Conclusion ••• 155the Shari'a. Thus, the Shi'i ulama became ever more powerful, especially
in modern times. Shah Abbas, troubled early in his reign by the kizilbash,
suspected anyone else who had power. This included his own sons, all of
whom he had blinded or put to death, and thus his ultimate successor was
a weak grandson. The later Safavids continued Abbas's policy of putting
more and more land under state control at the expense of the kizilbash
chieftains. They may have needed money to pay the ghulams, but the
Safavids took so much land that they impoverished the countryside. Like
the devshirme groups in the Ottoman Empire, the ghulams kept increasing
their numbers and internal power—though not their strength as a fight¬
ing force—until they could manipulate and strangle the Safavid dynasty.
The Aftermath of the Safavids
By the eighteenth century, Safavid Persia was ripe for the plucking, but
most of its imperial neighbors were equally decadent. In 1722, however, a
group of tribal Afghans seized Isfahan, and the Safavids took to the hills of
Azerbaijan, their first home. The Ottoman Empire, breaking a ninety-year
truce, invaded the region. No match for the janissaries on the field, the
Afghans skillfully sapped the loyalty of the Ottoman auxiliaries and negoti¬
ated a peace, ceding large areas of western Persia. This appalled the Persian
people. Under the inspiring leadership of a warrior named Nader Afshar,
Persian and Turkish tribes united to drive out the Afghan usurpers and
then, more gradually, the dissolute Safavids. The victorious leader crowned
himself Nader Shah in 1736. His reign was traditional Persia's "last hurrah."
Within a decade he had driven back the Ottomans and taken most of India.
He might have become a world conqueror had he not tried to convert the
Persians from Shi'i to Sunni Islam, thus weakening his domestic support.
Upon his assassination in 1747, Nader Shah's empire collapsed. Successive
minor dynasties led Persia into 160 years of political breakdown and social
decay from which it would be slow to recover.
CONCLUSIONIn this chapter, or perhaps earlier, you may have seen a pattern in the rise
and fall of dynastic states. An area is divided among many states or no¬
madic tribes. In its midst a ruler emerges with a mission, usually related in
some way to Islam, that inspires his followers to do great deeds and to mo¬
bilize others like themselves to overcome rival states. The conquerors lower
taxes or improve public order, thus gaining peasant favor, increasing food