A year or two later circumstances were favourable for the long-projected attempt to recover the provinces wrested Successful war against the Ottoman Turks. from Persia by the Turks during the inter­regnum which succeeded the death of Ṭahmásp. The reign of the feeble Muḥammad III was approaching its end, and Turkey was weakened by a pro­longed war with Austria and by the so-called Jalálí * revolt in Asia Minor when Sháh 'Abbás opened his campaign in 1010/1601-2. Tabríz was retaken “with cannon, an engine of long-time by the Persians scorned as not beseeming valiant men,” in 1012/1603-4, and two years later the celebrated Turkish general Chighála-záda Sinán Páshá (“Cicala”) was defeated near Salmás and compelled to retreat to Ván and Diyár Bakr, where he died of chagrin. Baghdád and Shírwán were recaptured by the Persians about the same time, but the former changed hands more than once during the reign of Sháh 'Abbás, and the occasion of its recapture from the Turks in A.D. 1625 gave rise to an interchange of verses between Ḥáfiẓ Páshá and Sulṭán Murád IV which has attained a certain celebrity in Turkish literary history.*

No coherent and critical account of these wars between the Persians on the one hand and the Turks, Uzbeks and Wearisome accounts of these wars in Persian histories of the period. Georgians on the other has yet, so far as I know, been written, but the materials are ample, should any historian acquainted with Persian and Turkish desire to undertake the task. The enormous preponderance of the military element in such contemporary chronicles as the Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí makes them very dull and arduous reading to anyone not specially interested in military matters; even from the point of view of military history they are vitiated by overwhelming masses of trivial details and the absence of any breadth of view or clearness of outline. Many matters on which we should most desire information are completely ignored, and it is only here and there incidentally that we find passages throwing light on the religious and social conditions of the time. Of the recapture of the Island of Hurmuz in the Persian Gulf from the Portuguese in March, 1622, by a combined Anglo-Persian force we have naturally very detailed contemporary English accounts.

Allusion has already been made in the introductory chapter * to the splendour and prosperity of Iṣfahán under Character and institutions of Sháh 'Abbás. Sháh 'Abbás, and to the number of foreigners, diplomatists, merchants and missionaries, which his tolerant attitude towards non-Muslims brought thither. These and other similar matters are very fully discussed in the first volume of the great monograph on his reign entitled Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí, half of which consists of an Introduction (Muqaddama) comprising twelve Discourses (Maqála). The first of these, dealing with his ancestors and predecessors, is much the longest, and in my manuscript occupies about two hundred pages; the others, though much shorter, often occupying only a page or two, are more original, and deal with such matters as the religious devotion of Sháh 'Abbás; his wise judge­ment and wide knowledge; his worthiness to be regarded as a Ṣáḥib-Qirán, or “Lord of a fortunate Conjunction”; his miraculous preservation on several occasions from im­minent peril; his wise administration and care for public security; his inflexible severity; his pious foundations and charitable bequests; his wars and victories; his birth and childhood; and an account of the most eminent nobles, divines, ministers, physicians, calligraphers, painters, illumi­nators, poets and minstrels of his reign. Speaking of his His inflexible severity. severity (Maqála vi) the author, Iskandar Mun-shí, says that no one dared to delay one moment in the execution of any order given him by the King: “for instance, should he command a father to kill his son, the sentence would be carried out immediately, even as the decree of destiny; or should the father, moved by parental tenderness, make any delay, the command would be reversed; and should the son then temporize, another would slay both. By such awful severity the exe­cution of his commands attained the supreme degree of efficiency, and none dared hesitate for an instant in the fulfilment of the sentence inevitable as fate.” He also Attendance at executions made compulsory. compelled his officers, on pain of death, to be present at all executions; held each provincial governor and local magistrate responsible for the security of the roads in his district; and punished falsehood with such severity that it was generally believed that if anyone ventured to lie to him, he was informed of it from the Spirit World. Yet at other times he would be very friendly and unassuming in his intercourse with his courtiers and attendants, careful of their rights and just Sháh 'Abbás mingles affa­bility with severity. claims, and ready to overlook accidental and involuntary shortcomings. Though not averse from the banquet and the wine-bout, he was greatly concerned to be correctly informed as to the circumstances of the neighbouring kings and countries, and devoted much attention to the development of his Intelligence Department. He was also something of a linguist, and not only appreciated but occasionally composed poetry.

Amongst the towns and districts which benefited most from his munificence were, besides his capital Iṣfahán, Mash- Towns specially favoured by him. had and its holy shrine of the eighth Imám 'Alí Riḍá, which, as we have seen, he rescued from the savage and fanatical Uzbeks and raised to a position of the greatest glory and honour; Ardabíl, the original home of his family; Qazwín, the earlier capital of the Ṣafawís; Káshán, near which he constructed the celebrated dam known as the Band-i-Quhrúd; * Astarábád; Tabríz; Hamadán; and the province of Mázandarán, one of his favourite resorts, which he adorned with several splendid palaces and the great causeway extending from Astarábád to Ashraf, of which full particulars are given in Lord Curzon's great work on Persia. * As regards his con- His conquests. quests, his armies reached Merv, Nisá, Abíward, Andakhúd and even Balkh in the north-east, and Nakhjuwán, Erivan, Ganja, Tiflís, Darband and Bákú in the north-west.

No useful purpose would be served by enumerating here all the notable persons in each class mentioned by Iskandar Notable person­ages of his reign. Munshí, who wrote, as he repeatedly mentions in the course of his work, in 1025/1616, but the most important are, amongst the divines and men of learning, Mír Muḥammad Dámád and Shaykh Calligraphists. Bahá'u'd-Dín 'Ámilí; amongst the calligraphists, Mawláná Isḥáq Siyáwushání, Muḥammad Ḥu-sayn-i-Tabrízí, Mír Mu'izz-i-Káshí, Mír Ṣadru'd-Dín Mu- Artists. ḥammad, and others; amongst the artists and miniature painters, Muẓaffar 'Alí, Zaynu'l-'Ábi­dín, Ṣádiq Beg, 'Abdu'l-Jabbár, and others; amongst the Poets. poets, Ḍamírí, Muḥtasham, Walí, Waḥshí, Khwája Ḥusayn, Mír Ḥaydar Mu'amma'í, the brothers Ṭayfúr and Dá'í, Wálih and Malik of Qum, Ḥátim of Káshán, Ṣabrí Rúzbihání, Ḥisábí, the Qáḍí Núr-i-Iṣfahání, Ḥálatí, Halákí, Maẓharí of Cashmere, and the Qazwínís Furúghí, Tabkhí, Sulṭánu'l-Fuqará, Ká'ká and Sharmí;

Musicians, etc. and amongst the singers and minstrels, * Ḥáfiẓ Aḥmad-i-Qazwíní, Ḥáfiẓ Jalájil-i-Bákharzí, Ḥá-fiẓ Muẓaffar-i-Qumí, Ḥáfiẓ Háshim-i-Qazwíní, Mírzá Mu-ḥammad Kamáncha'í, Ustád Muḥammad Mú'min, Ustád Shahsuwár-i-Chahár-tárí, Ustád Shams-i-Shaypúrghú'í-i-Warámíní, Ustád Ma'ṣum Kamáncha'í, Ustád Sulṭán Mu-ḥammad Ṭanbúra'í, Mírzá Ḥusayn Ṭanbúra'í, Ustád Sulṭán Muḥammad-i-Changí, and the Qiṣṣa-khwáns (story-tellers) and Sháhnáma-khwáns (reciters of the ‘Epic of Kings’), Ḥaydar, Muḥammad Khursand and Fatḥí, of whom the two last were brothers and natives of Iṣfahán. It is because the fame of the singers, minstrels and musicians who constitute this last class is in its nature so ephemeral that I have enumerated them in full, as indicating what forms of musical talent were popular at the court of Sháh 'Abbás.