Though basing their approaches on an older tradition in architecture, town planning and decorative style, they developed the specifically Safavid style to a point of such rare maturity that it still has power to captivate the observer of today. Some of its most beautiful monuments are grouped around the Royal Square (Maidan-i Shah), which - according to the testimony of European travellers of the time - were without parallel anywhere, especially the Masjid-i Shah, the 'All Qapu gatehouse and the Shaikh Lutf -Allah Mosque. With these, a new array of jewels was added to the rich treasury of brilliant architectural achievements left by the earlier dynasties in Persia, and such as represented a culmination of the aesthetic standards of a whole epoch. The artistic creativity of the Islamic world once more attained to a peak of achievement, represented in the popular punning phrase Isfahan nisf-i jahdn: "Isfahan, half the world".
The motives that led Shah 'Abbas to move his capital from Qazvln to Isfahan are not as clearly discernible as those of his grandfather Tahmasp fifty years earlier, when he chose Qazvln in place of Tabriz. The decisive element at that time had been fear of the Ottomans and, connected with this, a certain tendency towards Iranicising the Safavid empire, together with a mistrust of the Turkmen tribes and their influence (which was particularly strong in Azarbaljan and Tabriz).
But it is possible that now, in changed circumstances, it was especially his desire for a centrally situated position within the reconstituted Persian empire that determined 'Abbas to make the change, and the opportunities of developing the city according to his own ideas. And of course we must not underplay his personal preference for Isfahan, to which sources refer. It seems highly likely that another factor was the climatic advantages of the area, its ample supply of water and the fertility of the developed land in the vicinity, even though the population had from time immemorial not enjoyed the best of reputations for their tendency - attested by KhunjI, himself a native of the city - to indulge in rumour-mongering and intrigues of every kind.
The shah succeeded in creating a position of parity for his new capital among the famous Islamic metropolises. As a result not only of its development architecturally, but also by virtue of its vigorous economic, social and political life, Isfahan was preserved from the odium of provincialism that Qazvln had never been able to shake off. With the international repute that 'Abbas won for himself, the diplomatic contacts linking him to the potentates of his time also intensified. These included, in addition to the contiguous powers such as the Great Mughals of India, the khan of the Crimean Tartars and the Tsar of Muscovy, as also many Western powers, and there are many contemporary descriptions of the magnificence attending the comings and goings of emissaries from other countries.
An associated factor was the presence of Western merchants, artists and monks, who were free to move around at will in the country provided they did not engage in proselytising activities among the Muslims. We know of Carmelites, Augustinians and Capuchins who paid visits to Isfahan and other places in the land, and to some of these we owe highly informative accounts of the shah's court and of life in the country and among the people, and accounts of events they witnessed at first hand.
This period of distinction for Isfahan must be attributed in part no doubt to the shah's population policy, a matter we have already touched on in connection with his reform of the armed forces. This fed in elements, not only to the troops, but to the population at large, whose energy and skills in various crafts and whose trading enterprise benefited the economic life of the capital. It was particularly evident in the transfer of three thousand Armenian families from the Azarbaijan city of Julfa to Isfahan, where they were settled beyond the Zayandarud in a new part of the city which was then given the same name as their old home town, a name it still preserves.
Many Georgians, too, were brought into the country as prisoners of war and around the middle of the nth/17th century numbered 20,000 souls in Isfahan alone. Unlike the Armenians and also, incidentally, the members of the old Jewish community, both of which groups adhered doggedly to their separate linguistic and religious traditions, they were assimilated fairly easily into the indigenous population.
Safavid Shah Tahmasp I: the Child-King and His Kingdom
