Safavids Are Kings of Persia not “Azerbaijan”

Stealing Iranian Dynasties

Safavids Are Kings of Persia not “Azerbaijan”

Figure 25

Shah Esmail killing Uzbek leader Mohammad Sheibani in a battle near Merv, 1510

Turkish “scholars” have transgressed all limits of decency and their slime of shamelessness flowing in every direction has encroached upon all aspects of historic, cultural, religious and national properties of every ancient and existing civilization known to man, desecrating and distorting them all. Not surprisingly, the Iranian dynasties have been appropriated to justify the illegitimate presence of the Turks in lands both inside Iran, those under Persian rule and beyond.

Whenever the need arises to find an excuse for their illegal usurpation of other peoples’ territory, Sumerians, Assyrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Arameans, Manni, Mittani, Arrata, Urartu, Hurrians, Hittites, Elamite, Medians, Achaemenids, Parthians, Scythians, Aluanians, Egyptians, Etruscans, Lydians, Thracians, Phrygians, Greeks and what not become Turks as naturally as genetic “research” in Turkey and its phony extension “prove” beyond question that Kurds, Eskimos, Native Americans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayas, Martians, Saturnans, Jupiterians and heaven knows what, are all Turks.

Regarding Iran, apart from pre-Islamic Median, Achaemenid, Arsacid (Parthian) and Sassanid Iranian empires, they also claim those that were formed after the Turkic invasions from the 11th century onward. While the Seljuk, Mongol and Tatar devastators that came after the collapse of the caliphate, may be viewed as foreign rulers and occupiers, there’s no justification in usurping the Safavid, Afshar, Zand and Qajar kings and pretend they were Turkish, still more grotesquely the kings of “Azerbaijan”.

That the Safavids were shahs of Persia is indisputable and this fact has never given rise to the slightest atom of doubt in the minds of historians the world over. Yet the counterfeiters have gone to unknown realms of the irrational to weave the most illogical fables to somehow show that they were the emperors of a mighty “unified Azerbaijan” that existed long before the universe was created and stretched from one side of the Milky Way to the other end of a black hole zillions of light years away.

Iran in the time of Safavids was threatened by two ferocious Turkic dynasties: the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbek Sheibanis in the east. For almost three centuries of their reign the Safavids fought the Ottoman Tyranny and were even allies of Europe against the Turks. They firmly believed that they had the mission to restore the Persian Empire to its former glory, prior to Arab and Turkish invasions.

Shiism was introduced in Iran and forced on the people in the time of Shah Esmail for political purposes because of this animosity and the danger of both Sunni Turkic dynasties in the west and the east, mainly to prevent subversive Ottoman influence especially in already Turkish speaking Azarbaijan (the real).

Figure 26

Portrait of Shah Ismail (Reads: Ismael… Sophy… Rex... Per…)

Figure 27

Copper engraving by Dominicus Custos, from his Atrium heroicum Caesarum pub. 1600-1602

The inscriptions “Ismael… Sophy… Rex... Per…” on the Medieval European portrait of Shah Esmail and “Shach Abas Persarvm Rex (Sciac Appas Persiarvm Rex)” on the engraving done by Dominicus Custos do not leave a place for calling the Safavids kings of “Azerbaijan”. The text under the engraving praises Shah Abbas for his victories over the Ottomans and puts him in the hall of fame of great kings (Atrium of heroic Caesars) of history comparing Shah Abbas to Cyrus the Great of Persia.

In 1502, a very young Esmail defeated the Turkic Ak Koyunlu (white sheep) occupiers of Azarbaijan (the real), chose Tabriz as his capital and was declared King on 11 March 1502.

Shah Esmail (Ismail, Ismael), the founder of the dynasty was of Kurdish origin, practiced a Persian Sufi cult and believed he was a descendant of the kings of the Sassanid Empire (224-651 AD). He had to face Ottoman transgression at Chaldiran (1514) where the Turks occupied northwestern parts of Iran and the Caucasus until they were expelled by Shah Abbas the Great (R. 1587-1629) in 1603.

Shah Abbas changed the capital of Iran from Tabriz to the more centrally situated Isfahan in 1598 and undertook unprecedented construction, turning Isfahan into one of the most magnificent cities in the east. Many of these architectural wonders have survived and are among the most popular tourist attractions in Iran.

The flourishing of Persia in the Safavid era is significant both in the context of rendering Turkish claims void, and from a historic perspective regarding the fervent promotion and advance of Persian culture, art, architecture, literature and music.

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Here it should be mentioned that all the wars between the Ottomans and Safavids invariably took place on Armenian soil causing indescribable, endless suffering to Armenians who only happened to be under the rule of the two monarchies.

Ottoman historian Peçevi testifies “the army of the sultan set out to Erzerum and Kars via Dyarbekir in 1554. Upon arriving in Eastern Armenia, the conquering army razed all the prosperous villages to the ground. The frenzied victorious army annihilated cities and villages, houses and buildings to such degree that it horrified anybody who saw that. The Ottoman army enslaved young good looking boys, pretty girls and young women. There were no military tents without less than three of these boys and girls and the number of those tents where they took five or ten of them was countless”.

The pillages of the people whose land had become the battlefield of others went on the whole time. The kapikullari (Ottoman gendarmes = bandits) became the “rulers” of the land and mistreated the Armenians in every possible way they chose. Akdag, another Turkish historian writes, “According to the order issued by Yussuf Agha, his six Sipahi regiments had massacred the entire population of Ahiska around 1603”.

The forced deportation/immigration of Armenians in 1604 into Iran by Shah Abbas who, in order to cut the supplies, employed the policy of scorched lands in his war with the Ottomans, is yet another tragedy in the never ending chain of Armenian suffering.

However, unlike their genocidal subjugation under the Turks, the humane treatment of the Armenians in Iran and the fact they were allowed to build their own quarter near Isfahan that they called Nor Jugha (New Julfa) in memory of the original Jugha in Nakhijevan has healed the wounds and ever since their settlement, Armenians have become active participants in cultural, educational, industrial, political, economical, military, etc., matters, never sparing an effort in the advancement of their beloved Iran. In fact the migration of the Armenians served the double purpose of an impetus for the economic progress in the time of the Safavids: the entire import/export enterprise from Europe to India and China being entrusted to the industrious Armenian merchants.

Generally speaking, the Safavids and the successive dynasties were tolerant to friendly towards Armenians and not only those inside Iran. In eastern parts of Armenia that were under Iranian rule, they needed the Armenian sympathy for their empire, thus, for instance, according to the great Armenian historic novelist Raffi (1835-1888), Shah Abbass recognized the Armenian Meliks (Arabic for king(s)) of Karabakh (Artsakh), Nader Shah acknowledged the Melikdoms’ autonomy and Agha Mohammad Khan promised them greater authority.