The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric (British Institute of Persian Studies) - Tapa dura

'Colin Mitchell's fine study shows what more there is to be learnt and understood of the workings of Safavid government and administration from a close reading of the sources, and especially the documents produced by the Safavid chancery. The author has successfully used this difficult material to show how Safavid ideology evolved, both for internal and external consumption, from the formative reigns of Shahs Isma'il and Tahmasp to the later maturity of the dynasty. The book is certainly a great and timely contribution to the study of the Safavid period.' --Professor Charles Melville, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge

'I wholeheartedly recommend this publication. Overall, I found this [book] to be fascinating... By subjecting key documents from the Safavid chancellery to analysis, through analyzing and taking seriously the language in those documents, the comparisons that the munshis make, their literary allusions, and much more, Mitchell is able to add significantly to our understanding of authority, political legitimacy, kingship and much more during the Safavid period. Mitchell's command of Persian is outstanding, and his analyses are truly insightful... I cannot stress strongly enough the unique and ground-breaking nature of this research.' --Professor Sholeh Quinn, Department of History, Ohio University

The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here Colin Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse which reflected the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. He focuses on the large corpus of epistles, letters and missives produced by a developed Safavid chancellery which show how the Safavids forged and negotiated their political and religious sovereignty in a diverse and complex environment. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, "The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran" is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics as well as the wider world of Middle East studies.