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 941/15 34, 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. Persia was able to absorb the loss of Baghdad, and the surrender of eastern Anatolia gave an impetus to the Iranicisation (at least in a geographical sense) of the Safavid empire, for which both its Turkmen forebear Uzun Hasan and the latter's son and heir Ya'qub had, so to speak, established certain preconditions. Another instance of this development was manifest from 955/1548 onwards, when the Safavid capital was transferred from Tabriz, now standing on the boundaries of the empire, to Qazvin. Although Tahmasp and his advisers probably had no conscious thought other than to avoid the ever-present threat to the capital from the Ottomans, the idea of a Turkmen state with its centre at Tabriz and its fulcrum in eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia and north-west Persia was thereby abandoned in favour of a empire centred on the Iranian highlands. At this time, therefore, arose roughly the same geopolitical situation that still prevails today. There is no reason to seek here the beginnings of a deliberate policy of Iranicisation. Yet the implications of the development are clear. At most one can speak of an involuntary Iranicisation that shows even fewer signs of being a conscious intention than the previously mentioned recruitment of non-Turkmen notables for the civil and military administration. The shah's character also appears in a rather more favourable light when we learn that in spite of his cupidity piety led him to forgo highly lucrative taxes on the grounds that they offended against religious law; thereby rejecting an income of some 30,000 tumans. The extant record of the speech he made on 19 July 1562 to the envoys of the Turkish sultan who had come to negotiate the extradition of Prince Bayezld betokens his political skill, while his highly cultured mind, his scholarliness and his patronage of the arts ensure him a measure of sympathy. After all, under his aegis the art of book illumination attained between 15 30 and 1545 a zenith of development that has never been surpassed. Thus, if one carefully weighs up the positive and negative features that were combined in Tahmasp's character, favourable qualities are by no means lacking. It must be counted a particular achievement that by the time of his death he had managed to preserve the essential fabric of his father's empire in the face of grave internal and external dangers.
Safavid Shah Tahmasp I: the Child-King and His Kingdom
