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Some Notes on the Provincial Administration of the Early Ṣafawid Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

R. M. Savory
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The names of the principal officers of the early Ṣafawid ṣtate are well known and need only a brief recapitulation here. They were: (1) the wakīl; (2) the amīr al-umarā; (3) the qūrchībāshī; (4) the wazīr; (5) the ṣadr. Of these, the wakīl was the vicegerent of the Shāh, representing him in both his temporal capacity as pādishāh and in his spiritual capacity as murshid-i kāmil. He was thus the most powerful official in the early Ṣafawid state. The amīr al-umarā was, as his name denotes, the principal amīr; he was the commander-in-chief of the qizilbāsh Turkomān tribesmen who constituted the military basis of Ṣafawid political power. The function of the qūrchībāshī during the early Ṣafawid period is extremely obscure. As commander of the qūrchīs or qizilbāsh; tribal cavalry his authority would appear to have been in conflict with that of the amīr al-umarā. The office of qūrchībāshī was from the beginning distinct from that of amīr al-umarā, and during at least the first 30 years of Ṣafawid rule it was of less importance than the latter. From about 940/1533–4 onwards, however, there was a decline in the power of the amīr al-umarā, and a corresponding increase in that of the qurchībāshī, and under Isma'īl II and Muḥammad Khudābanda the qūrchībāshī became the most influential officer in the state. The wazīr was the head of the bureaucracy, and was traditionally the principal officer of state. Up to the time of 'Abbās I, however, his authority was restricted by the overriding authority of the wakīl, by the intervention of the amīr al-umarā in political affairs, by the existence of the ṣadr, who deprived him of the possibility of exercising general supervision over the religious institution, and by the predominantly military character of the early Ṣafawid state in general, which placed the ‘men of the pen’ at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the ‘men of the sword’. The ṣadr was the head of the religious institution, but since in practice the religious institution was subordinated to the political institution, the authority of the ṣadr was necessarily subordinated to that of the wakīl. The main function of the ṣadr was the imposition of doctrinal unity, namely Shi'ism, throughout the Ṣafawid empire. Once this object had been achieved, the power of the ṣadr declined, although from time to time the ṣadr made attempts (largely unsuccessful) to intervene in political matters.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 1964 , pp. 114 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1964

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References

1 See Tadhkirat al-mulūk, facsimile with translation and commentary by V. Minorsky (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, New Series, XVI), London, 1943, introduction, 24 (TM).

2 Lambton, A. K. S., ‘Quis custodiet custodes’, Studia Islamica, VI, 1956, 125Google Scholar.

3 Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and peasant in Persia, OUP, 1953, 107Google Scholar.

4 ibid., 107.

5 al-Ḥusaynī, Khwurshāh b. Qubād, Tārīkh-i īlchī-yi Niẓāmshāh (BM MS Add. 23513), f. 450b (TIN)Google Scholar.

6 Khwāndamīr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn b. Humām al-Dīn, Ḥabīb al-siyar (Bombay lithographed edition, 1273/1856–1857), III, 4, 38 (HS)Google Scholar.

7 A chronicle of the early Ṣafawīs, being the Aḥsanu't-tawārīkh of Ḥasan-i Rūmlū, I (Persian text), ed. Seddon, C. N., Baroda, 1931, 110 (AT)Google Scholar.

8 The governorship of Shīrāz had been granted by Isma'īl to Ilyās Beg Dhu 'l-Qadar (Kachal Beg) in 909/1503–4, as an ojaqliq (Bitlīsī, Sharaf al-Dīn, Sharafnāma (ed. Véliaminof-Zernof, ), St. Petersburg, 1860–1862, II, 136 (Shar.)Google Scholar), but Ilyās Beg had been executed the following year because of his oppressive rule (Sarwar, Ghulām, A history of Shāh Isma'īl Ṣafawī, Aligarh, 1939, 50 (GS)Google Scholar). The governorship of Shīrāz remained in the hands of his descendants for 50 years (Shar., II, 136), but Qādī Muḥammad must have taken advantage of the execution of Ilyās Beg to assume control of the province. Dickson, Martin B., Sháh Tahmásb and the Úzbeks (the duel for Khurásán with 'Ubayd Khán: 930–946/1524/1540), Princeton Ph.D. thesis, 1958, p. 11, n. 2 (Dickson)Google Scholar, points out that the Ḥabīb al-siyar does not mention the appointment of Qāḍī Muḥammad to these governorships, and that there must therefore be some doubt about this case.

9 Appointed wakīl-i nafs-i nafīs-i humāyūn in 913–14/1508; died 915/1509–10 (see HS, III, 4, 47; AT, 110).

10 The terms wālī, amīr, ḥākim, beglerbeg, etc., were used indifferently to denote a provincial governor during the early Ṣafawid period (see Dickson, p. 13, n. 1).

11 Jāmi'-i mufīdī, BM MS Or. 210, f. 127b–128a (JM).

12 JM, f. 128a.

13 AT, 11, 13.

14 cf. JM, f. 134a.

15 See Lambton, A. K. S., ‘Quis custodiet custodes’, Studia Islamica, VI, 1956, 139Google Scholar.

16 JM, f. 132 ff.

17 According to Professor Togan, this is the correct form of the name (see Dickson, p. 20, n. 3).

18 Khwāndamīr, Ghiyāth al-Dīn b. Humām al-Dīn, Tārīkh-i ḥabīb al-siyar, IV, Tehran, 1954–1955, 513–14 (HS, Tehran)Google Scholar.

19 AT, 115.

20 HS, Tehran, 507.

21 HS, Tehran, 576.

22 See below.

23 HS, Tehran, 576.

24 Aḥmad Beg Nūr Kamāl Iṣfahānī was named wazīr by the qizilbāsh to replace Khwāja Ḥabīb Allāh, after the latter had been murdered by the qizilbāsh (932/1526) (Dickson, 77).

25 Dickson, 140. See p. 140, n. 1, for the identity of this governor.

26 The same man who was formerly wazīr of Khurāsān during the governorship of Dūrmīsh Khān Shāmlū (see above). He was now the protégé of Ḥusayn Khān. He became ‘bureaucratic’ wakīl of the central administration in 938/1531–2, and was involved in Ḥusayn Khān's downfall in 940/1533–4. See AT, 244; TIN, f. 471a.

27 Clearly a provincial wakīl of the type mentioned below.

28 Qazwīnī, Budāq Munshī, Jawāhir al-akhbār, Leningrad MS Dorn 288, f. 302b (JA)Google Scholar. This is probably Ahmad Sulṭān Ṣūfī-oghlū Ustājlū, governor of Kirmān (JA, f. 299b).

29 Dickson, 189.

30 Dickson, 302.

31 JA, f. 307a. AT, 247, also refers to Khwāja Shāh Qulī as wazīr-i Mūsā Sulṭān. Khwāja Shāh Qulī had formerly been wazīr-i qūrchiyān. In addition to the provincial wazīrs, wazīrs existed at all levels of the Ṣafawid administrative system (see TM, index, s.v.). Under the later Ṣafawids each of the principal corps of the army (qūrchīs, ghulāms, tufangchīs, and tūpchīs), had its own wazīr (see TM, translation, 91; commentary, 142), and there are many references in the sources to the wazīr-i qūrchiyān under the early Ṣafawids.

32 JA, f. 310b.

33 JA, f. 315b. Āqā Kamālī is probably the Āqā Kamālī Kirmānī mentioned above as being wazīr at Kirmān. He died about 941/1535 (Dickson, 302).

34 The kalāntar was the overseer of the wards of a city, and also of the trade guilds (Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and peasant in Persia, 431Google Scholar). For details of his duties, see TM, 81, 148.

35 Probably Ibrāhīm Khān Dhu 'I-Qadar, dismissed by Ṭahmāsp in 962/1554 (AT, 391).

36 Haft iqlīm, I, fasc. 3, Calcutta, 1939, 278Google Scholar. Amīr Sayyid Sharīf Bāqī was the son of Amīr Sayyid Sharīf Thānī (Amīr Sayyid Sharīf al-Dīn 'Alī Shīrāzī), who was appointed ṣadr by Isma'īl I in 917/1511–12 and again in 918/1512–13.

37 And also mutawallī of the shrine at Mashhad (see Dickson, 241).

38 Dickson, appendix II, p. xlvi.

39 Dickson, appendix II, p. liii. This clashes with the statement of the Afḍal al-tawārīkh that Khwāja Rūḥ Allāh Iṣfahānī became wazīr of Khurāsān as well as of Gīlān in 975/1567–8.

40 JA, f. 327a.

41 JA, f. 327a.

42 JM, f. 138a.

43 Haft iqlīm, BM MS Add. 16734, f. 445b; on Biyābānak, see Frye, R. N., in Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., I, 1250Google Scholar.

44 Dūrmīsh Khān had been governor of Iṣsfahān since 909/1503–4, but had elected to remain at Court, and government was carried on by his wazīr, Mīrzā Shāh Ḥusayn Iṣfahānī (see Savory, R. M., in BS0AS, XXIII, 1, 1960, 97–8Google Scholar).

45 JA, f. 292b.

46 See AT, 244; TIN, f. 471a.

47 JA, f. 303b.

48 AT, 244.

49 JA, f. 312a.

50 AT, 375.

51 JA, f. 315a.

52 JA, f. 316a.

53 JA, f. 302b.

54 JA, f. 323b.

55 TIN, f. 471a.

56 AT, 189.

57 AT, 244.

58 See my article in BSOAS, XXIV, 1, 1961, 72 ffGoogle Scholar.

59 Shar., I, 418; TIN, f. 466b.

60 JA, f. 298b.

61 See my article in BS0AS, XXIV, 1, 1961, 77 ffGoogle Scholar.

62 For the various grades of dawātdār, see TM, translation, 63.

63 JA, f. 307a.

64 TIN, f. 471a.

65 AT, 485.

66 AT, 430.

67 Bellan, L-L., Chah 'Abbās I, Paris, 1932, 1Google Scholar.

68 AT, 485.

69 AT, 440.

70 JA, f. 333a.

71 TM (introduction), 32. ibid., p. 32, n. 2, states that ‘the true pronunciation must have been qorchi, in Mongolian, “an archer”, from qor, “a quiver”’. For the large number of specialist functions of the qūrchīs stationed at Court (cf. for example the qūrchiyān-i yarāq, or bearers of the Shāh's arms and equipment), see TM, commentary, 117–18, and text, 43a, 43b, 59b.

72 JA, f. 338b–339a.

73 JA, f. 339a.

74 AT, 286. The British Museum MS of the Aḥsan al-tawārīkh (Or. 4134), f. 110b, confirms the reading pādār. Cf. the use of the term pādarāna in Qājār times to denote ‘the sum paid month by month by a man whose name was entered in the list of those who formed the military contingent provided by a village to someone whom he sent as his substitute’ (Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and peasant, 436Google Scholar, s.v. pādarāneh. Qūrchībāshī-yi pādār might therefore denote an officer in charge of men raised locally in the provinces. Professor Minorsky has suggested that pādār may mean ‘permanent levy’. C. N. Seddon, in his translation of the Aḥsan al-tawārīkh, treats pādār as a proper name, but this is clearly impossible.

75 For 'ulūfa, see Minorsky, , ‘A soyūrghāl of Qāsim b. Jahāngīr Aq Qoyunlu (903/1498)’, BSOS, IX, 4, 1939, 948(j)Google Scholar; cf. Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and peasant, 442, s.vGoogle Scholar.

76 Sharafnāma of 'Abd Allāh Marwārīd, in Roemer, H. R., Staatsschreiben der Timuridenzeit, Wiesbaden, 1952, f. 7a (Marwārīd)Google Scholar.

77 Marwārīd, f. 19b.

78 TIN, f. 434b.

79 Maṭla'-i sa'dayn (ed. Shafī', Muḥammad), II, 2, 1173Google Scholar. Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Dawānī, the ṣadr in question, was the author of the well-known Akhlāq-i Jalālī, composed between A.D. 1467 and 1477.

80 TIN, f. 438a, has, I think wrongly, Masīḥ al-Dīn. Qāḍī Ṣafī al-Dīn 'Īsā was put to death on a charge of ilḥād c. 896/1490 by Ṣūfī Khalīl, the regent of Bāysunqur b. Ya'qūb (TIN, f. 439b).

81 Lambton, A. K. S. ‘Quis eustodiet custodes’, Studia Islamica, VI, 1956, 137Google Scholar.

82 Dickson, 15.

83 HS, III, 4, 98.

84 HS, III, 4, 82.

85 TIN, f. 462b.

86 HS, III, 4, 82.

87 TIN, f. 462a.

88 HS, III, 4, 95.

89 HS, III, 4, 96.

90 AT, 171.

91 HS, III, 4, 97.

92 The Tīmūrid Ẓahīr al-Dīn Bābur b. 'Umar Shaykh b. Abū Sa'īd attempted in 917/1511–12 to regain his Transoxanian dominions, from which he had been driven by Muḥammad Shībānī Khān. He appealed to Isma'īl for aid, and with the help of Ṣafawid troops he succeeded in capturing Samarqand in Rajab 917/October 1511 (GS, 66–7). In Ṣafar 918/May 1512 the Özbegs drove him out of Transoxania, and later in the same year he joined the Ṣafawid army, led by the wakīl Najm-i Thānī, in Khurāsān. The crushing defeat inflicted on the Ṣafawid army by the Özbegs at the battle of Ghujdūwan (3 Ramaḍān 918/12 November 1512) meant the end of Bābur's hopes of recovering Transoxania. During the next few years Bābur took advantage of Ṣafawid preoccupation with the Ottomans to seize various Ṣafawid possessions, in particular Balkh (923/1517–18), where he installed the Timūrid Muḥammad Zamān Mīrzā as governor (AT, 162, 167–8), and Qandahār (928/1522), where he installed his son Kāmrān Mīrzā as governor (AT, 169–70).

93 HS, III, 4, 99–100.

94 TIN, f. 479a.

95 AT, 269–70.

96 Shar., II, 210.

97 TIN, f. 465a.

98 Haft iqlīm (BM MS Add. 16734), f. 474a. This source mentions tw o other officials who at some stage in their career were appointed to the ṣadārat-i Gīlān (ibid., f. 474b).

99 Haft iqlīm, I, fasc. 3, Calcutta, 1939, 281Google Scholar.

100 Dickson, p. 365, n. 1.

101 See also Lambton, A. K. S., in Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., II, s.v. dārūghaGoogle Scholar.

102 Dickson, p. 13, n. 1.