The closest historical parallel to the Ṣafawí movement is, I think, afforded by the propaganda in favour of the Parallel between Ṣafawí and 'Abbásid propaganda. 'Abbásids carried on by Abú Muslim in Persia with so great a success in the first half of the eighth century of our era. Both were consciously religious and only unconsciously, though none the less truly, racial; the chief difference was that the later movement had to confront in the person of the Ottoman Sulṭán Salím a far more energetic and formidable antagonist than the earlier in the Umayyad Caliph Marwán, and hence its more limited success; for while the 'Abbásid cause triumphed throughout almost the whole of the Eastern lands of Islám, the Ṣafawí triumph was limited to Persia,

Why the Turco­Persian quarrel became so embittered at this time. though without doubt at one time it threatened Turkey as well. Fear is the great incentive to cruelty, and it was chiefly fear which caused Sulṭán Salím to massacre in cold blood some forty thousand of his Shí'a subjects. Fear, however, was not the only motive of this ferocity; with it were mingled anger and disappointment. For Sulṭán Salím was what is now called a Pan-Islamist, and his ambition was to be not merely the Sovereign of the greatest and most powerful Muhammadan State, but the supreme head of the whole Muslim world. His conquest of Egypt and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madína in A.D. 1517, and his assumption of the title of Caliph, which, whether by threats or promises, or a combination of the two, he induced the last titular 'Abbásid Caliph to surrender to him, might well have given him this position but for Sháh Isma'íl and the barrier of heterodoxy which he had erected between the Turks, Egyptians and other Sunnís to the West and their fellow-believers to the East in Transoxiana, Afghánistán, Balúchi-stán and India. The Persians not only refused to recognise Sulṭán Salím as Caliph, but repudiated the whole theory of the Caliphate. The Turkish victory over the Persians at Cháldirán in August, 1514, failed of its results owing to the refusal of the Ottoman troops to push home their advantage, and thus robbed the succeeding Egyptian campaign of its full measure of success, and left a lasting soreness which served greatly to weaken the political power of Islám and to impose a check on Turkish ambitions whereby, as we have seen, Europe greatly profited. Between A.D. 1508, when it was taken by the Persians, and A.D. 1638, when it was finally recovered by the Turks, Baghdád, once the metropolis of Islám, changed hands many times as the tide of these bitter and interminable wars ebbed and flowed, until the increasing weakness and effeminacy of the later Ṣafawí kings left Turkey in undisputed possession of Mesopotamia.