dissolving Sunni Brotherhoods and executing anyone who refused to comply to the newly implemented Shi'ism.

Qasem Beg Hayati Tabrizi (), a poet and bureaucrat of early Safavid era, states that he had heard from several witnesses that Shah Ismail's enthronement took place in Tabriz immediately after the Battle of Sharur on 1 Jumada al-Thani 907 / 22 December 1501, making Hayati's book entitled Tarikh (1554) the only known narrative source to give the exact date of Shah Ismail's ascent to the throne.

After defeating an Aq Qoyunlu army in 1502, Ismail took the title of "Shah of Iran". In the same year he gained possession of Erzincan and Erzurum, while a year later, in 1503, he conquered Eraq-e Ajam and Fars in the Battle of Hamadan (1503). One year later he conquered Mazandaran, Gorgan, and Yazd.

thumb|250px|Shah Ismail's empire

In 1507, he conquered Diyarbakır. During the same year, Ismail appointed the Iranian Amir Najm al-Din Mas'ud Gilani as the new vakil. This was because Ismail had begun favoring the Iranians more than the Qizilbash, who, although they had played a crucial role in Ismail's campaigns, possessed too much power and were no longer considered trustworthy. One year later, Ismail forced the rulers of Khuzestan, Lorestan, and Kurdistan to become his vassals. The same year, Ismail and Husayn Beg Shamlu seized Baghdad, putting an end to the Aq Qoyunlu. Ismail then began destroying Sunni sites in Baghdad, including the tombs of Abbasid Caliphs and tombs of Imam Abu Hanifah and Abdul Qadir Gilani.

By 1510, he had conquered the whole of Iran (including Shirvan), southern Dagestan (with its important city of Derbent), Mesopotamia, Armenia, Khorasan, and Eastern Anatolia, and had made the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals. In the same year, Husayn Beg Shamlu lost his office as commander-in-chief in favor of a man of humble origins, Mohammad Beg Ustajlu. Ismail also appointed Najm-e Sani as the new vakil of the empire due to the death of Mas'ud Gilani.

Ismail I moved against the Uzbeks. In the Battle of Merv (1510), some 17,000 Qizilbash warriors trapped an Uzbek force. The Uzbek ruler, Muhammad Shaybani, was caught and killed trying to escape the battle, and the shah had his skull made into a jewelled drinking goblet. In 1512, Najm-e Sani was killed during a clash with the Uzbeks, which made Ismail appoint Abd al-Baqi Yazdi as the new vakil of the empire.

War against the Ottomans

thumb|upright=1.5|Shah Ismail (center) leading a charge during the Safavid defeat against the Ottomans at the [[Battle of Chaldiran (1514). Painting of the Qajar period, 19th century]]

The active recruitment of support for the Safavid cause among the Turcoman tribes of Eastern Anatolia, among tribesmen who were Ottoman subjects, had inevitably placed the neighbouring Ottoman empire and the Safavid state on a collision course. As the Encyclopædia Iranica states, "As orthodox or Sunni Muslims, the Ottomans had reason to view with alarm the progress of Shīʿī ideas in the territories under their control, but there was also a grave political danger that the Ṣafawīya, if allowed to extend its influence still further, might bring about the transfer of large areas in Asia Minor from Ottoman to Persian allegiance".

After the Battle of Chaldiran, Ismail lost his supernatural air and the aura of invincibility, gradually falling into heavy drinking. He retired to his palace and never again participated in a military campaign, and left the affairs of the state to his vizier Mirza Shah Husayn, who became his close friend and Nadeem (i.e. drinking companion). This allowed Mirza Shah Husayn to gain influence and expand his authority. Mirza Shah Husayn was assassinated in 1523 by a group of Qizilbash officers, after which Ismail appointed Zakariya's son Jalal al-Din Mohammad Tabrizi as his new vizier. Ismail died on 23 May 1524 aged 36 and was buried in Ardabil. He was succeeded by his son Tahmasp I.

The consequences of the defeat at Chaldiran were also psychological for Ismail; his relationships with the Qizilbash followers were fundamentally altered. The tribal rivalries between the Qizilbash which had ceased temporarily before the defeat at Chaldiran resurfaced intensely immediately after his death and led to ten years of civil war (930–40/1524–33) until Shah Tahmasp regained control of the affairs of the state. The Safavids later briefly lost Balkh and Kandahar to the Mughals, and nearly lost Herat to the Uzbeks.

Shah Ismail's death ensued after a few years of a very saddening and depressing period of his life. He was buried in Ardabil, next to the tomb of his illustrious ancestor Shayk Safi. The Tomb of Shah Ismail was built by his wife Tajlu Khanum in 1524, in the Sheikh Safi al-Din Khānegāh and Shrine Ensemble.

Another early commission was the contribution of additional miniatures in 1505 to an Aq Qoyunlu manuscript, the Khamsa of Nizami (Tabriz, 1481). Shah Isma'il entrusted the creation of eleven miniatures to the young painter Sultan Mohammed, who later became a key artist of the Safavid school. Some of the paintings created by Sultan Mohammed for this manuscript are considered as highly original, such as The Mir'aj of Prophet Muhammad (now in the Keir Collection in London), in which the Prophet can be seen rising over the Great Mosque in Mecca, the Ka'ba and his tomb, riding into a billowing mass of heavenly clouds with a multitude of angels. The sky is pieced with an oculus, an artistic device of probable European origin. A small inscription in gold letters on the portal of a small building on a terrace gives the date of creation as 1505.

One of the main criteria used to differentiate the Safavid miniatures from the Aq Qoyunlu ones is for a great part iconographic, as the protagonists in Shah Isma'il's paintings generally wear his signature turban, the Taj-i Haydari, which he introduced when he occupied Tabriz in 1501-1502.

Towards the end of his reign, circa 1520-21, Shāh Ismaʿīl also commissioned panegyric histories of his accomplishments, where he can be seen in various court and battle scenes. These works, such as the Shāhnāmah Shāh Ismaʿīl (Tabriz, 1541), were generally completed only after he died.

Probably about 1522, Shah Isma'il started a sumptuous illuminated manuscript of the Shahnameh for his son Shah Tahmasp I. But Shah Ismail I died in 1524, shortly after the work had begun. Work continued into the 1530s, ultimately including 258 original miniatures. It is now dispersed, and known under the name of Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp.

Ismail's poetry

thumb|[[:Commons:Category:Divan-i Khata'i, Tabriz, 1520 (Freer Gallery of Art, S1986.60)|Dīvān of Khatā'ī (Collected Poems by Shah Isma’il), "Five youths in the garden". Tabriz. 1515-20s. Text in Turkish in black nasta’liq script: "I have never seen anyone so beautiful as you on the earth, never in this world anyone as gorgeous as you. Truly within the garden of the soul there can be no gesture so elegant as your tall erect cypress. Although there are many beauties among humanity, there is none, O Beauty, so radiant as you".]]

thumb|[[:Commons:Category:Divan-i Khata'i, Tabriz, 1520 (Freer Gallery of Art, S1986.60)|Dīvān of Khatā'ī (Collected Poems by Shah Isma’il), "The Castle". Tabriz. 1515-20s. Text on the castle walls: "Founder of the Sultanate, the greatest sultan and most just, most noble emperor, liege lord of the kings of the Arabs and Persians, layer of the foundations of justice and munificence, spreader of the carpet of safety and security, Abu'l-Muzaffar Shah Isma'il Bahadur Khan".]]

Ismail is also known for his poetry using the pen name Khaṭāʾī (, 'sinner', or 'the mistaken one'). Khatai was a popular pen name among Iranian poets, but none are as famous as Ismail. He wrote in Turkish and Persian, although his extant verses in the former vastly outnumber those in the latter. The Turkish spoken in Iran, which was commonly known as Turki, was not the Turkish of Istanbul, but a precursor of modern-day Azerbaijani or Azeri Turkic (see also: Ajem-Turkic). His devotional poetry was meant for the mainly Turkish-speaking Qizilbash who followed him, hence his decision to write in that language.

Most of the poems are concerned with love—particularly the mystical Sufi kind—though there are also poems propagating Shi'i doctrine and Safavi politics. His other serious works include the Nasihatnāme, a book of advice sometimes included in his divan, and the unfinished Dahnāme, a book which extols the virtues of love—both written in proto-Azeri Turkic.

Along with the poet Imadaddin Nasimi, Khata'i is considered to be among the first proponents of using a simpler Azerbaijani language in verse that would appeal to a broader audience. His work is most popular in Azerbaijan, as well as among the Bektashis of Turkey. There is a large body of Alevi and Bektashi poetry that has been attributed to him. The major impact of his religious writings, in the long run, was the conversion of Persia from Sunni to Shia Islam.

Mughal portraiture

A few Mughal depictions of Shah Ismail are also known, such as "Shah Ismail Safavi and Six of His Descendants", now in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar (MIA.2013.109). Shah Ismail Safavi appears seating under a symbolic canopy, together with several of his illustrious descendants from the line of his youger son Bahram Mirza Safavi, who formed a cadet branch of the Safavid dynasty in the service of the Mughal Empire that survived there for two centuries and became one of the most prominent families in the Mughal court.

Europeans made several attempts at a portraiture of Sultan Ismail. Paolo Giovio, in his Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1554),

This portrait engraving was then used as a reference by the Italian painter Cristofano dell'Altissimo between 1552 and 1568 for his famous portrait of Shah Ismail in the Florencian style. It is thought that this portrait was affected by idealized notions of Shah Ismail as a savior of Christians and Europeans against the Ottomans, complete with rumors of a conversion of Christianity. According to Azerbaijani literary critic Hamid Arasly, this story is related to Ismail I. But it is also possible that it is dedicated to Ismail II.

Places and structures

  • A district (Xətai raion), facility, monument (erected in 1993), and metro station in Baku, Azerbaijan
  • A street in Ganja, Azerbaijan

Statues

  • A statue in Ardabil, Iran (in the Azerbaijan region of Iran)
  • A statue in Baku, Azerbaijan
  • A sculpture in Khachmaz, Azerbaijan
  • A bust in Ganja, Azerbaijan

Music

Shah Ismayil is the name of an Azerbaijani mugham opera in 6 acts and 7 scenes composed by Muslim Magomayev, in 1915–19.

Other

Shah Ismail Order (the highest Azerbaijani military award presented by the Commander-in-chief and President of Azerbaijan)

Issue

Sons

thumb|upright|Contemporary portrait of [[Shah Tahmasp, son of Shah Ismail. Cartier Hafiz, painted circa 1531.]]

thumb|upright|Likely depiction of [[Mahinbanu Sultan|Mahinbanu Soltanum, daughter of Shah Ismail. Qazvin, circa 1544.]]

  • Tahmasp I – with Tajlu Khanum.
  • Alqas Mirza (15 March 1515 – 9 April 1550) Governor of Astrabad 1532/33–1538, Shirvan 1538–1547 and Derbent 1546–1547. He rebelled against his brother Tahmasp with Ottoman help. Captured and imprisoned at the Fortress of Qahqahan. He had a consort, Khadija Sultan Khanum, and two sons,
  • Ahmad Mirza (died 1568)
  • Farukh Mirza (died 1568)
  • Rostam Mirza (born 13 September 1517)
  • Sam Mirza (28 August 1518 – December 1567) Governor-General of Khorasan 1521–1529 and 1532–1534, and of Ardabil 1549–1571. He rebelled against his brother Tahmasp, was captured and imprisoned at the Fortress of Qahqahan. He had two sons and one daughter. His daughter married Prince Jesse of Kakheti (died 1583) Governor of Shaki, the third son of Georgian king Levan of Kakheti.
  • Bahram Mirza (7 September 1518 – 16 September 1550) – with Tajlu Khanum. Governor of Khorasan 1529–1532, Gilan 1536–1537 and Hamadan 1546–1549. He married Zainab Sultan Khanum and had three sons:
  • Soltan Hosayn Mirza (died 1577)
  • Ibrahim Mirza (1541–1577),
  • Badi uz-Zaman Mirza (k.1577)
  • Hossein Mirza (born 11 December 1520)

Daughters

  • Pari Khan Khanum – with Tajlu Khanum, married in 1520–21 to Shirvanshah Khalilullah II;
  • Mahinbanu Khanum – with Tajlu Khanum
  • Khanish Khanum