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Ismail I
Shahanshah of Azerbaijan and Iran
Shah Ismail I.
Reign	1501–1524
Coronation	1501
Buried	Ardabil
Successor	Tahmasp I
Consort	daughter of Shirvanshah II Khalilullah[1][2][3][4]
Royal House	Safavid dynasty
Father	Haydar Safavi

Ismail I (July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), known in Persian as Shāh Ismāʿil (Persian: شاه اسماعیل‎; full name: Abū l-Muzaffar bin Haydar as-Safavī), was a Shah of Azerbaijan (1501), Shah of Iran (1502) ^[5][6] and the founder of the Safavid dynasty which survived until 1736. Isma'il started his campaign in Azerbaijan in 1500 as the leader of the Safaviyya, an Twelver Shia militant religious order and unified all of Iran by 1509.^[7] Born in Ardabil in Northwestern Iran, he reigned as Shah Ismail I of Iran from 1502 to 1524.

Ismail played a key role in the rise of Twelver Islam; he converted Iran from Sunni and Ismaili Shi'i Islam, importing religious authorities from the Levant.^[8] In Alevism, Shah Ismail remains revered as a spiritual guide.

Ismail was also a prolific poet who, under the pen name Khatā'ī ("Sinner") contributed greatly to the literary development of the Azerbaijani language.^[9]

Life and political history[link]

Ismail was born to Martha and Shaykh Haydar on July 17, 1487 in Ardabil. His father, Haydar, was the sheikh of the Safaviyya Sufi order and a direct descendant of its founder, Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252–1334). Ismail was the last in line of hereditary Grand Masters of the Safaviyah Sufi order, prior to his ascent to a ruling dynasty. As a boy only a year old, he lost his father, the leader of a growing Qizilbash Shi'i community in Azerbaijan, who died in battle. His mother, Martha, was the daughter of Uzun Hasan by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora, better known as Despina Khatun.^[10] Theodora was the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond. (She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect Trebizond from the Ottomans.^[11]) Ismail grew up bilingual, speaking Persian and Azeri.^[12][13]

As legend has it, the infant Ismail went into hiding for several years. With his followers, he finally returned to Tabriz, vowing to make Shi'i Islam the official religion of Iran. Ismail found significant support among the people of Azerbaijan^{[citation needed]}, as well as some parts of the Ottoman Empire, mainly in eastern Anatolia. Ismail's advent to power was due to Turkoman tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan, who formed the most important part of the Qizilbash movement.^[14] Centuries of Sunni rule followed by non-Muslim Mongol hegemony lent fertile ground for new teachings.^{[citation needed]} In the summer of 1500, about 7000 Qizilbash forces, consisted of Ustaclu, Shamlu, Rumlu, Tekelu, Zhulkadir, Afshar, Qajar ve Varsak tribes, responded to the invitation of Ismail in Erzincan.^[15] Qizilbash forces passed over the Kura River in Novermber 1500, and marched towards the Shirvanshah's state. They defeated the forces under the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar near Cabanı (present-day Shamakhi Rayon, Azerbaijan), and conquered Baku.^[16] In July 1501, Ismail was enthroned as Shah of Azerbaijan,^[17] choosing Tabriz, Azerbaijan, as his capital. When the Safavids came to power in 1501, Shah Ismail was 14 or 15 years old; by 1510 he had conquered the whole of Iran.^[18] After defeating the Aq Qoyunlu in 1502, he took the title of Shah of Iran.^[6]

In 1510, Ismail I moved against the Sunni Uzbeg tribe. In battle near the city of Merv, some 17,000 Qizilbash warriors ambushed and defeated a superior Uzbek force numbering 28,000. The Uzbek ruler, Muhammad Shaybani, was caught and killed trying to escape the battle and the shah had his skull made into a jeweled drinking goblet.

In 1514, Selim I, the Sunni Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, attacked Ismail's kingdom to stop the spread of Shiism into Ottoman dominions. Selim and Ismail had been exchanging a series of belligerent letters prior to the attack.

Selim I defeated Ismail at the battle of Chaldiran in 1514.^[19] Ismail's army was more mobile and their soldiers were better prepared but the Ottomans prevailed due in large part to their efficient modern army, and possession of artillery, black powder and muskets. Ismail was wounded and almost captured in battle. Selim I entered the Iranian capital of Tabriz in triumph on September 5,^[20] but did not linger. A mutiny among his troops fearing a counter attack and entrapment by the fresh Safavid forces called in from the interior, forced the triumphant Ottomans to withdraw prematurely. This allowed Ismail to recover quickly. Among the booties from Tabriz was Ismail's favorite wife, for whose release the Sultan demanded huge concessions, which were refused. Despite his defeat at Chaldiran, Ismail quickly recovered most of his kingdom, from east of the Lake Van to the shores of the Indian Ocean.

After Chaldiran, however, Ismail lost his supernatural air and the aura of invincibility, gradually falling into heavy drinking of alcohol.^[21] Ismail retired to his palace and withdrew from active participation in the affairs of the state, leaving these to his minister, Mirza Shah-Hussayn.^[22] He died on 23 May 1524 at the relatively early age of thirty-six.

Ismail I pictured at battle against Abu al-Khayr Khan in a scene from the Tarikh-i Alam-Aray-i.

Ismail's reign featured extensive conquests, shaping the map of Iran up to the present day.^{[citation needed]} Iraq, including Baghdad and the holy Shi'a shrines of Najaf and Karbala, had been already seized from the Jalayirids and remained a part of Ismail's kingdom until its end. Despite the defeat at Chaldiran, where he lost western Armenia and northwestern Kurdistan, he managed to pass on to his son, Tahmasp I, his entire vast empire. Ismail destroyed Sunni sites in Baghdad including tombs of Abbasid Caliphs, tombs of Sunni Imam Abū Ḥanīfah and Abdul Qadir Gilani.^[23]

His son Tahmasp I succeeded him as Shah.

Ismail's poetry[link]

Ismail is also known for his poetry using the pen-name Khatā'ī (Arabic: خطائی‎ "Sinner").^[24] According to Encyclopædia Iranica, "Ismail was a skillful poet who used prevalent themes and images in lyric and didactic-religious poetry with ease and some degree of originality". He was also deeply influenced by the Persian literary tradition of Iran, particularly by the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after Shahnameh-characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismail's "Shāhnāmaye Shāhī" was intended as a present to the young Tahmasp.^[25] After defeating Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks, Ismail asked Hatefi, a famous poet from Jam (Khorasan), to write a Shahnameh-like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although the epic was left unfinished, it was an example of mathnawis in the heroic style of the Shahnameh written later on for the Safavid kings.^[26]

He wrote in the Azerbaijani language, the language of the majority of his followers,^[27] and in the Persian language. He is considered an important figure in the literary history of Azerbaijani language and has left approximately 1400 verses in this language, which he chose to use for political reasons.^[27] Approximately 50 verses of his Persian poetry have also survived.

Most of the poems are concerned with love — particularly of 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, and the unfinished Dahnāme, a book which extols the virtues of love.

As Ismail believed in his own divinity and in his descent from Ali, in his poems he tended to strongly emphasize these claims.

Along with the poet Imadaddin Nasimi, Khatā'ī is considered to be among the first proponents of using a simpler Azeri language in verse that would thereby 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 propaganda, in the long run, was the conversion of Persia from Sunni to Shia islam.^[28]

The following anecdote demonstrates the status of vernacular Turkish and Persian in the Ottoman Empire and in the incipient Safavid state. Khatā'ī sent a poem in Turkish to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I before going to war in 1514. In a reply the Ottoman Sultan answered in Persian to indicate his contempt.

Issue[link]

• Sons
  • Tahmasp I
  • Prince Shahzadeh ‘Abul Ghazi Sultan Alqas Mirza (15 March 1515 - 9 April 1550) Governor of Shirvan 1538-1547. He rebelled against his brother Tahmasp, captured and imprisoned at the Fortress of Qahqahan. m. Khadija Sultan Khanum, having had issue, two sons, Sultan Ahmad Mirza (died 1568) and Sultan Farrukh Mirza (died 1568)
  • Prince Sultan Rustam Mirza (born 13 September 1517)
  • Prince ‘Abul Naser Sultan 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, captured and imprisoned at the Fortress of Qahqahan. He had issue, two sons and one daughter. His daughter, married Prince Jésé (d. 1583) Governor of Sakki the third son of Levan King of Kakheti in Georgia.
  • Prince ‘Abu'l Fat'h Sultan Moez od-din Bahram Mirza (7 September 1518 - 16 September 1550) Governor of Khorasan 1529-1532, Gilan 1536-1537 and Hamadan 1546-1549. m. Zainab Sultan Khanum. She had issue, four sons and one daughter: Sultan Hassan Mirza died in his youth, Sultan Husain Mirza (died 1567) ‘Abu'l Fat'h Sultan Ibrahim Mirza (1541–1577), Sultan Badi uz-Zaman Mirza (k.1577)
  • Prince Shahzadeh Soltan Hossein Mirza (born 11 December 1520)

• Daughters
  • Princess ‘Alamiyan Fulaneh Begum, m. as his second wife, before 14 May 1513, Prince Murad Effendi, elder son of Şehzade Ahmet, Crown Princess of Ottoman Empire, son of Bayezid II.
  • Princess ‘Alamiyan'' Janish Khanum (26 February 1507 – 2 March 1533) m. (first) at Hamadan, 24 August 1518, [[Sultan Mozaffar Amir-i-Dibaj (k. at Tabriz, 23 September 1536), Governor of Rasht and Fooman 1516-1535, son of Amir Hisam od-din Amir-i-Dibaj.
  • Princess [['Alamiyan Pari-Khan Khanum m. in 4 October 1521, Sultan Khalil Governor of Shirvan 1523-1536, son of Sheikh Shah Sultan Ibrahim bin Farrokh Yasar.
  • Princess ''Alamiyan'' Khair un-nisa Khanish Khanum (died 12 March 1564) m. 1537, Seyyed Nur od-din Nimatu’llah Baqi Yazdi (d. 21 July 1564), son of Mir Nezam od-din ‘Abdu'l Baqi Yazdi.
  • Princess ‘Alamiyan'' Shah Zainab Khanum (born 1519)
  • Princess ‘Alamiyan'' Farangis Khanum (born 1519)
  • Princess ‘Alamiyan'' Mahin Banu Khanum (1519- 20 January 1562)^[29]

Legacy[link]

Ismail's greatest legacy was establishing an enduring empire which lasted over 200 years. Even after the fall of Safavids in 1736, their cultural and political influence endured through the era of Afsharid, Zand, Qajar, and Pahlavi dynasties into the modern Islamic Republic of Iran, where Shi’a Islam is still the official religion as it was during the Safavids.

Memory[link]