Minorities of Isfahan: The Armenian Community of Isfahan 1587–1722

Abstract

In their “recreation of the Persian nationality” and their proclamation of Shiᶜite Islam as the official state religion of Persia, the Safavids performed a crucial historical role. They formalized, institutionalized, intensified and politicized the Sunni-Shiᶜite doctrinal and regional schism within the Islamic world. Coming in the wake of the four centuries of Turko-Mongol invasions which had already helped to “harden the division of the Muslim lands into separate Arabic, Persian and Turkish regions between which literary communication was confined to the restricted circles of the educated,“ the triumph of the Shiᶜite revolution in Persia formalized the division of Islamic Asia into three major Muslim political entities: Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal. Safavid Persia drove wedges between the Sunni Ottoman empire, the Mughal empire and Central Asia. Safavid and shicite Persia, however, was not a monolith. It was an ethnic, linguistic, and religious mosaic.

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