Dissertation

Politics and trade in late Safavid Iran: Commercial crisis and government reaction under Shah Solayman (1666-1694)

Matthee, Rudolph P

1991

Overview

This dissertation is concerned with the interaction between politics and trade in late Safavid Iran. It explores government reactions to the economic crisis that occurred in the reign of Shah Solayman (1666-1694). The dissertation's argument is informed by the conviction that Safavid commercial policy can be properly analyzed only if Iran is not viewed as a self-contained unit. The study thus views Safavid Iran as an early modern state embedded in a commercial network stretching from the Levant and the emerging Russian state to Mughal India. An introductory discussion reviews the political and economic underpinnings of late Safavid Iran. Safavid society is viewed as an arena of conflict between centrifugal and centripetal forces, in which environmental obstacles and fissiparous political tendencies were balanced by unifying social, political and ideological elements. Chapter two identifies the forces that caused the breakdown of this balance in the seventeenth century. The fragility of Safavid society is brought out in the chapters on government reactions to the economic crisis that began to paralyze its functioning after 1650. The career and reforms of the grand vazir Shaykh 'Ali Khan are the focus of chapter three. His policies are further discussed in two chapters on monetary issues. One considers the measures taken to prevent the perpetual currency flight to India. The other deals with the steady worsening of the country's currency and the role of the government in this development. The dissertation's main conclusion is that, in the absence of an economic policy beyond the short-term one of maximizing fiscal revenue, the state was incapable of taking adequate measures to reverse the economic crisis. As the final chapter points out, however, the dimensions of this crisis need to be evaluated carefully. That some commercial links withered while others endured suggests that decline was all but unilinear.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Economic history / Middle Eastern history
• ISBN: 9798207275321