The practice of politics in Safavid Iran : power, religion and rhetoric / Colin P. Mitchell.

"A joint publication with the British Institute of Persian Studies"

Includes bibliographical references (pages [203]-286) and index.

"The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in North-West Iran, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Perso-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Heart. During this golden era in Iran's history, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, fucntionaries of the Safavid 'state' introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse which reflected the social and religious heterogeneity of the sixteenth-century Iranian landscape. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah Abbas, Colin P. Mitchell elucidates the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric, and helps us understand how this dynasty articulated their political and religious sovereignty during a crucial phase of Iranian history."--BOOK JACKET.