Suleiman I of Persia

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Shah Suleiman I and his courtiers, Isfahan, 1670. Painter is Ali Qoli Jabbador, and is kept at The St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies in Russia, ever since it was acquired by Tsar Nicholas II. Note the two Georgian figures with their names at the top left.

Suleiman I was a Safavid shah of Persia who reigned between 1666 and 1694. He was the elder son of the previous shah Abbas II and a Circassian slave, Nakihat Khanum.

He was crowned on November 1, 1666 with the title Shah Safi II. The young ruler had been brought up in the harem and had no experience of the world outside. He was also addicted to alcohol and suffered from poor health. The first year of his reign was markedly unsuccessful. A series of natural disasters, combined with devastating raids by the Cossack Stenka Razin on the coast of the Caspian Sea, convinced court astrologers that the coronation had taken place at the wrong time, and the ceremony was repeated on March 20, 1667. The shah took the new name Suleiman I. He had little interest in the business of government, preferring retreat to the harem. He left political decision-making to his grand viziers or to a council of harem eunuchs, whose power increased during the shah's reign. Corruption became widespread in Persia and discipline in the army was dangerously relaxed. Suleiman made no attempt to exploit the weakness of Safavid Persia's traditional rival, the Ottoman Empire, after the Ottomans suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Persia also suffered raids by the Uzbeks and Kalmyks. Suleiman died on July 29, 1694, either as a result of heavy drinking or gout. The court eunuchs chose his elder son, Soltan Hosein, as successor.

[edit] Sources

• The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 6, edited by William Bayne Fisher (1968) pp.304—310