| This study operates from the understanding that diplomacy between 1501 and 1555 can shed light on not only political, but religious and administrative features of the ruling Iranian dynasty, the Safavids (1501--1722). Carving out a dynastic presence in the fractured post-Timurid context of sixteenth-century Iran was no small feat, but by 1555 Shah Isma'il (r. 1501--1524) and his successor, Shah T&dotbelow;ahmasp (r. 1524--1576) had indeed established a Perso-Islamic empire of significant proportions. This early transitional period of the Safavids has drawn considerable attention in scholarship, principally on account of the fact that Shah Isma'il and Shah T&dotbelow;ahmasp successfully implemented and promulgated their fledgling empire as a Twelver Shi'ite state. Moreover, there has been extensive debate regarding the Safavids' militant s&dotbelow;ufi orientation, and how Shah Ismail and Shah T&dotbelow;ahmasp were able to bridge the gap between the millenarian nomadism of their ancestors and an imperial ethos founded on systematized bureaucracy and administration.; This thesis examines diplomacy, and specifically the imperial correspondence associated with it, in an attempt to understand more about this critical fledgling period of premodern Iranian history. The ambassadorial retinues sent abroad to various sunni and shi'ite Muslim polities, and the diplomatic correspondence they carried with them, fluctuated greatly in character and purpose in this dynamic period of 1501--1555. The sixteenth century sunni Muslim world---typified in the surrounding, contemporary Ottoman, Uzbek, and Mughal empires---was predictably uncomfortable with the appearance of a formal Twelver Shi'ite state in their midst. While this study acknowledges the role sunni-shi'ite rivalry played in Safavid diplomatic policies and the formulation of ambassadorial missives, it is nonetheless directed towards understanding how diplomacy and the Safavid chancellery's writing of correspondence can tell us more about the internal developments taking place politically, administratively, and religiously in early sixteenth-century Iran. |
