Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the establishment of the new Safavid regime in Iran. Along with reuniting the Persian lands under one rule, the Safavids initiated the radical transformation of the religious landscape by introducing Imami Shi''ism as the official state faith and in this as in other ways, laying the foundations of Iran''s modern identity.

In this book, leading scholars o...