By 1377, Nakhchevan already had a Catholic bishop by the name of Johannes de Galonifontibus. Under Timur he was ordained archbishop of Sultaniya by Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404). At the same period, Henry III of Castile (1309-1406) sent envoys to Timur, who reciprocated by sending an envoy named Haji Muhammad al-Qazi.
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, and the Ottomans’ conquests in Europe made the European powers look to the Turkic rulers of Iran as potential allies against the Ottomans. The dominant Turkic dynasty in Iran at this time was the Aq Qoyunlu headed by Uzun Hasan (1453-1478). He was married to a Byzantine princess, and until the interference of the Muslim clergy in 1470, his administrative staff included a large number of Christians. His good relations with his Christian subjects and the political tensions with the Ottomans encouraged the Venetians, who had suffered the most from the territorial expansion of the Ottomans, to send several envoys to Uzun Hasan’s court at Tabriz. The most famous of these ambassadors were Ambrogio Contarini, Giosafat Barbaro and Caterino Zeno, who also acted as a military advisor.
These military alliances and diplomatic exchanges encouraged commercial relations with Europe. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese in 1488 increased commercial opportunities. This resulted in more Europeans travelling to Iran, and we will see in the following chapter that those who in the end most benefited from the new economic conditions were the Armenians, who played a pivotal role in the foreign trade of Safavid Iran.
Apart from commercial exchanges with Europe, by the 15th century there was already a dynamic trade between Iran and India,520 and traffic between Hormuz and the other ports in the Indian Ocean was thriving. In 1442 Abd al-Razzaq described Hormuz as a cosmopolitan port, where there were merchants from all over Asia. It is no coincidence that the Portuguese took possession of the place in 1507 and 1515.
India had a special relation with Iran, as Muslim rulers of Turkish background and Persian culture were ruling over the northern half of the subcontinent. Indeed, after 1297 the province of Gujarat in India was brought under Muslim rule and the new rulers began fostering the Persian language and culture in the region. Trade contacts along with the flourishing of Persian in India generated more interest in Iranian civilization. Thus, there were many incentives for the Parsis to visit their historical fatherland. One of the first Parsis to travel to Iran was Nariman Hushang. He arrived at Yazd in 1477 and obtained religious guidance from the dasturs of Sharifabad and Turkabad. These texts were collected in the Rivayats named after its bearer. After Nariman Hushang, travels from Iran to India became more frequent and continued even after the fall of the Safavids. As a result, Zoroastrians in India were able to establish long-lasting relations with their co-religionists in Iran. Along with the cultural flourishing of Persian, the commercial activities were a decisive factor in attracting Zoroastrians, along with other Iranian religious dissidents, to India.
In sum, the political and commercial developments under the Turkic dynasties paved the way for new conditions and opportunities for non-Muslim Iranians after the advent of the Safavids.
Perpetual Presence of Religious Minorities in Muslim Persia's Political Scene
