Husayn (Safavid)

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Husayn (Safavid)

Soltan Hosein (also known as Soltan Hosayn) (1668?–1726) was a Safavid king of Persia

Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
(Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
). He ruled from 1694 until he was overthrown by Afghan rebels in 1722. His reign saw the downfall of the Safavid dynasty, which had ruled Persia since the beginning of the 16th century.

his father Shah Suleiman

Suleiman I of Persia

Suleiman I was a Safavid shah of Persian Empire who reigned between 1666 and 1694. He was the elder son of the previous shah Abbas II of Persia and a Circassians slave, Nakihat Khanum....
was on his deathbed he asked his court eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a castrated man, in particular one castrated early enough to have major hormonal consequences; the term usually refers to those castrated in order to perform a specific social function, as was common in many societies of the past....
s to choose between his two sons, saying that if they wanted peace and quiet they should pick the elder, Soltan Hosein, but if they wanted to make the empire more powerful then they should opt for the younger, Abbas.

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Soltan Hosein (also known as Soltan Hosayn) (1668?–1726) was a Safavid king of Persia

Persian Empire

Iran

Early rule

When his father Shah Suleiman

Suleiman I of Persia

Eunuch

Shah

Shah is a Persian language term for a monarch that has been adopted in many other languages.Shah used as a last name by Jains and Hindus is unrelated....
. He had a reputation for being easy-going and had little interest in political affairs, his nickname being Yakhshidir ("Very well!"), the response he was said to give when asked to decide on matters of state. The young king was a devout Muslim

Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
and one of his first acts was to give power to the leading cleric Mohammed Baqer Majlesi

Allamah al-Majlisi

Muhammad Baqir Majlesi, known as Allamah Majlesi or Majlesi-ye Thani , was a renowned and very powerful Iranian Twelver Shi'a cleric, during the Safavid era....
. A series of measures against the Sufi order

Sufism

Sufi is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ufi , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals of the Sufi tradition....
were introduced as well as legislation prohibiting the consumption of alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl Functional group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group....
and opium

Opium

Opium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating the immature seed pods of Opium poppy . It contains up to 12% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade....
and restrictions on the behaviour of women in public. Provincial governors were ordered to enforce Sharia

Sharia

Sharia is the body of Islamic religious law. The term means "way" or "path to the water source"; it is the legal framework within which the public and private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Fiqh and for Muslims living outside the domain....
law.

However, power soon shifted away from Mohammed Baqer Majlesi to Soltan Hosein's great aunt, Maryam Begum (the daughter of Shah Safi

Safi of Persia

Shah Safi was Shah of Iran from 1629 to 1642. He was the sixth Shah under the Safavids and grandson of Abbas I of Persia. He was not considered a great ruler....
). Under her influence, Hosein became an alcoholic and paid less and less attention to political affairs, devoting his time to his harem

Harem

Harem refers to the sphere of women in a usually polygyny household and their quarters which is enclosed and forbidden to men. It originated in the Near East and came to the Western world via the Ottoman Empire....
and his pleasure gardens.

Revolts against Soltan Hosein

Soltan Hosein's rule was relatively tranquil until he faced a major revolt in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia....
, in the eastern part of his realm. The Afghans were divided into two main tribes: the Ghilzai

Ghilzai

The Ghilzais are a large Pashtun people tribe located mainly in southeastern Afghanistan, between Kandahar and Ghazni and extending eastwards towards the Suleiman Mountains into Pakistan where they can also be found in large numbers....
s and the Abdalis

Durrani

Durrani or Abdali is the name of a chief tribal confederation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Originally known by their ancient name saduzai, they have been called Durrani since the beginning of the Durrani Empire in 1747....
. In 1709, the Ghilzai Afghans of Kandahar

Kandahar

Kandahar, also spelled Qandahar, is the third largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of 324,800 . It is the capital of Kandahar province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level....
, under their leader Mir Veis

Mir Wais Hotak

Mir Wais Khan Hotak was a Pashtun tribal chief of the Ghilzai clan from Kandahar, who founded the Hotaki dynasty that ruled Persian Empire from 1722 to 1729....
, rebelled and successfully broke away from Safavid rule. In 1716, the Abdalis of Herat

Herat

Herat , classically called the Aria, is a city in western Afghanistan, in the province also known as Herat province. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, Afghanistan, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan....
followed their example and Safavid expeditions to bring them back under control ended in failure. The Abdalis then turned on the Ghilzais but were defeated by the new Ghilzai leader Mahmud

Mir Mahmud Hotaki

Mir Mahmud Hotaki was an Afghan tribal leader who overthrew the Safavid dynasty to become Shah of Persia in 1722. He was the eldest son of Mirwais Khan Hotak, the leader of the Ghilzai of Kandahar, who had successfully rebelled against the Safavid shah of Persia, Soltan Hosein....
, the son of Mir Veis.

In the meantime, Soltan Hosein was confronted by other rebellions resulting from his religious policy. The revival of Shia Islam promoted by Mohammed Baqer Majlesi and his successor and grandson, the chief mullah

Mullah

Mullah is a Muslim man, educated in Islamic theology and sacred law. The title, given to some Islamic clergy, is derived from the Arabic word mawla, meaning both 'vicar' and 'guardian.'...
Mohammed Hosein, had led to increased intolerance towards Sunni Muslims, Jews

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
and Christians

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
(particularly Armenians

Armenians

The Armenians are a nation and ethnic group originating in the Caucasus and in the Armenian Highlands. A large concentration of them has remained there, especially in Armenia, but many of them are also scattered elsewhere throughout the world ....
). The shah had also passed a decree ordering the forced conversion of Zoroastrians. In 1717-20, the Sunnis of Kurdistan

Kurdistan

Kurdistan is an extensive plateau and mountainous area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by Kurdish people. It covers parts of eastern Turkish Kurdistan, northern Iraqi Kurdistan, northwestern Iranian Kurdistan and smaller parts of northern Syria and Armenia....
and Shirvan

Shirvan

Shirvan , also spelled as Shervan or Shirwan, is a historical region in the Caucasus and part of present-day Republic of Azerbaijan....
revolted. In Shirvan the rebels called on their fellow Sunnis, the Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
and Lezgin tribesmen, to aid them. When the Lezgins took Shamakhi

Shamakhi

Shamakhi or Shamakhy is a Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and a town in the rayon. It is the historical center of the region of Shirvan....
, the main town of Shirvan, in 1721 they massacred the Shia population including the governor. Soltan Hossein was faced with problems elsewhere in his realm - Arab pirates seized islands in the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes Persian Gulf naming dispute referred to as the Arabian Gulf by certain Arab countries or simply The Gulf, although nei...
and there were plagues in the north-western provinces - but he and his court failed to take decisive action.

The siege of Isfahan

However, the main threat came from the Ghilzai Afghans. In 1722, Mahmud and his army swept westward aiming at the shah's capital Isfahan

Isfahan (city)

Esfahan or Isfahan , located about 340 km south of Tehran at , is the capital of Esfahan Province and Iran's third largest city . Esfahan City had a population of 1,583,609 and the Esfahan metropolitan area had a population of 3,430,353 in the 2006 Census, the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after Tehran....
itself. Rather than biding his time within the city and resisting a siege in which the small Afghan army was unlikely to succeed, Soltan Hosein marched out to meet Mahmud's force at Golnabad. Here, on March 8, the royal army was thoroughly routed and fled back to Isfahan in disarray. The shah was urged to escape to the provinces to raise more troops but he decided to remain in the capital which was now encircled by the Afghans. Mahmud's siege of Isfahan lasted from March to October, 1722. Lacking artillery, he was forced to resort to a long blockade in the hope of starving the Persians into submission. Soltan Hosein's command during the siege displayed his customary lack of decisiveness and the loyalty of his provincial governors wavered in the face of such incompetence. Protests against his rule also broke out within Isfahan and the shah's son, Tahmasp

Tahmasp II

Tahmasp II was one of the last Safavid rulers of Persian_Empire .Tahmasp was the son of Husayn , the Shah of Iran at that time. When Husayn was forced to abdicate by the Afghanistan in 1722, Prince Tahmasp wished to claim the throne....
, was eventually elevated to the role of co-ruler. In June, Tahmasp managed to escape from the city in a bid to raise a relief force in the provinces, but little came of this plan. Starvation and disease finally forced Isfahan into submission (it is estimated that 80,000 of its inhabitants died during the siege). On October 23, Soltan Hossein abdicated and acknowledged Mahmud as the new shah of Persia.

Captivity and death

To begin with, Mahmud treated Soltan Hosein considerately, but as he gradually became mentally unbalanced he began to view the former shah with suspicion. In February 1725, believing a rumour that one of Soltan Hosein's sons, Safi Mirza, had escaped, Mahmud ordered the execution of all the other Safavid princes who were in his hands, with the exception of Soltan Hosein himself. When Soltan Hosein tried to stop the massacre, he was wounded, but his action saved the lives of two of his young children. Mahmud succumbed to insanity and died on April 25 of the same year.

Mahmud's successor Ashraf

Ashraf Khan

Ashraf Khan was the last ruler of the Hotaki dynasty. He was an ethnic Pashtun people from the Ghilzai tribe, who succeeded to the throne after the death of Mir Mahmud Hotaki in 1725....
at first treated the deposed shah with sympathy. In return, Soltan Hosein gave him the hand of one of his daughters in marriage, a move which would have increased Ashraf's legitimacy in the eyes of his Persian subjects. However, Ashraf was involved in a war with the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
, which contested his claim to the Persian throne. In the autumn of 1726, the Ottoman governor of Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
, Ahmad Pasha, advanced with his army on Isfahan, sending a message to Ashraf saying that he was coming to reinstate the rightful shah of Persia. In response, Ashraf had Soltan Hosein's head cut off and sent it to the Ottoman with the message that "he expected to give Ahmad Pasha a fuller reply with the points of his sword and his lance". As Michael Axworthy comments, "In this way Shah Soltan Hossein gave in death a sharper answer than he ever gave in life".

Sources

Michael Axworthy, The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant Hardcover 348 pages (26 July 2006) Publisher: Language: English ISBN 1-85043-706-8