11 8. Karen Armstronggious establishment a new coercive power. During the last
two hundred years there had been a detente between Shiis
and Sunnis. For centuries, Twelver Shiism had been an eso-
teric, mystical sect, which had withdrawn from politics, be-
lieving that no government could be legitimate in the absence
of the Hidden Imam. How could there be a "state Shiism"?
Shah Ismail was not moved by this reasoning. He probably
knew very little about Twelver orthodoxy, since he sub-
scribed to the folk extremist ghuluww Shiism of the new
tariqahs, which believed that the messianic utopia was at hand.
He may even have told his followers that he was the Hidden
Imam, and had returned to fight the battles of the Last Days.
His jihad against Sunni Islam did not end in Iran. In 15 10 he
ousted the Sunni Uzbeks from Khurasan and pushed them
north of the Oxus; he also attacked the Sunni Ottomans, but
was defeated by Sultan Selim I at the Battle of Chaldiran in
- His attempt to quash the Sunnis outside his domains
failed, but Ismail's offensive within Iran was successful. By the
late seventeenth century most Iranians were solidly Shii, and
have remained so to the present day.
Shah Ismail established a military state, but relied heavily
on the civilians, who ran the administration. Like the old
Sassanid and Abbasid monarchs, the shah was called the
"Shadow of God on earth," but Safavid legitimacy was based
on Ismail's claim to be a descendant of the imams. It did not
take the Safavids long, however, to realize that their extremist
ideology, which had fired their revolutionary zeal in opposi-
tion, would not serve them well once they had become the es-
tablishment. Shah Abbas I (1588-1629) rid his bureaucracy of
those who held ghuluww views, imported Arab Shii ulama
from abroad to teach the people a more orthodox form of
Twelver Shiism, built madrasahs for them and gave them gen-
erous financial support. Under Abbas, the empire reached its
zenith. He achieved important territorial victories against the