The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730

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Library Progress International , 2024

The Safavid Empire's urbanization process led to significant progressions in the textile industry, particularly silk production, and trade emerged as vital elements of the Iranian economy. State-sponsored weaving shops were mostly established in major towns such as Isfahan, Shirvan, and Kashan that wove silk fabrics, producing the most valuable inputs for Iran’s economic and political relationships with both Eastern and Western powers. These weaving activities began around Shah Ismail’s reign before they fell into a momentary decline on account of an impending threat from Ottomans, but they were later reignited by Shah Abbas I. By monopolizing the silk trade and integrating it into a state-controlled system, he turned into Silk Iran’s most important export item, also promoting its production through making Gilan and Mazandaran royal provinces. This enabled firm trading ties with the West while making Iranian silk known globally. In the later periods of the Safavid Empire as well, during the time of Shah Sultan Hussein, production and trade of silk continued to be significant. However, there was a gradual decrease in demand for Iranian silk from bordering nations. Nevertheless, silk trade and textile production in Safavid Iran have left an indelible mark that has made them memorable in the annals of world textile commerce.

2016

Author(s): Razzari, Daniel | Advisor(s): Cogswell, Thomas | Abstract: “The Gulfe of Persia devours all”: English Merchants in Safavīd Persia, 1616-1650 (unpublished PhD diss) byDaniel B. Razzari Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in History University of California, Riverside, Month 2016Dr. Thomas Cogswell, Chairperson This dissertation focuses on the Englishmen residing in Safavīd Persia from 1616 to about 1652. Relying primarily on the correspondence between the East India Company’s factors, this present work will examine a series of problems, both internal and external, that eventually brought the Company’s silk trade in Persia to a sudden halt in the 1640s and well before the Company lost its monopoly on eastern trade in 1653. This dissertation is divided into two major parts. The first half is concerned with examining the development of Anglo-Safavīd relations before and after the siege of Hormuz in 1623, and how the English responded to the Safavīd’s expectations towards the quasi-military alliance...

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Novoe Proshloe/The New Past, 2022

The study deals with the issue of Safavid beylerbeylik Shirvān and its role in Russian-Persian trade relations in the period of Shāh Safī I (1629-1642). From the 16 th century onward, Russian-Persian trade relations became regular and gradually strengthened and developed. Safavid Persia organised numerous trade expeditions to the Russian territory. Shirvān as a border area in the Caucasus a Caspian region played an important role in Russian-Persian caravan trade. Along with Persian Shah's merchants, Shirvānian beylerbey's merchants also came to Russian cities and tried to gain trade privileges. Besides that, since the 15 th century Shirvān was an important centre of raw silk production in Persia. Merchants from Shirvān and Persia imported silk and Eastern goods to Russian markets. The area of Shirvān also served as important crossroads of trade caravan routes. Through Shirvān, Persian merchants travelled (by land or by sea) to the territory of the Russian Tsardom. Based on the analysis of yet unpublished archival materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (relating to the reign of the Persian Shāh Safī (1629-1642)), I will present the above-mentioned issue.

Aktualʹnì pitannâ gumanìtarnih nauk, 2023

According to the primary resources, the economic crisis that started in the second half of the 17th century was first reflected in internal trade in the Azerbaijan Safavids Empire. The study of trade relations in Azerbaijan, during the period form the end of the 17th century to the first decades of the 18th century which has a fairly wide trade network, reveals interesting points on the basis of Soviet historiography. Historians who were careful in their political approach to the history of Azerbaijan during the Soviet period were more productive in economic and trade issues and conducted in-depth research. We can get enough information from the historical literature written in the Soviet period about the internal and domestic trade routes, more circulating products, upper social classes, as well as the relations between merchants, artisans and the rural population, as well as the effect of the economic stagnation and recession in the Azerbaijan Safavids state on trade. The transfer of trade circulation between the East and Europe from land to oceans led to an economic crisis in all eastern countries, and therefore the stagnation of the Azerbaijan Safavids state at the end of the XVII-early XVIII centuries was not only due to internal reasons. Starting from the second half of the 17th century, the international trade relations of the Azerbaijan Safavids state became quite diverse. The issues related to the international trade relations of the Azerbaijan Safavids state were sufficiently covered in the historical literature of the Soviet period. The Kyzylbash central authorities, which received enough incomes from such trade, had to try to ensure the security and continuity of the goods circulation in the country. As we have seen, in the literature of the Soviet period, it was concluded that the Safavids government took an active step in establishing foreign relations, was interested in the entry of foreign capital into the country, and tried to ensure the security of trade circulation. During the Middle Ages, the caravan routes extended from the territory of the Azerbaijan Safavids Empire to Asia Minor, the Turks controlled the transit trade between the East and Europe, and there was a large trade turnover. Ottoman Empire did not want to lose or give any privelegies to someone. During the researched period, the trade relations between Azerbaijan and the Ottoman Empire were characterized by their stagnation, and we can see that the caravan routes passing through the country are gradually disintegrating. the great geographical discoveries, the transit of products through the oceans, and the decline of land trade had a negative impact on trade relations with the Ottomans.

2018

The Iranian Empire emerged in the third century in the interstices of the Silk Road that increasingly linked the markets of the Mediterranean and the Near East with South, Central, and East Asia. The ensuing four centuries of Iranian rule corresponded with the heyday of trans-Eurasian trade, as the demand of moneyed imperial elites across the continent for one another's high-value commodities stimulated the development of long-distance networks. Despite its position at the nexus of trans-continental and trans-oceanic commerce, accounts of Iran in late antiquity relegate trade to a marginal role in its political economy. The present article seeks to foreground the contribution of trans-continental mercantile networks to the formation of Iran and to argue that its development depended as much on the political economies of its western and eastern neighbours as on internal Near Eastern factors.

Journal of Historical Researches of Iran and Islam, 2015

The establishment of Saffavid government with twelve-Imam Shiite religious approach, opened a new time in Iran's history and differentiated this time of world from Iran's past periods of history. On the one hand, creating a powerful central government, military captures, territory development and stabilization on boundaries being neighbor with the competitor governments of the neighbor and on the other hand, actions such as providing safety of roads, developing caravanserai and the Saffavid economic and political relations with Europeans provided growth and prosperity reasons of Iran's domestic and foreign trade in Saffavid era. Following this importance, a suitable situation was provided for activity and presence of foreign businessmen such as Indian merchants in Iran. In this research, it has been attempted to consider preparation elements of presence and activity of Banian and Indian merchants in Iran's economic field of Saffavid era and also their activity outcomes through a historical research method with a descriptive-analytic approach based on library resources. Due to Indian merchants' activity in affairs such as money-changing and usury transactions which allotted them lots of profits, Iran economy of Saffavid era encountered with disadvantageous outcomes such as the exodus of desired coins to India, decrease of national money value and therefore increase of Indian commercial level comparing with Iran.

1996

The historiography of Safavid prefaces the early years of Shah Ismail in the "Afzal al-tavarikh" and elsewhere the iconography of the "Shah-nama-yi Shahi" kinship ties between the Safavids and the Qizillbash Amirs in late 16th-century Iran - a case study of the political career of members of the Sharaf al-Din Ogli Tekelu family le "Dar al-Saltana" de Qazvin, deuxieme capitale des safavides sufis, dervishes and mullas - the controversy over spiritual and temporal dominion in 17th-century Iran Shii rituals and Power II - the consolidation of Safavid Shiism - folklore and popular religion Shah Abbas and pilgimage to Mashhad "barrier of heterodoxy"? - rethinking the ties between Iran and Persian during the Safavid period - sketch for an "Etat de Langue" similar farmans from the reign of Shah Safi the rise of the Julfa merchants in the late 16th century the Dutch and the Persian silk trade the character of the urbanization of Isfahan in t...

Dr. Ali Anooshahr is the associate professor of history at UCdavis. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (2005). After two post-doctoral fellowships and a year teaching at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, he went to Davis in 2008 to teach comparative pre-modern Islamic history with a special focus on Indo-Persian culture. In his book “The Ghazi Sultans and the Frontiers of Islam: A Comparative Study of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods” (Routledge, 2009) and articles he has focused particularly on the transmissions of texts and individuals along networks that connected India, Iran, and the Ottoman Empire.