User:Amir Ghandi/Abbas II of Persia
Shah of Iran / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abbas II (Persian: عباس دوم, romanized: ʿAbbās II; 30 August 1632 – 26 October 1666; born Soltan Mohammad Mirza) was the seventh Shah of Safavid Iran from 1642 to 1666. As the eldest son of Safi and his Circassian wife, Anna Khanum, he ascended the throne when he was nine-year-old, and was placed on a regency led by Saru Taqi, the erstwhile grand vizier of his father. During his regency, Abbas received formal kingly education that until then, he was denied from. In 1645, at the age of fifteen, he was able to remove Saru Taqi from power, and with a purge of the bureaucracy ranks in following, asserted his authority over court and began his absolute rule.
Abbas II | |
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Shah of Iran | |
Reign | 15 May 1642 – 26 October 1666 |
Coronation | 15 May 1642 in Kashan |
Predecessor | Safi I |
Successor | Suleiman I |
Born | Soltan Mohammad Mirza 30 August 1632 Qazvin |
Died | 26 October 1666 (aged 34) Behshahr |
Burial | Fatima Masumeh Shrine, Qom, Iran |
Spouse |
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Issue |
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House | Safavid dynasty |
Father | Safi I |
Mother | Anna Khanum |
Religion | Twelver Shia Islam |
Tughra |
The reign of Abbas II was marked by peacefulness and progression. He intentionally avoid a war with the Ottoman empire, and the relations with the Uzbeks were friendly. On the other hand, as a military commander, Abbas led his army during the war with the Mughal empire, which ended in the Safavid victory and the retaking of Kandahar. Moreover, on his behest, Rostom Khan invaded the Kingdom of Kakheti in 1648 and sent the rebellious monarch, Teimuraz I, into exile; in 1651, Teimuraz tried to reclaim his lost crown with the support of the Russia, but the Russians were defeated by Abbas' army in the small conflict fought between 1651 to 1653; the war's major event was the destroying the Russian fortress in the Iranian side of the Terek river. Furthermore, Abbas also suppressed a rebellion by the Georgians between 1659 to 1660, in which he acknowledged Vakhtang V as the King of Kartli, but also had the rebel leaders executed.
From the middle years of his reign onwards, Abbas clashed with a financial decline that plagued the realm until the end of the Safavid reign. In order to increase the revenue, in 1654, Abbas appointed Mohammad Beg, a distinguished economist, however, he was unable to overcome the economic decline. His efforts often damaged the treasury and he himself was corrupt by taking bribes from the Dutch East India Company and nepotism towards his family members. In 1661, Mohammad Beg was replaced with Mirza Mohammad Karaki, a man of inaction and weak in regards of administration, who was an outsider to what the shah did in the inner palace, to the point when he was ignorant to the existence of Sam Mirza, the future Suleiman and the next Safavid shah of Iran.
Abbas II died in 25 September 1666, when he was thirty-four years old. A king neither "strong" nor "weak", the Safavid historiography is torn between admiration and condemnation towards him. The Western historians and observers portray him as a magnanimous and tolerant monarch who ruled his kingdom wisely with the absence of rebellions and relatively secure roads. Some criticise him for acts of cruelty similar to his father and the forced conversion of the Iranian Jews, but most praise him for his sense of justice, his generosity and his tolerance towards Christians, having an Armenian Christian as a friend himself. Historians after the fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722, remember him as forceful ruler who temporarily reversed the decline of the Safavid state into one of stability and an era of peace.