Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt during the 

Sadat Years (New York: Palgrave, 2000); Raymond A. 

Hinnebusch,  Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-

Populist Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing 

State (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988); 

Anwar El Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography

(New York: Harper and Row, 1978).

Saddam Hussein

  See h

Usayn

, s

addam

.

Safavid dynasty

The Safavid dynasty ruled i

ran

 from 1501 to 

1722, and it was the first to institute Shii Islam as 

the official state religion. Although the founder of 

the Safavid dynasty was likely Safi ad-Din Ishaq 

(b. ca. 1252), head of a mysterious paramilitary 

Sufi order in Gilan called the Safawiyya, it was not 

until one of Safi ad-Din’s heirs, a 15-year-old boy 

named Ismail (d. 1524), defeated the rival tribes 

in i

ran

 and declared himself shah in 1501 that the 

Safavid dynasty was born.

Shah Ismail was a charismatic figure who 

proclaimed  t

Welve

-i

mam

  s

hiism

 the official state 

religion and declared a brutal 

Jihad

 against Sunni 

Islam both within his lands and in the neighboring 

Ottoman Empire. The young king was unmoved 

by arguments against the legitimacy of a Shii state 

in the absence of the Hidden Imam, simply declar-

ing himself to be the long-awaited m

ahdi

. Safavid 

extremism ended under Ismail’s successors, but the 

ideological and religious nature of the state he had 

founded continued throughout the Safavid era, so 

that s

hiism

 is to this day the state religion of Iran.

The Safavid state flourished for two centuries 

after Ismail’s death, reaching its zenith at the 

end of the 16th century under the reign of Shah 

Abbas I (r. 1587–1629). Abbas not only created 

a strong bureaucratic state backed by a power-

ful military force, but he also turned his capital, 

Isfahan, into one of the most prosperous and re-

splendent cities in the Middle East. Indeed, many 

of Islam’s greatest and most lasting contributions 

to architecture, the arts, and the sciences were de-

veloped in Isfahan under Safavid patronage.

By the beginning of the 18th century, however, 

a number of internal and external factors resulted 

in a massive decline in the state’s economy. Upris-

ings throughout Iran ultimately led to the destruc-

tion of the Safavid dynasty in 1722, but it was not 

until 1773 and the ascension of Nadir Shah as the 

first ruler of the Afsharid dynasty that the Safavid 

state ceased to exist.

See also q

aJar

 

dynasty

; s

UFism

; U

sUli

 s

chool

.

Reza Aslan