They criticise his miserliness, his greed and his cowardice. They are also offended by the bigotry which he demonstrated at an early age, apparently following the failure of a poisoning attempt, and which not only affected his personal conduct and his immediate retinue but was also responsible for a series of narrow-minded ordinances imposed on the population as a whole. The notion that he refused to conclude any treaties with the Christian powers of Western Europe on religious grounds can no longer be sustained. But his bigotry is discernible in his stubborn attempts to convert the Great Mughal Humayun to the Shia faith when the latter sought asylum at his court in 1541. A particularly repugnant act of treachery may be seen in his treatment of the Ottoman Prince Bayezld, who sought refuge in Persia in 1559 after rebelling against his father. The shah could have been in no doubt as to the impending fate of the prince and his four sons when he handed them over to an Ottoman delegation after negotiations lasting two years. Even if political considerations were involved — Suleyman had threatened military reprisals, in other words, the termination of the Peace of Amasya - it is to Tahmasp's discredit that he accepted payment for his collaboration in gold coin and territorial concessions.
Such misdeeds, errors and weaknesses throw a murky light on Tahmasp as a person and as a ruler. Yet a just appraisal of the shah cannot be reached on the basis of this evidence alone: we must also consider other factors together with his political achievements and behaviour. We should not forget that the first decade of Tahmasp's life - the whole period prior to his accession - coincided with that phase in the career of his father Isma'il I during which the latter, clearly disillusioned and discouraged by his defeat at Chaldiran, could not bring himself to take any notable political or military initiative and therefore failed to inspire his son with any noble aspirations. On the other hand, we should not underestimate Tahmasp's achievement in personally taking over the reins of power within a space often years, after the land had been at the mercy of plotting tribal chieftains. If in the first decade of his reign he was a puppet in the hands of Turkmen amirs, he certainly cannot be accused of weakness during the next forty years.
What is remarkable is not only the skill with which he freed himself from the tutelage of the Qizilbash leaders but also the courage with which he faced the Uzbeks, particularly in the battle of Jam, and then in 941/1534, even before the Uzbek danger had been averted, took the correct decision to withdraw from the fighting in the east and march to meet the greater threat posed by the Ottoman invasion. He adhered steadfastly to this policy despite the Ottoman.successes and despite the conspiracy of his brother Sam and the defection of most of his Turkmen generals. Only in this way did he succeed eventually in asserting his authority, quelling several revolts on the part of the Qizilbash (nowadays we would describe them as civil wars), retaining Khurasan with Herat and Mashhad in defiance of five Uzbek attacks and even emerging relatively unscathed from three wars against the Ottomans.
Ghaznavids: the Powerful Turkish Dynasty in Medieval Persia
