The State
Mazaher Ziaei
Abstract
Extended AbstractIntroductionInvestigating how the Safavid state emerged and flourished in today’s Iran territory is very useful for understanding Iran's history and current situation. Interpreting states' evolution over time requires a theory that considers the dynamics of the internal relations ...
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Extended AbstractIntroductionInvestigating how the Safavid state emerged and flourished in today’s Iran territory is very useful for understanding Iran's history and current situation. Interpreting states' evolution over time requires a theory that considers the dynamics of the internal relations of individuals in the government organization and the mutual effects the society in the economic, political, and social fields over time. A look at the mass of studies about the Safavids shows that despite the many efforts made, there are still many differences of opinion about the causes of the emergence, peak, and decline of the Safavid era. It is expected that the use of more comprehensive theories in interpreting state developments will contribute to the coherence of interpretations of common understanding in this field.Recently, three experts centered on Douglas North, the joint winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics, have presented a conceptual framework for development, which they claim can be used to interpret and analyze the written history of mankind and the relationship between historical developments and development.BackgroundThe North et al. conceptual framework attracted the attention of Iranian researchers and it has been used in the research (Ziaei, 1402) to interpret the developments of the Sasanian state from the beginning to its fall, and in (Qarakhani et al. 1400) for the Pahlavi state. One research, with the same theoretical framework was conducted by (Ostad and Heydari 1400) for the Safavids, although its title seems to include the entire Safavid period, its purpose is to investigate the causes of the downfall of the Safavids. Also, in the theoretical framework of North et al., the changes in the government are the changes in the coalition, which can be analyzed by the principle of double balance, as described in the theoretical part, but in this research, this capacity is neglected and in some cases, the concepts of other theoretical frameworks are used.GoalThe aim of this is to use the conceptual framework of the "natural state" to provide a new interpretation of the progress of Safavid dynasty from the beginning to the end of Shah Abbas I's reign, which is expected to be more comprehensive and coherent than the existing interpretations.MethodologyThe period from the Safavid sect era to Abbas I is divided into seven periods.From endowment management to country government (1300-1499)From the coalition of warriors to the government of an empire (1514-1499)The containment of Qazalbashan by the break down Ismail (1514-1524)War of the elders in the presence of the child king (1524-1533)Stable and durable coalition (1576-1533)Civil war and shaky alliances (1576-1589)The perfect coalition (1629-1589)For each period, at first, the related part of the theoretical framework is presented, then state evolution is interpreted according to the combination of the coalition’s members, their relative political power, and environmental conditions.FindingsThe results show that the initial coalition of the Safavid state, which was formed by the absolute dominance of the Shah and the strong role of the Qizelbashs and Sufis, with some ups and downs reached its peak during the period of Abbas I. This coalition includes the king, wardens, governors of kingdoms and Khalsa states, pastoral and professional soldiers, jurisconsult, bureaucrats, courtiers, and on its margins were merchants, architects, doctors, and some other elites. The geographical size of the Safavid state during the last conquests of Ismail I and the time of the death of Abbas I did not differ much, and except for around the beginning of the kingdom of Abbas I, it had little fluctuations during this period.The characteristics of the Safavid coalition are: 1) The axis of this coalition was a dynasty with a long history was urban, with a religious attraction among the society and especially acceptance among the military of the alliance. It had economic, political facilities and military command experience. This family was always above all, more or less the manifestation of the hopes of the members, the arbiter and the speaker of the conflicts and the controller of all the members of the coalition. In other words, the axis of the coalition was often "people of religion", "people of the sword", "people of the pen" and "people of economic accounting" at the same time.2) Although the military force always played an important role in the coalition, it was fragmented and as a result, one of them couldn't dominate the entire coalition. They were basically the defenders of the coalition and they competed to the extent that the coalition would not fall apart.3) The composition of the members, their role and power were such that it provided various military and economic rents to the coalition and to some extent provided the growth of some economic activities. The whole coalition and especially its axis, unlike most of the great Mongol and Turkish empires, was not alien to agriculture, urban life and trade, but promoted trade and urbanization.ConclusionAccording to the theory of "natural state" by North et al. the relation of the Safavid coalition to the development of Iran It can said:- The Safavid state was not an absolute European state or a national state, but the rule of a single government over the current territory of Iran for more than two hundred years accelerated and facilitated the achievement of a centralized state in the following years.- The role of religion in this coalition has been much more complicated than in Europe, and it seems that each of the different points of view in this field has only dealt with a part of these complexities.- From an organizational point of view, no organization was formed outside the state, but the juris consults had an organization parallel to the state to some extent- In terms of the government's support for organizations outside the government, it can be said that no organization of this kind was formed, but the scholars recently had an organization that was somewhat parallel to the government.- The dominance of the militaries, especially nomads, in the coalition and the consecration of officials and individuals caused the discussion on the powers of the coalition members, especially the restrictions on the king's powers, to not lead to official and written agreements like what happened in Europe.
The State
Mazaher Ziaei
Abstract
Background and ContextNumerous studies have indicated that the state instability existence in past of countries has not only delayed their development but also influenced their current level of development. The study of political instability in the Eurasian region during the agricultural era (3000 BC ...
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Background and ContextNumerous studies have indicated that the state instability existence in past of countries has not only delayed their development but also influenced their current level of development. The study of political instability in the Eurasian region during the agricultural era (3000 BC to 1600 AD) encompasses a significant portion of the history and the contemporary world geography. It can serve as a basis for examining political instability in the history of Iran. Many scholars have considered the proximity to the Central Asian nomadic societies as one of the factors contributing to instability in Eurasian countries. Some of them argue that the history of these tribes' interactions with neighboring regions forms the core of Eurasian history. There are also a limited number of quantitative studies that have encompassed various aspects of these tribes impacts on neighboring communities. There have been numerous studies on the effects of these tribes on Iran as well, but none of them have covered this temporal and geographical scope.Objective of the ResearchThe main objective of this research is to investigate political instability in Eurasia, particularly in Iran, during the agricultural era. It focuses on the Central Asian nomadic influence tribes on the creation of political instability in Eurasia. The research utilizes this framework of interactions and gathered information to periodize political instability in the history of Iran.Research MethodologyIn this study, political instability is perceived as a low average lifespan of states and a high coefficient of variations (standard deviation-to-mean ratio). The study considers Continental Eurasia (including Europe and Asia, excluding their islands) as the studied region and the agricultural era 3000 BC to 1600 AD as the studied period. To assess the timing and extent of Central Asian tribes' influence on political instability in Eurasian states, a total of 432 Eurasian states in the study period were identified. Subsequently, the time and extent of Central Asian tribes' impact on political instability were examined by applying three categorizations to these states: 1) Regional categorization based on the importance of the region each government could have for Central Asian tribes, dividing into Central Asia, unimportant region, less important region, and highly important region. 2) Since the period of significant influence of these tribes on Eurasian developments occurred between 500 BC and 1600 AD, states that existed before 500 BC were classified as belonging to the first period, while others belonged to the second period. 3) By combining the previous two categorizations, the states were grouped into four categories: (I)Central Asian states, (II)unattractive states, (III)low unattractive states, and (IV) highly unattractive states.Descriptive analysis, Two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (KS2), and categorical regression were used for data analysis and inference.FindingsThe findings regarding regional categorization show the significant differences in the lifespan of states among regions. The average lifespan of states in unimportant regions is more than 3.5 times that of highly important regions, and the coefficient of variation for highly important regions is higher than for other regions. Regression results confirm the model and regression coefficients validity, indicating that this four-group categorization explains 29% of the variations among states.Statistical analysis demonstrates a significant difference in the mean lifespan of states between these two periods. Specifically, the average lifespan of states in the first period in the Region Two, a significant region, is nearly eight times higher than the states in second period of that region. Additionally, the lifespan of states, particularly in Iran, has decreased during the agricultural era.These analyses also reveal significant differences in the average lifespan of states within the categorized groups, with coefficient determination of 0.429. The mentioned item indicates that this model accounts for a significant portion of the variations in the lifespan of the examined states.Moreover, Iran's status in terms of the number, average lifespan, and coefficient of variation of states is examined within different groupings, and the KS2 test confirms that Iran's belonging to specific groups and the irconcordance lack of other groups, except for its concordance with Central Asia.Several supplementary studies on Chinese history, the timing of the beginning and end of the agricultural era, and the period of Central Asian tribes' influence provide further support for the stability of the results.ConclusionThe statistical analysis results show an inverse relationship between the average states lifespan and the level of threat from Central Asia in various categories of states. Evidently, the agricultural-era states' political instability was significantly affected by the invasions of Central Asian tribes. The four-group categorization explains approximately 43% of the variation in states’ lifespans. Notably, this level of explanation is achieved with only four categorical variables.Regarding Iran, the findings indicate that the political instability of Iranian agricultural-era states was also influenced by interactions with Central Asian tribes. The periodization of Iranian history can be established as mentioned bellow:(up to 600), (600 to 1000), (1000 to 1250), and (1250 onwards), with distinct events in the second period onwards attributed to Central Asian tribes, such as the emergence of the Seljuks and the Mongol invasions. The results demonstrate that political instability in Iran was higher than the average for other regions, with an average government lifespan of 90 years during the fourth period, which lasted for approximately 550 years, slightly exceeding the average lifespan of a human today.
