Shah Ismail I

Several books and articles have been written about the different aspects of Safavid dynasty; however, less effort has been made to explore the relationship between the kings of this dynasty and the popular heroes of literary works. One of the important and influential works that was narrated by Qizilbashan and was able to establish the position of the first Safavid Shah was Ṭāhir Ṭarsūsī's narration about Abu Muslim Khorasani. The amazing similarities of these two characters indicate the influence of Tarsusi's narration at the beginning of Safavid rule. The present article seeks to investigate the benefit of Qizilbashan and the young king from Abū Muslimʹnāmah to indicate how they defeat their religious and political opponents by following the example of a popular hero and benefiting from other fields, while establishing the position of Ismail Mirza as the perfect master. Discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe is suitable for the analysis of literary and fictional works, which by taking the advantage of this discourse theory as well as the knowledge of semiotics, the hidden layers of politics, religion and the relationship between them while analyzing classical literary texts can be represent. Moreover, by presenting a suitable model, it is possible to illustrate how and to what extent the exchange of political power and literary narratives was. In this article, the historical character of Shah Ismail I (perfect master) and the character of Abū Muslim in the story of Abū Muslimʹnāmah (epic hero) are analyzed and examined by the library sources, to explain how one of the most powerful governments of Iran was indebted to one of the heroes of classic stories.

After losing the Battle of Chaldiran, the Safavid administration had a difficult time in integrating the al-Tawaifi court system under the central authority. Feudalism of Shah Ismail was able to subjugate the local authorities and unify a portion of Iran's territory with the help of the Qizilbash force. Due to territorial and theological disputes, the Safavids and two Ottoman and Uzbek kingdoms engaged in several conflicts as a result of making Shīʿīsm as official faith in Iran. Following the Safavids' loss at Chaldiran, centrifugal (local) forces became more powerful and eclipsed the influence of numerous rulers. The Safavid era turned out to be significant historically. The study's findings indicate that the central Safavid government faced a significant challenge in concentrating power following the defeat at Chaldiran, and this challenge persisted with only a minor variation during later kings until the end of Mohammad Khodabande's reign.