The rise of the Ṣafawí dynasty in Persia at the beginning of the sixteenth century of the Christian era was an event Historical im­portance of the Ṣafawí dynasty. of the greatest historical importance, not only to Persia herself and her immediate neighbours, but to Europe generally. It marks not only the restoration of the Persian Empire and the re-creation of the Persian nationality after an eclipse of more than eight centuries and a half, but the entrance of Persia into the comity of nations and the genesis of political relations which still to a considerable extent hold good. Mr R. G. Watson in the brief retrospect with which he opens his excellent History of Persia from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century to the year 1858 * shows a true appreciation of the facts when he takes this period as his starting-point, for in truth it marks the transition from mediaeval to comparatively modern times. The Arab conquest in the middle of the seventh century after Christ overthrew the Zoroastrian re­ligion and the Sásánian Empire, and reduced Persia to the position of a mere province of the Caliphate, until the Caliphate itself was destroyed by the Mongols or Tartars in the middle of the thirteenth century. Both before and after this momentous event there were, it is true, independent or quasi-independent dynasties ruling in Persia, but these were generally of Turkish or Tartar origin, like the Ghaz-nawís, Saljúqs, Khwárazmsháhs, and Houses of Chingíz and Tímúr; or, if Persian like the Buwayhids, exercised control over a portion only of the old Persian Empire. To the Ṣafawí dynasty belongs the credit of making Persia “a nation once again,” self-contained, centripetal, powerful and respected, within borders practically identical in the time of Sháh 'Abbás the Great (A.D. 1587-1628) with those of the Sásánian Empire. It was then that Iṣfahán, whither he transferred the seat of government from Qazwín, became, as the Persian saying runs, “Half the world” (Niṣf-i-Jahán), or “Medio mundo” as Don Juan of Persia has it, abounding in splendid buildings and skilful craftsmen, frequented by merchants from distant lands, and visited by diplomatic missions, not only from India, Transoxiana and Turkey, but from almost every European state from Russia to Spain and Portugal.

Yet, in spite of its importance and the abundant materials available, no good complete history * of the Ṣafawí dynasty Lack of a satis­factory complete history of the dynasty. has yet been written. The outlines given by Sir John Malcolm and Sir Clements Markham in their histories of Persia are inadequate in scope and inaccurate in detail, and are based on very limited materials, and those not by any means the most authentic. The abundance and variety of the materials, the inaccessibility of many important sources of information, and the polyglot character of the documents concerned constitute serious obstacles to one who aspires to treat Four important unpublished Persian sources. adequately of this period. The four most im­portant contemporary Persian records of its earlier portion, down to the death of Sháh 'Abbás the Great, are the Ṣafwatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, containing the biography of Shaykh Ṣafiyyu'd-Dín, that celebrated saint of the thirteenth century from whom the dynasty derives its name; the Nasab-náma-i-Silsila-i-Ṣafawiyya on the genealogy of the family, with valuable biographical details of its earlier representatives not to be found elsewhere; the Aḥsanu't-Tawáríkh, completed in A.D. 1577, only about a year after the death of Sháh Ṭahmásp, whose reign together with that of his father and predecessor Sháh Isma'íl, the founder of the dynasty, it records; and the Ta'ríkh-i-'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí , an immense monograph on the reign of Sháh 'Abbás the Great. Not one of these has been published, * much less translated, and all except the last are very rare even in manuscript. Of the Nasab-náma and the 'Álam-ára I am fortunate enough to possess copies which formerly belonged to the late Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler, while the incomparable generosity of Mr A. G. Ellis placed at my disposal manuscripts of the two other histories mentioned Untrust­worthiness of later Persian compilations. above. And though the authors of later general histories in Persian, such as Riḍá-qulí Khán in his supplement to Mírkhwánd's Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, have made use of some of these works, they too often not merely abridge but grievously distort the passages they cite.

Of such wanton distortion the following is a good instance. In July, A.D. 1599, Sháh 'Abbás the Great sent to Europe A flagrant example of perverted history. a mission accredited to the Courts of Russia Poland, Germany, France, Spain, England and Scotland, and to the Pope of Rome and the Seniory of Venice. This mission included Ḥusayn 'Alí Beg * as Persian Envoy, with four Persian gentlemen or “knights” (caballeros, as they are called in Don Juan of Persia's narrative), fifteen Persian servants, the celebrated Sir Anthony Sherley with fifteen English attendants, two Portuguese friars, and five interpreters. Travelling by way of the Caspian Sea and the Volga, they first visited Moscow, where they remained for five or six months; thence through Germany to Italy, where they were not permitted to go to Venice for fear of offending an Ottoman envoy who happened to be there at the time, but were well received at Rome, where they arrived in April, 1601, and remained for two months. Thence they proceeded by ship from Genoa to the south of France and so to Spain, where three of the four “Persian knights” adopted the Catholic faith and took the names of Don Philippe, Don Diego and Don Juan of Persia.

Sir Anthony Sherley, whose relations with his Persian colleague had from the first been very strained, separated “Don Juan of Persia.” himself from the mission at Rome, but up to that point the independent accounts written by himself and some of his companions * enable us to check Don Juan's narrative. Don Juan, however, having apostasized from Islám, dared not return to Persia to meet the fate of a renegade, so that for the tragic sequel we must turn to the Persian historians. In the 'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí under the year 1022/1613-4 * we find an account of the arrival at Iṣfahán of ambassadors from the King of Spain, accompanied by several Christian priests and a Persian envoy returning from Europe. * The latter, who had incurred the Sháh's displeasure, was incontinently put to death in the most cruel manner, without being permitted any op­portunity for explanation or apology; and the Sháh then explained to the Spaniards that he had dealt thus with him because of sundry treasonable and disrespectful acts of which he had been guilty during his mission, such as opening letters sealed with the royal seal and making known their contents; wearing mourning on the occasion of the Queen of Spain's death; and selling the credentials to the Pope with which he had been provided to a merchant who should impersonate him and derive what profit he could from the transaction. “But,” the Sháh concluded, “the chief of his faults and the chief reason for his punishment was that he behaved so ill towards the attendants who accompanied him, and vexed them so much, that several of them adopted the Christian faith and remained in Europe in order to escape from his tyranny, so that zeal for Islám required his punish­ment, and thus he received his deserts.”

Turning now to Riḍá-qulí Khán's supplement to the Rawḍatu'ṣ-Ṣafá, a general history of Persia compiled about A.D. 1858, we find an account of the same event obviously copied, with very slight modifications, from the 'Álam-árá-yi-'Abbásí , but with one important and most wanton altera­tion, for Sháh 'Abbás is there represented as saying that the chief of his ambassador's faults was that several persons were disposed to embrace Islám and come to Persia, but the Persian envoy treated them so ill that they repented of their intention, returned to the Christian faith, and remained in that country. For this deliberate falsification of history I can only account by supposing that Riḍá-qulí Khán did not wish to encourage the idea that a Persian Muslim could possibly become a Christian; but the moral I wish to draw is that the later Persian historians must be used with great caution, and that every statement should, where possible, be traced to contemporary records.