Safavid Iran and The Christian Missionary Experience

Safavid Iran and the Christian Missionary Experience about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.openedition.org%2Fmid...
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Safavid Iran and the Christian

Missionary Experience
Matthee, Rudi
100–126 minutes
Abstract | Index | Outline | Text | Bibliography | Notes | References |

About the author
Abstracts
This essay examines the relationship between the Safavid ruling

elite and the representatives of Christianity residing in Isfahan in
the 17th century, with a focus on the small but influential group of
Catholic missionaries active in the Safavid capital at the time. The
relationship between the two was marked by ambiguity and
ambivalence. Refutation and rejection on the part of the dominant
culture alternated with cordial treatment and genuine interest in
Christianity expressed by the shah and the country’s grandees,
manifested as curiosity in the tenets and symbols of the faith as
well as a willingness to engage in intellectual debate. Even
instances of wine-fuelled conviviality are attested. This ambience of
toleration can partly be explained by pragmatism, involving the role
missionaries played in Safavid society as cultural brokers,
diplomats, translators, and interpreters. They were also popular,
admired for their erudition, and esteemed for their presumed
medical skills. But underneath all of this, as it is claimed here, is the
emotive power shared by Twelver Šīʿism and Catholicism: both
‘compromised’ monotheisms revolving around martyrdom,
sainthood and redemptive justice entailing a similar eschatology
and a comparable iconography. Šīʿism’s acceptance of continued
revelation and its consequent openness to versatility played a role
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as well in the mutual fascination, as reflected in an inherent

curiosity and a willingness to test one’s beliefs against those of
others with rational arguments. To some extent all this reflects what
Shahab Ahmed has called the dazzling diversity of a premodern
Islamic world extending from the Balkans to Bengal. Such toleration
and the ‘live and let live’-attitude that came with it had its limits,
however. The shah and the ruling elite often acted as a protective
buffer against clerical intolerance, but this could never become
official policy. The shah remained the trustee of God, tasked to
uphold the Šīʿī Muslim order. If he protected Christians and was
fascinated by Christianity, this was personal, individually marked
rather than structurally embedded.
Cet article étudie la relation entre l’élite dirigeante safavide et les

représentants du christianisme à Ispahan au xviie siècle, en mettant
l’accent sur le groupe restreint mais influent des missionnaires
catholiques actifs dans la capitale safavide à l’époque. La relation
entre les deux groupes est caractérisée par l’ambiguïté et
l’ambivalence. La réfutation et le rejet exprimés par la culture
dominante alternent avec un traitement cordial et un intérêt sincère
pour le christianisme exprimé par le shah et les grands dignitaires
du pays. Cet intérêt se manifeste par une curiosité pour les
principes et les symboles de la foi ainsi que par une volonté
d’engager un vrai débat intellectuel. Certains cas de convivialité
autour du vin sont même attestés. Ce climat de tolérance
s’explique en partie par le pragmatisme et le rôle joué par les
missionnaires dans la société safavide en tant que passeurs
culturels, diplomates, traducteurs et interprètes. Ils étaient
également populaires et admirés pour leur érudition, et estimés
pour leurs compétences médicales présumées. Derrière ces
phénomènes, nous argüons ici qu’une même force émotionnelle
est partagée par le šīʿisme duodécimain et le catholicisme : ces
deux monothéismes « mitigés » s’organisent autour du martyre,
de la sainteté et de la justice rédemptrice, impliquant dans les deux
cas une eschatologie et une iconographie comparables.
L’acceptation par le šīʿisme d’une révélation continue et l’ouverture
à une certaine flexibilité qui en découle ont également joué un rôle
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‫‪Safavid Iran and the Christian Missionary Experience‬‬ ‫‪about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.openedition.org%2Fmid...‬‬
‫‪dans la fascination mutuelle entre les deux groupes, comme en‬‬

‫‪témoigne une curiosité inhérente et une volonté de tester ses‬‬
‫‪croyances contre celles des autres avec des arguments rationnels.‬‬
‫‪Dans une certaine mesure, tout cela reflète ce que Shahab Ahmed‬‬
‫‪a appelé l’éblouissante diversité d’un monde islamique prémoderne‬‬
‫‪qui s’étend des Balkans au Bengale. Une telle tolérance et l’attitude‬‬
‫‪qui consiste à « vivre et laisser vivre » avaient cependant leurs‬‬
‫‪limites. Le shah et l’élite dirigeante servaient souvent de tampon‬‬
‫‪protecteur contre l’intolérance cléricale, sans que jamais cela ne‬‬
‫‪devienne une politique officielle. Le shah restait le mandataire de‬‬
‫‪Dieu, chargé de faire respecter l’ordre musulman šīʿite. S’il‬‬
‫‪protégeait les chrétiens et était fasciné par le christianisme, c’était à‬‬
‫‪un niveau personnel et non structurel.‬‬
‫ﯾﺗﻧﺎول ھذا اﻟﻣﻘﺎل اﻟﻌﻼﻗﺔ ﺑﯾن اﻟﻧﺧﺑﺔ اﻟﺣﺎﻛﻣﺔ اﻟﺻﻔوّﯾﺔ ورﺟﺎل اﻟدﯾن اﻟﻣﺳﯾﺣّﯾﯾن ﻓﻲ ﻣدﯾﻧﺔ أﺻﻔﮭﺎن‬
‫ي‪ ،‬ﻣﻊ اﻟﺗرﻛﯾز ﻋﻠﻰ ﻣﺟﻣوﻋٍﺔ ﻣﺣدودة‪ ،‬وﻟﻛّﻧﮭﺎ ﻣؤّﺛرة ﻟﻠﻐﺎﯾﺔ‪ ،‬وھﻲ‬
‫أﺛﻧﺎء اﻟﻘرن اﻟﺳﺎﺑﻊ ﻋﺷر اﻟﻣﯾﻼد ّ‬
‫ت اﻟﻌﻼﻗﺔ ﺑﯾن‬ ‫اﻟﻣﺑﺷرون اﻟﻛﺎﺛوﻟﯾك اﻟﻧﺷطﺎء ﻓﻲ اﻟﻌﺎﺻﻣﺔ اﻟﺻﻔوّﯾﺔ ﻓﻲ ذﻟك اﻟوﻗت‪ .‬ﺗﻣّﯾز ْ‬
‫ض اﻟﻠّذان أظﮭرْﺗﮭﻣﺎ اﻟﺛﻘﺎﻓﺔ اﻟﻣﮭﯾﻣﻧﺔ ﻓﻲ‬
‫ض واﻟرﻓ ُ‬ ‫اﻟﻣﺟﻣوﻋﺗﯾن ﺑﺎﻟﻐﻣوض واﻟﺗﻧﺎﻗض‪ .‬ﺗﻧﺎوب اﻟﻧﻘ ُ‬
‫ذات اﻟوﻗت ﻣﻊ اﻟﻣﻌﺎﻣﻠﺔ اﻟوّدّﯾﺔ واﻻھﺗﻣﺎم اﻟﺻﺎدق ﺑﺎﻟﻣﺳﯾﺣّﯾﺔ اﻟﻠّذْﯾن أﻋرب ﻋﻧﮭﻣﺎ اﻟﺷﺎهُ ورﺟﺎل‬
‫اﻟﺳﻠطﺔ ﻓﻲ اﻟﺑﻼد‪ .‬ﯾﺗﺟﻠّﻰ ھذا اﻻھﺗﻣﺎم ﻣن ﺧﻼل ﻓﺿوﻟﮭم ﺑﺷﺄن ﻣﺑﺎدئ اﻹﯾﻣﺎن اﻟﻣﺳﯾﺣّﻲ ورﻣوزه‬
‫ﺷرﯾن ورﺟﺎل اﻟﺳﻠطﺔ‬‫ي ﺣﻘﯾﻘّﻲ‪ .‬ﻛﻣﺎ ﯾﻘﺎل إّن اﻟﻣﺑ ّ‬
‫ش ﻓﻛر ّ‬
‫ﺑﺎﻹﺿﺎﻓﺔ إﻟﻰ اﻟرﻏﺑﺔ ﻓﻲ اﻻﻟﺗزام ﺑﻧﻘﺎ ٍ‬
‫َﻗ َ‬
‫ﺿوا ﻟﯾﺎٍل ﻣﻊ ﺑﻌﺿﮭم اﻟﺑﻌض ﯾﺷرﺑون اﻟﻧﺑﯾذ‪ .‬ﯾﻣﻛن ﺗﻔﺳﯾر ھذا اﻟﻣﻧﺎخ ﻣن اﻟﺗﺳﺎﻣﺢ ﻧوًﻋﺎ ﻣﺎ ﻣن‬
‫ﺷرﯾن واﻟدور اﻟّذي ﻟﻌﺑوه ﻓﻲ اﻟﻣﺟﺗﻣﻊ‬‫ﺧﻼل ﻣﺟّرد ﻗﺑول اﻷﻣر اﻟواﻗﻊ ﺑوﺟود ھؤﻻء اﻟﻣﺑ ّ‬
‫ي ﺑﺎﻋﺗﺑﺎرھم ﺣﺎﻣﻠﻲ ﺛﻘﺎﻓٍﺔ ﺟدﯾدة ودﺑﻠوﻣﺎﺳّﯾﯾن وﻣﺗرﺟﻣﯾن وﻣﻔّﺳرﯾن‪ .‬ﺑﺎﻹﺿﺎﻓﺔ إﻟﻰ أّﻧﮭم‬ ‫اﻟﺻﻔو ّ‬
‫ﻧﺎﻟوا ﺷﻌﺑّﯾًﺔ ﻛﺑﯾرة وإﻋﺟﺎًﺑﺎ ﺑﺛﻘﺎﻓﺗﮭم‪ ،‬وﺗﻘدﯾًرا ﻟﻣﮭﺎراﺗﮭم اﻟطّﺑّﯾﺔ اﻟﻣﻔﺗَرﺿﺔ‪ .‬وراء ھذه اﻟظواھر‪،‬‬
‫ت ھﺎﺗﺎن‬‫ﯾﻣﻛﻧﻧﺎ اﻟﻘول ھﻧﺎ إّن ﻧﻔس اﻟﻌﺎطﻔﺔ ﺗﺑﺎدﻟﮭﺎ اﻟﺷﯾﻌﺔ اﻻﺛﻧﺎ ﻋﺷرّﯾﺔ ﻣﻊ اﻟﻛﺎﺛوﻟﯾك ﺣﯾث اﺻطّﻔ ْ‬
‫اﻟدﯾﺎﻧﺗﺎن اﻟﺗوﺣﯾدّﯾﺗﺎن ﺑﺷﻛٍل ﻣﻌﺗدل ﺣول اﻻﺳﺗﺷﮭﺎد واﻟﻘداﺳﺔ واﻟﻌداﻟﺔ اﻟﻣؤّدﯾﺔ إﻟﻰ اﻟﺟّﻧﺔ ﻛﻣﺎ‬
‫ﺗﺷﺎﺑﮭ ْ‬
‫ت اﻟدﯾﺎﻧﺗﺎن ﻓﻲ ﻋﻠم اﻷﺧروّﯾﺎت وﻓّن اﻟﻠوﺣﺎت‪ .‬إّن ﻗﺑول اﻟﺷﯾﻌﺔ ﻟﻠَوْﺣﻲ اﻟﻣﺳﺗﻣّر واﻟﻣروﻧﺔ‬
‫ﺿﺎ دوًرا ﻓﻲ اﻟﺷﻐف اﻟﻣﺗﺑﺎدل ﺑﯾن اﻟﺷﯾﻌﺔ واﻟﻛﺎﺛوﻟﯾك‪ ،‬وﯾﺷﮭد ﻋﻠﻰ ذﻟك‬
‫اﻟﻣﻧﺑﻌﺛﺔ ﻣﻧﮫ ﻗد ﻟﻌب أﯾ ً‬
‫اﻟﻔﺿوُل اﻟﻣﺗﺄ ّ‬
‫ﺻل ﻟدﯾﮭﻣﺎ واﻟرﻏﺑﺔ ﻓﻲ اﺧﺗﺑﺎر ﻣﻌﺗﻘداﺗﮭﻣﺎ ﻓﻲ ﻣﻘﺎﺑل ﻣﻌﺗﻘدات اﻵﺧرﯾن ﻣن ﺧﻼل‬
‫اﻟﺣﺟﺞ اﻟﻌﻘﻼﻧّﯾﺔ‪ .‬ﻛّل ھذا ﯾﻌﻛس إﻟﻰ ﺣﱟد ﻣﺎ ﻣﺎ وﺻﻔﮫ د‪ .‬ﺷﮭﺎب أﺣﻣد ﺑﺎﻟﺗﻧّوع اﻟﺑﺎھر ﻟﻠﻌﺎﻟم‬
‫اﻹﺳﻼﻣّﻲ ﻣﺎ ﻗﺑل اﻟﺣداﺛﺔ واﻟّذي اﻣﺗّد ﻣن اﻟﺑﻠﻘﺎن إﻟﻰ اﻟﺑﻧﻐﺎل‪ .‬ھذا اﻟﻣوﻗف اﻟﻣﺗﺳﺎﻣﺢ اﻟﻣﺑﻧّﻲ ﻋﻠﻰ‬
‫ﺿﺎ‪ .‬ﻛﺎن اﻟﺷﺎهُ واﻟﻧﺧﺑﺔ اﻟﺣﺎﻛﻣﺔ ﯾﻣّﺛﻼن ﻓﻲ‬
‫ش « ﻛﺎن ﻟﮫ ﺣدوده أﯾ ً‬ ‫ش وَدْع ﻏﯾرك ﯾِﻌ ْ‬‫ﻓﻛرة »ِﻋ ْ‬
‫ﺻب اﻟدﯾﻧّﻲ دون أن ﯾﺻﺑﺢ ھذا اﻟﻣوﻗف ﺳﯾﺎﺳﺔ اﻟدوﻟﺔ‬ ‫أﻏﻠب اﻷﺣﯾﺎن ﺣﺎﺟًزا ﻣداﻓًﻌﺎ ﺿّد اﻟﺗﻌ ّ‬
‫اﻟرﺳﻣّﯾﺔ‪ .‬ﺑﻘﻲ اﻟﺷﺎهُ وﻛﯾَل ﷲ اﻟﻣﻛﻠّف ﺑﺎﺣﺗرام اﻟﻧظﺎم اﻹﺳﻼﻣّﻲ اﻟﺷﯾﻌّﻲ وﺗطﺑﯾﻘﮫ‪ .‬ﻓﺈذا ﻛﺎن اﻟﺷﺎه‬
‫ﯾﺣﻣﻲ اﻟﻣﺳﯾﺣّﯾﯾن وﻛﺎن ﺷﻐوًﻓﺎ ﺑﺎﻟﻣﺳﯾﺣّﯾﺔ ﻓﻘد ﻛﺎن ذﻟك ﻋﻠﻰ اﻟﻣﺳﺗوى اﻟﺷﺧﺻّﻲ وﻟﯾس ﻋﻠﻰ‬
‫اﻟﻣﺳﺗوى اﻟرﺳﻣّﻲ‪.‬‬
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• 1 The total number may have been upwards of 300,000. See

Herzig, ‘Armenian Merchants of New Julfa’, p (...)
1As cross-border migration and resistance to it go, the early 17th

century was a tumultuous time for Iran. In 1603‒1605, Shah ʿAbbās
I (r. 996/1588‒1038/1629) had hundreds of thousands of Armenians
moved from their ancestral land in the southern Caucasus into
Iran’s interior. At least 5,000 of these were transplanted from their
home town of Julfa on the Aras River to a newly built suburb of
Isfahan, called New Julfa, where they were housed and given
religious and commercial privileges.1 A new round of incursions
into the Caucasus a decade later brought many more thousands of
Armenian and Georgian Christians into the Safavid realm, adding to
an already sizeable pool. In the long term, this influx radically
altered the composition of the administrative and military elite of the
Safavid state.
• 2 Della Valle, “Informatione della Georgia”, p. 8.
2The Turkmen Qizilbāš tribal leaders, who until then had formed
the top echelon of the Safavid bureaucratic and military class, now
had to compete with a growing number of converted Armenians
and Georgians, so-called ġulāms, or slave soldiers. The
appointment of the Armenian-Georgian Allāhvirdī Ḫān as governor
of Fārs and effectively most of southern Iran in 1004/1595
dramatically heralded the transformative nature of this
development, for he would soon turn into the country’s most
powerful ruler after the shah. By the second decade of the 17th
century, the New Julfans were the most consequential merchant
class in the country, more than 30,000 Georgian soldiers were said
to be serving in the Safavid army, and there was not an (urban)
household without its Georgian slaves.2
• 3 In 1695 the total number of Carmelites in Iran is said to have

been eight, four in Isfahan and two (...)
4 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
• 4 Poullet [d’Armainville], Nouvelles relations du Levant, vol. 2, p.

274.
• 5 Tavernier, Les six voyages, vol. 1, p. 420.
3The number of European missionaries who arrived in Iran in the

same period was infinitesimal by comparison, never amounting to
more than a handful for each order—the Augustinians, the
Carmelites, the Capuchins and the Jesuits, in that order of arrival.3
The number of Muslims they managed to convert never added up
to anything noteworthy either. The French Franciscan Poullet
d’Armainville in the 1660s ce tartly noted that there were more
missionaries than Roman Catholics in Iran.4 His compatriot, the
well-known Huguenot merchant-traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier,
concurred, claiming, with sarcastic understatement, that in all of
Isfahan, including New Julfa, there were no more than five or six
Catholics to be found.5
• 6 Hartman, “William of Augustine”, p. 222.
• 7 For explicit examples of clerical unhappiness with the presence of

the missionaries in Iran, see [C (...)
• 8 For an editio princeps of della Valle’s anti-Islamic polemical work,

see Catherina Wenzel’s critica (...)
• 9 For this, see Halft, “Schiitische Polemik”; “Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī”;

and Piemontese, Persica vaticana(...)
• 10 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 255. See

also Eskandar Beg Monshi, History o (...)
• 11 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 314‒316; de

Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 62, 69‒70.
4The success of the Catholic missionaries may have been limited,

and their ultimate importance mainly lies in the informative
documentation they left behind. That, though, did not keep them
from becoming targets of those who resented their presence in
Iran. There were those who saw the European men of the cloth as
a potential fifth column, conspiring with the hated Portuguese.6 The
spokesmen of the Šīʿī clerical class grumbled at what they saw as
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a major intrusion of Christian elements into their society and, more

concretely, soon after the arrival of the Augustinians, agitated
against their request to build a church in Isfahan, which the shah
nevertheless permitted. Even if open expressions of the resentment
the ʿulamāʾ felt vis-à-vis the missionaries are rare in the surviving
sources, their unhappiness is unmistakable.7 It is surely no
accident that the well-known philosopher and theologian Sayyid
Aḥmad ʿAlavī ʿĀmilī penned two anti-Christian treatises in this very
period. One, titled Lavāmiʿ-i rabbānī (1031/1621), was meant as a
rebuttal of a refutation of Islam that had been composed by the
Roman nobleman Pietro della Valle.8 The other, the Miṣqal-i ṣafāʾ
(1032/1622), was designed as a refutation of a treatise titled Āʾīna-
yi ḥaqq-numā that had originated in India.9 We also have some
evidence that Shah ʿAbbās’s harsh treatment of the non-Julfan
Armenians in the early 1620s ce was in part designed to appease
Iran’s hardline clerics—among them the powerful šayḫ al-Islām of
Isfahan, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥāriṯī al-Hamdānī al-ʿĀmilī
(a.k.a. Shaykh Bahāʾī, 953/1547‒1030/1621), who among Isfahan’s
Christians had the reputation of disliking Christians.10 Nor is it
surprising that, before long, an anti-ġulām faction formed in court
circles. Made up of representatives of the Qizilbāš and members of
the high clergy, this faction was most vocal in its opposition to the
admission of so many Christians into the ranks of the
bureaucracy.11
• 12 Nationaal Archief, VOC 1215, Gamron to Batavia, 30 March

1657, fol. 864; Richard, Raphaël du Mans, (...)
5Iran’s Šīʿī clerics continued to show their displeasure with the

presence of a Christian element in their midst by writing various
anti-Christian works in the radd-i pādrī and radd-i Naṣrānī genre
until the end of the Safavid period. They also were, and remained,
the main force behind instances of marginalization and persecution
of local Christians (and Jews) throughout the 17th century. It thus
was a hardline cleric—possibly Muḥammad Taqī Maǧlisī, father of
the better known Muḥammad Bāqir Maǧlisī—who, arguing that
Christians polluted the water of canal that supplied the royal palace
by washing their clothes in it, was mainly responsible for the
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subsequent expulsion of the Armenians from Isfahan proper in

1657.12
6None of this resistance is really surprising, coming as it did from

an elite used to having a monopoly on religious knowledge and
authority while enjoying the attendant material perquisites. Its
members naturally felt challenged by representatives of a rival faith,
Christianity, who competed with them for various types of royal
favor. What is surprising is the larger, paradoxical context in which
this opposition occurred: a climate of ambiguity and ambivalence in
which refutation and rejection existed alongside interest and even
fascination, receptivity in the form of a willingness to engage in
intellectual debate, and a measure of toleration on the part of the
dominant culture.
7This latter aspect of the interaction between Islam and Christianity

in Safavid Iran is the focus of this essay, which will attempt to clarify
the background and sketch the contours of an environment in which
the representatives of these two faiths interacted and
communicated in an ambience of remarkable openness and
congeniality which at times even shaded into conviviality.
Narrative and Iconographic Šīʿī-Catholic Convergence
• 13 See, for example, Troupeau, “Les églises d’Antioche”.
• 14 The resulting blending and the measure of mutual toleration this

produced are still visible in vari (...)
• 15 Examples include Palestine at the annual Nabī Mūsā festival

until this erupted in violence in the 1 (...)
• 16 Pitton de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage, vol. 2, p. 321.

Chardin qualifies this observation by i (...)
8Muslim admiration for Christianity, its art and architecture, its

mosaics and icons, is long-standing and well documented.13 This
essay leaves no room for a discussion of the origins of the complex
interaction between Christianity and Islam. Suffice it to say that, as
the later manifestation of monotheism, Islam has a capacity to
absorb Christian elements in ways that Christianity does not with
7 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
regard to Islam. The Safavid movement itself emerged in the

deeply syncretistic, religiously competitive environment of eastern
Anatolia, Azerbaijan and the southern Caucasus, a region that
always was and remains today a land of overlapping religious
beliefs and practices.14 Indeed, in the Caucasus Islam and
Christianity had long been entwined in ways similar to common
celebrations such as existed between Islam, Judaism and
Christianity in other parts of the Islamic world.15 Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort, a French naturalist and botanist who spent time in the
Caucasus at the turn of the 18th century, observed how Muslims in
Georgia appealed to Christian-Georgian saints, how Georgians
invoked Armenian holy men, and how local Armenians at times
prayed to Muslim prophets. He went on to claim that there were
Muslim women in Georgia who secretly professed Christianity. This,
he added, included the daughter of the vizier, the wife of the
governor’s physician, who, as the local Capuchins insisted, had
been baptized in secret and who went to confession and often
visited churches, where she would maintain an upright position
without giving any outward sign of her true religious beliefs.16
• 17 Couto, “Les festins à la cour”, p. 571; Brummett, “The Myth of

Shah Ismail”.
• 18 Vermeulen, Sultans, slaven en renegaten, p. 57.
9The persona of Shah Ismāʿīl, the founder of the Safavid state at

the turn of the 16th century, embodies this type of syncretistic
blending. Shah Ismāʿīl (r. 907/1501‒930/1524) comes across as
anything but a rigid monotheist in his (Turcophone) poetry, in which
he famously invoked Iran’s pre-Islamic tradition by calling himself
Firaydūn, Ḫusraw, Ǧamšīd, and Żaḥḥāk. In addition, he referred to
himself as the living Ḫiżr—referring to an enigmatic prophet
mentioned in the Qurʾān—as well as Jesus, son of Mary, and, for
good measure, the Alexander (the Great) of his contemporaries.
His Christian credentials, meanwhile, were impeccable. His mother,
Ḥalīma, was the daughter of Despina Ḫātūn, who herself was the
daughter of Johan IV of the Byzantine enclave of Trebizond, the
wife of the Aq-Quyunlū ruler Uzun Ḥasan (r. 857/1453‒882/1478).
Various—controversial because originating in Christian circles—
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sources claimed that Ismāʿīl’s guard included many Christians,

numbering some 10,000 Christians.17 Admittedly self-serving
rumors also circulated in contemporary Europe about how Ismāʿīl
and his Turkmen Qizilbāš warriors destroyed Sunnī mosques but
spared Christian churches, how they drank alcohol with abandon
and ate pork with gusto, and how the Qizilbāš believed in the Trinity
and venerated the Virgin Mary as the mother of God.18
• 19 Farhad, “The Dīvān of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir”, p. 502; Necipoğlu,

“Persianate Images”.
• 20 De Orta Rebelo, Un voyageur portugais, p. 120‒121.
• 21 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 46‒47.
• 22 Krusiński, History, vol. 1, p. 128.
10As for the Virgin Mary, representations of her, with or without

child, in Persianate art go back at least as far as the 14th century,
the transitional period between the Mongol and the Jalayerid
dynasties, which gave rise to Europeanizing influences in
general.19 The special veneration of the Virgin Mary remained a
prominent feature in Safavid Iran. The Portuguese traveler Nicolau
de Orta Rebelo in the early 1600s ce reports the existence of
painted images of Mary and the baby Jesus in the palace of Imām
Qulī Ḫān, the governor of Fārs, in Shiraz.20 European paintings
and religious images were among the gifts the Augustinian friar and
Portuguese envoy, António de Gouvea, brought for Shah ʿAbbās in
1602.21 The Polish Jesuit, Thaddeus Krusiński, writing more than a
century later, plausibly attributes the special role accorded to Mary
to the Georgian women inhabiting the royal harem. These, he said,
held on to their ancestral faith, including retaining the custom of
taking Christian names—hence the frequent occurrence of the
name Mary (Maryam) among them.22
• 23 See Stronge, “The Land of ‘Mogor’”, p. 106.
• 24 For the iconography of Twelver Šīʿism, see Fontana, Iconografia

dell’Ahl al-bayt; and the contribut (...)
• 25 See Fontana, Iconografia dell’Ahl al-bayt, p. 22‒29 and plate
9 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
VIII.
• 26 Amir-Moezzi, Le Guide divin, p. 235.
11The emotive power of religious symbolism and aesthetic

sensibility as reflected in imagery demonstrably played an
important role in the fascination Christian faith held for many people
in Safavid Iran. Like the Mughals, the Safavids “absorbed Christian
iconography”.23 Christianity and Twelver Šīʿism, marked by a
‘compromised’ monotheism involving a deity who manifests himself
in multiple ways, share a number of figurative and narrative themes
and elements. Christ, the God who became human, bears a striking
resemblance to Imām ʿAlī, who is human as well as divinely
ordained and who came to be seen as an incarnation of the divine
in the more extremist, ġulāt, variants of the Šīʿī faith. He is typically
depicted in a saint-like manner, draped in green, his head
surrounded by a Christ-like halo. Catholicism and Šīʿī Islam,
moreover, both revolve around the notion of redemptive suffering
through martyrdom, and the narration and visualization of this
aspect is at the core of both.24 There is nothing more central to the
Christian faith than the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ—a
drama commemorated in the medieval passion play. Foundational
to Šīʿism, in turn, is the drama of Imām Ḥusayn, his martyrdom on
the battlefield of Karbala, narrated and visualized not just during the
annual Muḥarram ceremonies but in a variety of popular settings,
including story-telling and painting. Ḥusayn and Christ appear
twinned, the connection reinforced by a tradition according to which
Christ was born on the 10th of Muḥarram, the day of Ḥusayn’s
martyrdom. On one 15th-century painting they appear together.25
And Christ’s projected return at the end of time finds its equivalent
in the Parousia of the last Imām of Šīʿism, the Imām of the Time. A
focus on miracles, too, binds the two faiths together. Curing illness
and walking on water are just two of the miraculous acts attributed
to both Christ and the Šīʿī imāms.26
• 27 De Silva y Figueroa, Commentaries, p. 476. For common roots

and similarities between St George, Ḫiż (...)
12At least one contemporary observer, the Spanish envoy Don
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García de Silva y Figueroa, who visited Isfahan in 1618‒1619,

refers to such blended and cross-referenced sainthood. He reports
that the Iranians believed that Santiago, or St James, the patron
Saint of Spain, was the same as their own ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, which,
he added, was why they always depicted him on horseback with
weapons of war, fighting his enemies or wild animals. The Iranians,
Don García claimed, held the same erroneous belief with regard to
the mythical St George, the source of fertility, whom they equated
with the equally mythical Muslim prophet al-Ḫiżr, also associated
with eternal life, who is particularly beloved among Šīʿīs and even
more so among ʿAlavīs, and who, many Šīʿīs believe, encountered
Muḥammad al-Mahdī at Ǧamkarān near Qum.27
• 28 Pereira de Lacerda, L’ambassade en Perse, in Gulbenkian (ed.),

Estudos históricos, vol. 2, p. 93.
• 29 Gulbenkian, “De ce qu’avec la grâce de Dieu”, p. 158; Ange de

St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. (...)
• 30 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 8, p. 104‒105. Chardin adds that, at the

instigation of a rich Armenian merc (...)
• 31 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 349.
• 32 De Bruyn, Reizen, p. 173.
13Various contemporary eyewitnesses testify to the Safavid

fascination with Christian iconography. The Portuguese Augustinian
envoy Luis Pereira de Lacerda in 1604‒1605 relates how Muslims,
moved by devotion as well as curiosity, would frequent the
Augustinian convent in Isfahan and how they venerated the images
of Christian saints and kissed these with great respect. He
specifically refers to the (unnamed) daughter of a Muslim khan who
would visit the church at least once a week with her entourage,
bringing offers, and how she had been cured from the illness from
which she had been suffering.28 Diego de Santa Ana, the first prior
of the Augustinian convent in Isfahan, echoes this story, insisting
that Muslims held Christ in such high esteem that their women,
even those belonging to the elite, would come to their church to
have the Gospel held over their heads in order to receive some
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form of benediction.29 Two generations later, the well-known

French merchant-traveler Jean Chardin claimed that Iranian
Muslims would visit the Armenian cathedral—the one built under
Shah ʿAbbās I’s auspices in 1614—as if it were a theater, to admire
the wall paintings with biblical scenes that had recently come to
adorn it.30 A decade later, the Venetian Ambrosio Bembo observed
how in Isfahan’s bazaars Armenians sold images of Christian saints
on gypsum and parchment, adding that these found a ready
clientele, even among Muslims, who bought them out of curiosity.31
At the turn of the 18th century, the Dutch painter Cornelis de Bruyn,
who traveled widely in both Ottoman lands and Safavid Iran, put
this phenomenon in a comparative context. He declared that there
was little difference in religion between the Turks and the Iranians,
except that the former did not decorate their homes with paintings,
whereas the latter accepted illustrated books, which one saw
“commonly in their homes”, with images of horses, hunting scenes,
various other animals, birds, flowers, etc.32
• 33 The Christian spouse is mentioned in Lefèvre, “Su

un’ambasciata persiana”, p. 365. For the Morgan B (...)
14Shah ʿAbbās I, one of whose spouses was Christian, was among

those who admired Christian images. We have a vivid example of
the attraction Christian narratives and imagery held for him. He
famously showed great interest in the illustrated, so-called Morgan
Bible presented to him by the Discalced Carmelites during their first
visit to Iran in 1608. Opening up the work, the shah is said to have
asked many questions about the stories and their illustrations. After
perusing the work he reportedly handed it to his subordinates with
the order to have explanations of the images added in the
margins.33
• 34 Bailey, Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, p. 35.
• 35 Aṛakʻel of Tabriz, History, vol. 1, p. 96‒97.
15There is more than Shah ʿAbbās’s curiosity about the Bible and
especially its illustrations that hints at a convergence of taste along
these lines. Gauvin Alexander Bailey, discussing the fascination of
Mughal rulers with European-style art and techniques, argues that
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they “interpreted missionary art on their own terms and used

images of Christian saints and angels to proclaim a message based
on Islamic, Sufi, and Hindu symbolism and lined with Persian poetic
metaphor”.34 Similar forms of ‘elective affinity’ existed in Safavid
Iran. When in 1616 ce Shah ʿAbbās I invaded and laid waste to
Georgia, killing and enslaving thousands while plundering the
riches of Kakhetʻi and Gremi, he made an exception for the
ecclesiastical treasuries his troops came upon. As the Armenian
chronicler Aṛakʻel of Tabriz, writing in the late 17th century, put it: 35
The shah ordered that utensils, holy chalices, gospels, censers,

chasubles, other vessels and holy items from the churches of
Kakhetʻi and Gremi, as well as the magnificent and valuable
religious decorations with rare precious stones and pearls not be
destroyed, but be transported to the city of Isfahan to the royal
treasury. They all remain there to this day. Many of our Armenians
have testified that they have seen these holy items. They also
transported, among other religious items, the seamless garment of
Christ, which is located at present in the same treasury in the city
of Isfahan, in front of which they light a lamp to this date.
• 36 The role of Safavid court officials in commissioning art is

emphasized by Habibi, ʿAli Qoli Jebādār(...)
16The final and arguably most compelling case of esthetic

convergence is the so-called farangī-sāzī, Europeanizing, style of
painting, a phenomenon that remains intriguing in its uniqueness:
Iran’s 17th-century receptivity to European art, which is not limited
to discernable ‘influence’, but a matter of adaptation of a local
iconography to an idiom that was at once external and obviously
intimate enough in sensibility to call the hybrid result a matter of
elective affinity—the only such example in the vast Asian universe,
representing a ‘conversation’ of sorts. Just as the Iranians had
adopted East Asian artistic techniques and themes following the
13th-century Mongol invasion and rule by adapting a foreign style
to their own traditions, so they proved susceptible to outside
impulses four centuries later—with, arguably the same remarkable,
albeit more limited results. Farangī-sāzī began with Iran’s
encounter with the output of a small number of Dutch painters who
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worked for the royal court in the early 17th century. The style
continued to flourish and in some ways culminated under Shah
Sulaymān (r. 1077/1666‒1105/1694), who no longer engaged
foreign painters. There is some controversy about the channels of
influence and the nature of local patronage, but there can be little
doubt that Armenian mediation played a role in what seems
intimately linked to the appreciation of ‘Christian’ art by Iranians and
perhaps to an upsurge in local patronage and production of
religious art in New Julfa.36
• 37 Letter Juan Taddeo di San Elisio, n.d., in Biblioteca da Ajuda,

Lisbon, 46‒IX‒19.
17One of the more striking aspects of the farangī-sāzī genre is

indeed the prevalence of biblical iconography. We have a report
from the hand of the Spanish Father Juan Tadeo di San Elisio, the
head of the Carmelite mission in Isfahan in the early 1600s, which
mentions a Flemish painter employed by Shah ʿAbbās I who
showcased some of his paintings during an audience with the ruler.
One represented Christ taken off the Cross. Father Juan used the
opportunity to observe that the shah and his grandees admired
such Christian images, so similar in appearance to those of their
own ‘saints’. The shah approved of this, whereupon Father Juan
offered him the image of Christ.37
• 38 Habibi, ʿAli Qoli Jebādār, p. 108.
• 39 See Sobers-Khan, “Women as Symbols”, p. 135.
18Among Safavid painters, such iconography expressed itself in a

preference for women of moral standing, Elisabeth, Mary Judith,
Mary Magdalene, and in a particular in love of the Virgin Mary, with
the Annunciation being a favored theme. The symbolism is striking,
and especially the use of the Virgin Mary may be seen as a
substitute for the image of Fāṭima in Šīʿism—in line with
Muḥammad Bāqir Maǧlisī, who compared the Madonna of
Christianity to the Fāṭima of Šīʿī Islam.38 This biblical iconography
was carried over into early Qāǧār times.39
Debate and Disputation
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• 40 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 54.
• 41 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 206.
• 42 De Gouvea, Jornada do Arcebispo, p. 134.
19The reports about especially Shah ʿAbbās I’s interest in and

preference for Christianity mostly appear in missionary writings,
and thus should be approached with some caution. A good
example is António de Gouvea’s claim that Shah ʿAbbās told him
how many Christians there were in his entourage and that he
trusted them more than anyone.40 A self-serving statement is not a
priori a reason for dismissal, though. Such claims, after all, did not
just originate solely among those who had a stake in the issue.
Shah ʿAbbās clearly used his Christophilia for political purposes, to
woo or impress his European guests, to cow his underlings or at
least to make it unequivocally clear to his entourage who was in
charge in his realm. De Gouvea bears witness to this with an
anecdote in which he describes how the shah ordered wine to be
brought during an assembly where, aside from a delegation of
Portuguese missionaries, various judges and clerics, including the
šayḫ al-Islām of Isfahan, were present. He next forced everyone to
drink to the health of the pope.41 The same Portuguese envoy
recounts how, during a maǧlis, gathering, the monarch turned to his
grandees, including the tāǧir-bāšī (head of the merchants) and the
qurčī-bāšī (head of the Praetorian Guard), and challenged them by
asking them how they would react if he turned Christian, to which
they unanimously responded that they would do whatever pleased
His Majesty.42
• 43 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 245.
20The Carmelite fathers also recount how in early January 1620

Shah ʿAbbās, attending the Armenian Blessing of the Waters
Festival, engaged in a discussion about religious matters with
members of his entourage and three Christian missionaries.
Several times he asserted that “‘whoever did not believe in Jesus
Christ and [in his status as] the Spirit of God, was a Kafir’—an
15 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
infidel”.43 He also expressed a desire to see various Christian

relics that had been brought from Armenia when the Julfans had
been resettled. Presented with these, he kissed them and placed
them on his head; then he bade those present to stand reverently
before such holy objects, “paying them in deed almost as much
honour as a Christian sovereign might have done”.44
• 45 Shah ʿAbbās I routinely socialized with foreign visitors. Ṭahmāsb

Qulī Ḫān was said to love Christi (...)
• 46 See the contributions in Lazarus-Yafeh et al. (eds.), The Majlis;

as well as Abdullaeva, “Origins o (...)
• 47 Tolan, Saracens, p. 233‒239; Kedar, “Multilateral Disputation”.
21These examples suggest that the appreciation of Christian

stories, symbols and artifacts at the Safavid court was not just
politically motivated. Despite the official restrictions on proximity to
and interaction with non-Šīʿīs imposed by the rules of naǧāsāt,
ritual impurity, it is remarkable how easily the Iranian Muslim elite,
from the shah himself to high-ranking political authorities, mingled
with Christians, including missionaries. Not only that, but the
Safavid elite proved eager to engage these learned visitors from
foreign lands in intellectual debate on a variety of topics, including
religious ones, in a relaxed atmosphere and, at times, under the
enjoyment of ample drink.45 This type of debate, munāẓara, has a
long history in Iranian (and Islamic) history. Going back to pre-
Islamic times, the munāẓara was typically conducted by two
individuals who debated opposites, seeking to persuade each
other. Common humanity was an underlying theme.46 Christian
missionaries working in Islamic lands had been engaged in this
type of disputation at least from the 13th century onward, when
Dominican friars had conducted polemics against Muslims (and
Jews) in Muslim-dominated Spain.47
• 48 Alonso, “El primer viaje”, p. 537.
22The Carmelite Father Vicente de S. Francisco in 1610 ce

explained the Iranian propensity to engage in intellectual debate
with outsiders as follows:48
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The Persians are by nature curious and come to visit the church of
the Fathers and like to engage in debate about the matters of the
Lord and of the faith, and they are beginning to understand its
mysteries, in particular the adoration of images and other matters,
for which they erroneously hold Christians to be idolaters, and they
use reason, as a result of which it is easier for them to convert to
the faith than other Muslims.
• 49 Until the mid-17th century, the missionaries saw debate with

Muslims as a means toward conversion. (...)
• 50 Alonso, “Documentación inédita”, p. 311.
• 51 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 249‒255.
23Now that last point remained wishful thinking, but we do know

that in the 17th century, public debate frequently occurred at the
instigation of grandees or even the shah himself. Other than the
vain hope on the part of the missionaries that debate might lead to
conversion, intellectual engagement often seems to have been the
main purpose.49 The Theatine Father Pietro Avitabile in 1633
summed this up when he said that unlike the Turks, who didn’t like
to discuss their religious laws, the Persians were eager to do so
and would come to the missionaries for that purpose, expressing a
love of Christianity and hoping for reciprocal respect.50 Shah
ʿAbbās I even ordered such a debate involving the religious
permissibility of iconography after members of the English East
India Company objected to its use in their variant of the Christian
faith, Anglicanism.51
• 52 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 70. See also Ange de St Joseph,

Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159.
24Even more institutional forms of tolerance are recorded. One is

the frequently mentioned freedom of Christians who had converted
to Islam to return to their original faith. The first one to refer to this
is de Gouvea according to whom ʿAbbās declared that any Muslim
who wished to become Christian would be free to do so, on
condition that de Gouvea and his men would not prevent any
Christian subject of the shah from converting to Islam.52
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• 53 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 33.
• 54 It is unclear which of the three Sasanian Yazdigirds is meant

here.
• 55 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 33‒35.
25This may sound like the wishful thinking of a Portuguese

missionary but the principle is confirmed by Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, a
17th-century Armenian chronicler who attributes the origins of this
decree to Shah ʿAbbās I as well. He recounts how one day,
checking on his realm in disguise, as was his wont to do, the shah
ended up talking to an Armenian priest named Dawit‛. Asked to
judge the current ruler, Dawit‛ judiciously responded that “we don’t
know anything good or bad about the shah, but it is not right to
speak bad of him, for he is the shah”.53 ʿAbbās next asked the
priest about the illustrated book he was copying, to which Dawit‛
responded that it was a book of martyrs. Clearly fascinated, ʿAbbās
asked him to explain. Dawit‛ told him the story of St Hakob (St
Jacob of Nisibis). Asked about the king under whom this saint had
lived, he assured the shah that it was (the Sasanian monarch)
Yazdigird, who was Zoroastrian.54 Clearly impressed, the shah left,
asking Dawit‛ to pray for him. Sometime later ʿAbbās gathered the
heads of state, including Isfahan’s religious leaders, explaining that
he had had a dream—involving the encounter with Dawit‛—which
had been followed by a command that, once carried out, had made
a terrible light appear in the sky, descending on St Hakob and
darkening the sun. He then ordered that a new law be entered into
the books whereby Christians who had converted to Islam and
wished to revert to their original faith would be free to do so.55
• 56 See Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 35.
• 57 Ange de St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159.
• 58 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 299, 306, 349.
• 59 Alonso, “El primer viaje”, p. 537.
• 60 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, Mémoires historiques, vol. 2, p. 24‒26;

The Chronicle, p. 48‒50.
18 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
26Zakʻaria insists that the decree had remained in place ever since,
explaining how in 1675 he had gone to the city of Qazvin where he
had received a decree from Shah Sulaymān on five converts to
Islam who had reverted to Christianity.56 Others confirm this state
of affairs. The Carmelite Ange de St Joseph, writing in the 1660s,
reiterates that it was possible for Christians to return to their original
faith after converting to Islam, and that upon doing so they actually
received a certificate stating that they were murtad.57 The Venetian
traveler Ambrosio Bembo even insisted that in Safavid Iran direct
apostasy from Islam was permitted.58 The sources yield two actual
instances of such a seemingly unthinkable move, both occurring in
the orbit of Shah ʿAbbās I. One concerns the ruler’s Italian
interpreter, reportedly an Iranian who had converted to Catholicism
by undergoing baptism.59 The other is found in the story of Ġazāl,
an Armenian woman who had come to Isfahan as one of the
Armenians deported from Old Julfa in 1604‒1605 ce. Spotted by
Shah ʿAbbās during a riding trip in New Julfa, she became the
monarch’s personal dancer and favorite entertainer. During
ʿAbbās’s campaign to Baghdad in late 1623, she repented and
decided to become a nun. In response, the shah had her brought to
his palace, released her from bondage and handed her a letter
stating that she was free to exercise her Christian faith throughout
his realm.60
• 61 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 147‒149.
27Shah ʿAbbās’s direct successors were in many ways no different

in their stance vis-à-vis Christianity and its foreign representatives.
Shah Ṣafī I (r. 1039/1629-1052/1642), his grandson and immediate
successor, became known for his cruelty, and especially the
sanguinary beginnings of his reign horrified many foreign
observers. But he redeemed himself and ended up enjoying a good
reputation among European residents of Isfahan by continuing and
even improving on, his grandfather’s record with regard to his
treatment of Christians. Deacon Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ tells a
remarkable story about the Armenian community of Ardabil, which
had been resettled to the town by Shah ʿAbbās I and which, with
royal permission, had built a small church with a wooden roof, of all
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places next to the shrine of the founder of the Safavid order,

Shaykh Ṣafī. When the local mullās heard about this, they gathered
a crowd which set out to level the church. The khan of Ardabil,
unable to prevent this from happening, proposed to the distraught
Armenians that they turn to the grand vizier, Mirzā Muḥammad
‘Sāru’ Taqī, to seek redress. The latter suggested writing a petition
and seeking the intercession of the Armenian notable Ḫvāǧa Šafraz
to represent this to the shah during the next audience. This was
done. The shah, apprised of the story, ordered a letter written to the
khan of Ardabil and the mullās of the town, admonishing them that
they had committed a grave sin by destroying the house of the
Christians and erasing the memory of the great Shah ʿAbbās, and
that only their service to the shrine of Shaykh Ṣafī stood between
them and the death penalty. The shah next issued a raqam
ordering the authorities in Ardabil to rebuild the church at their own
expense and using their laborers and artisans. In due time a
“magnificent and beautiful brick church was built at an
[unfortunately unrecorded] site designated by the local Armenians”.
61
• 62 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 516‒517; Krusiński, History, vol. 1,

p. 129.
• 63 See Matthee, Persia in Crisis, p. 183‒191.
• 64 The treatise, held by the Vatican Library, MS Pers. 49, is titled

Risāla dar bayān-i iʿtiqādāt va m (...)
• 65 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 398‒399. See also Bedik, A Man of

Two Worlds, p. 225‒226.
• 66 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 514.
28Under Shah ʿAbbās II, Ṣafī’s son and successor (r. 1052/1642‒
1077/1666), Safavid Christophilia may be said to have culminated,
especially after grand vizier Muḥammad ‘Sāru’ Taqī, who was
known for his anti-Christian sentiments, had been eliminated in
1645.62 His reign saw various instances of discriminatory
measures against non-Šīʿī groups in society, yet these do not carry
20 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
the imprint of the ruler.63 The shah showed a real interest in

Christianity by commissioning a treatise explaining the tenets of the
faith from the Dominican Paolo Piromalli (1591‒1667), who learned
Persian while he resided in New Julfa between 1644 and 1653.64
Indeed, ʿAbbās II was universally praised by Christians, both
indigenous ones and foreign observers, for his friendly attitude vis-
à-vis their co-religionists, and it was even said that he was so
“prepossessed in favor of Christianity that it was disagreeable to
him to speak ill of it”.65 Chardin went further, claiming that Iran’s
Armenians regarded him as more Christian than Muslim.66 Deacon
Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ stopped short of such a claim yet did insist
that the shah “loved Christians” and would invite Christians and
Muslims alike to his banquets, as well as visit the “houses of the
Christians during their weddings and other major festivities”.67
• 68 See Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 173‒175.
29The same chronicler offers a remarkable story about an

exchange between Shah ʿAbbās II and the Armenian Kathoghikos
Hakob, who upon the death of Philippos in 1655 succeeded him as
head of the See of Etchmiadzin. The shah inquired about the
prelate’s religious identity, to which he responded that he was a
Christian. ʿAbbās II then queried him about the identity of Christ, to
which Hakob replied that he followed “what was written by the
prophets”. Asked whether he believed Christ was divine, he
responded in the affirmative. Instead of having him killed, the shah
asked Hakob to explain, which he did by recounting the history of
the prophets from the time of Moses to that of Christ. When he had
finished, ʿAbbās approvingly confirmed that he had narrated the
story of the prophets correctly, asked the Muslim attendees if they
had anything to say and invited the prelate to write a petition with
any wish he might have. Hakob requested and received tax
exemption in perpetuity for the monastery of Echmiadzin.68
• 69 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 46‒47; Richard, Raphaël

du Mans, vol. 2, p. 224‒226. Accordin (...)
• 70 [Villotte and Frizon], Voyages d’un missionnaire, p. 134‒136.
30Shah ʿAbbās II and his grandees would also participate in
21 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
disputations on matters of the faith, such as the divinity of Christ.

Grand vizier Muḥammad Beg (in office 1654‒1661) even took part
in one as part of a fact finding mission after the Jesuit fathers were
accused of having profaned a copy of a Qurʾān in their
possession.69 At time, clerics participated in these as well.70
31Instances of outright socialization occurred as well. Whenever he

gave a banquet for his princes and the notables, Shah ʿAbbās II
would invite Armenian grandees from New Julfa such as Ḫvāǧa
Šafraz and Ḫvāǧa Petrum. He would also visit the houses of the
Christians during their weddings and other major festivities, making
“no distinction between them and Muslims”.71
• 72 Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Gall. 97ii, Claude

Ignace, Isfahan to Claude Bouchier, Rome (...)
32ʿAbbās II invited not just the notables of the Armenian community

but, no less outgoing than his great-grandfather and namesake,
ʿAbbās I, he would routinely ask Western visitors, envoys,
missionaries or merchants to join him in his drinking sessions,
allowing them to quaff from his own goblet. One such instance
occurred in late 1665, when the members of the first official French
delegation to Iran, representing Louis XIV, were hosted at one of
Shah ʿAbbās II’s palaces for an evening of entertainment, including
the watching of fireworks. The French Jesuit missionary in
attendance claimed that the libations included “excellent Shiraz
wine”, of which the guests were offered several rounds in gold
cups, after which ʿAbbās II promised that he would henceforth send
some each year to the great monarch of France.72
• 73 A third, non-eyewitness description is given by Maertial de

Thorigne, a Frenchman who resided in Al (...)
33We have especially vivid eyewitness descriptions of the party

organized by the court on 3 February 1665 in honor of the foreign
residents of Isfahan, French and Dutch merchants and
missionaries, including Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Raphaël du
Mans, the Capuchin friar who would live in Iran for nearly fifty
22 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
years, acting as the shah’s main interpreter.73 The party started at

nine in the morning, with Shiraz wine being served from long-
necked bottles of Venetian crystal. The shah, knowing that
Europeans liked to drink while eating, made sure to have them
served roasted and boiled meat as well trout from the Caspian Sea.
The atmosphere at the party was relaxed, the conversation
alternating between light topics, including women, and serious
matters involving the present strength of the Ottomans, geopolitical
conditions in Europe and the difference between the monarchical
and republican form of government—a topic that the Dutch in
attendance were asked to elaborate on. ʿAbbās was offered two oil
paintings of courtesans brought by Armenian merchants from
Venice or Livorno. This prompted the Safavid ruler to ask Tavernier
about his taste in women and his idea about female beauty, to
which the Frenchman diplomatically responded by pointing out that
beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that different culture had
different standards.
• 74 Tavernier, Les six voyages, vol. 1, p. 487‒502; Daulier

Deslandes, Les Beautez de la Perse, p. 30‒3 (...)
34All the while the party was enlivened by song and dance. This
went on until after midnight when the shah, alerted to that fact that
his hosts’ attention was flagging, gave them permission to leave.
Tavernier remarked that during the sixteen hours that the party
lasted the eunuchs who stood guard remained in upright position
without eating or drinking anything. Daulier Deslandes, a
companion of Tavernier’s and another guest, more ominously
observed how a number of courtiers stood by, watching from a
downstairs porch, afraid to enter, sullen and clearly disapproving of
their sovereign behaving with so much familiarity with foreigners.74
• 75 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 398‒399. For more grumbling about

the prominent role of Christians in (...)
• 76 See Chardin, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 216‒217, and vol. 6, p. 444‒

445; as well as Kaempfer, Exotic Attra (...)
35Given all this, one understands Chardin’s claim that, when

ʿAbbās II died in 1077/1666, the Christians cried for him for having
23 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
been so tolerant.75 Nor is it surprising that precisely in his period

some ʿulamāʾ began to grumble about boozing shahs who failed to
project an image of Islamic probity.76
• 77 In Landau, “European Religious Iconography”, p. 425.
• 78 Krusiński, History, vol. 1, p. 131.
36Under the last two Safavid rulers, Sulaymān and Sulṭān Ḥusayn,
such extraordinary openness and conviviality diminished. Both
were sedentary rulers, more susceptible to the influence and
advisement of the clerical class than inclined to carouse with
Frankish foreigners. Taxes on Armenians went up in this period,
periodic calls went out for the stricter enforcement of purity laws for
non-Šīʿīs, and the coronation of Sulṭān Ḥusayn in 1105/1694 was
accompanied by a ban on drinking and other activities deemed
unislamic. To the extent that drinking parties continued in the orbit
of these two rulers, these took place in the privacy of the palace
without foreign guests attending. Yet the fascination with the
images and the rituals of Christianity endured in court circles. We
know, for example, that Shah Sulaymān was enthralled by the
pictures decorating the Vank Cathedral of New Julfa.77 And if we
are to believe Father Krusiński, Shah Sulṭān Ḥusayn was in his
heart of hearts not convinced that Islam was any better than
Christianity, thought that Christian workmen were more qualified
than Muslim ones and suspected that Christians excelled in points
of religion as well.78
The Missionaries: Role and Reception
• 79 For this, see Matthee, “Safavids under Western Eyes”.
• 80 As Stefan Halikowski-Smith argues, several qualities made

prelates good envoys, including their vow (...)
37What role did the missionaries play in all this? Even if their
dreams of conversion, beginning with the shah and the elite, were
never fulfilled, Iran proved a relatively congenial place for the
European men of the cloth—as it did for all European visitors and
residents.79 This went far beyond the initial reception which was
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typically cordial, having to do with the customary hospitality of

Iranians and the fact that they saw these visitors from abroad first
and foremost as diplomats or at least as representatives of foreign
powers, who were to be respected as such.80
38The friars working in Iran operated in an atmosphere marked by

relative freedom. They lived in a state of relative protection, and if
they did not have permission to proselytize among Muslims, they
were allowed to bring Armenians and other minorities to the ‘true
faith’.
• 81 Herbert, Travels in Persia, p. 168.
39It seems clear that, for these and other reasons, most
missionaries—like Westerners in general—liked Iran. They liked it
better than the Ottoman Empire beyond Istanbul, with its lawless
eastern lands stalked by Arab and Kurdish marauders; better than
India with its torrential monsoons, its oppressive humidity and—
beyond the Persianate court—its incomprehensible polymorphic
religion filled with seemingly bizarre rituals. They enjoyed the fabled
hospitality of Iranians, which was reinforced by mihmāndārī, the
unique custom of defraying foreign envoys from the moment they
entered the country until they left its soil. They felt a certain affinity,
not just with Iranian rituals and esthetic sensibilities, but with the
manners and customs of the people and the sophistication of their
culture. Thomas Herbert put it best albeit condescendingly when he
said that “for their manner of husbandry, buildings, and civility”,
Iranians were “more resembling ours of Europe than any other we
had hitherto observed in Asia”.81
• 82 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 163, 446‒

447.
• 83 See Matthee, “Between Aloofness and Fascination”.
• 85 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 6, p. 155, claims that the Iranians

perceived the Augustinians as ambassador (...)
• 86 Kaempfer, Exotic Attractions, p. 193‒194, 273.
25 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
40The Iranians reciprocated. People and especially young boys on

the street might insult and curse the friars, throwing rocks at them
and calling them dogs.82 Members of the Safavid elite suspected
the Frankish men of the cloth of ulterior motives, as they tended to
be suspicious of foreigners in general.83 And even after Shah
ʿAbbās I himself broke with the habit, especially pious people
refused to have any contact with them, even to shake hands, just
as they avoided contact with all non-Šīʿīs, considering them naǧis,
ritually impure.84 Yet the elite generally treated official European
visitors with great courtesy and hospitality, and not just because
they saw them for what they were, as representatives of European
kings and the Catholic pope.85 Iranians may have found the
voluntary poverty and the humble attire of the friars, especially the
ones belonging to mendicant orders, difficult to interpret. None of
this was totally unfamiliar to them, to be sure, for these men and
their ways no doubt reminded them of their own dervishes and
qalandars, religiously inspired beggars in far more ragged attire
than the missionaries would wear. But to a culture preoccupied with
outward appearance and concerned about presenting oneself well
before one’s host, especially as a foreigner, the custom of
missionaries to appear even before the shah in simple habit and
sandals must have seemed incomprehensible for lacking decorum
and appropriate respect.86 Yet, some admired precisely this
simplicity reflecting voluntary poverty. Educated Iranians also
valued the missionaries for their erudition, and especially for their
scientific knowledge—specifically of mathematics, astronomy and
medicine—as well as for the ability and willingness to engage in
learned disputation with them on matters of faith and philosophy.
• 87 Della Valle, Viaggi, vol. 1, p. 659.
• 88 Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, p. 512; Andersen &

Iversen, Orientalische Reise-Beschreibung (...)
• 89 Berchet (ed.), La Repubblica, p. 221‒222.
• 90 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 46‒47; Zimmel,

“Vorgeschichte und Gründung”.
• 91 On him, see Thi Kieu Ly Pham’s essay in this issue.
26 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
41The missionaries proved to be useful in other ways as well. The

royal court, short on knowledge of European languages, enlisted
some as translators and interpreters in its communication with other
European visitors. Father Juan Tadeo di San Elisio for years served
as Shah ʿAbbās I’s interpreter and confidant. He also acted as a
teacher of European languages to local interpreters.87 The
missionaries continued to render services as translators for visiting
embassies from the West. The Augustinian Father Joseph a
Rosario, for instance, acted as interpreter for the Holstein embassy
that visited Isfahan in 1636‒1637.88 The Polish envoy who came to
Isfahan in 1647 had his requests to the shah drafted by the
Carmelites of Isfahan.89 Another example is Father Aimé Chézaud,
the learned Jesuit who headed his order’s convent of Isfahan in the
mid-1650s. Chézaud was given access to the residence of grand
vizier Muḥammad Beg, to which he was invited at regular
intervals.90 Another Jesuit, Alexandre de Rhodes, was frequently
invited to represent the Christian voice in disputations at the court
on account of his excellent Persian.91 The most famous case, of
course, is Raphaël du Mans, the Capuchin Father who during the
nearly fifty years he spent in Isfahan acted as a liaison between a
host of European visitors, including many travelers, and Iranian
society and culture.
• 92 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 326‒327.
42The Christian fathers also played an important role in the

distribution of news, either through missionaries visiting from other
missions in Asia or by way of letters and printed material arriving
directly from Europe. Members of the Iranian elite, curious about
events and developments in Europe, would visit the fathers in their
convents to be informed about events in the West and to keep the
missionaries abreast of developments in Iran.92
• 93 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 244‒245.
• 94 Anonymous, “Mémoire de la mission d’Erzeron”, p. 286.
• 95 See Anonymous, “Mémoire de la province du Sirvan”, p. 50.
• 96 Pereira de Lacerda, L’ambassade en Perse, p. 93.
27 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
• 97 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 39‒40; Ange de St

Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 164‒165; (...)
• 98 Richard, Raphaël du Mans, vol. 1, p. 109, n. 272.
• 99 Krusiński, History, vol. 2, p. 150. See also Lockhart, Fall of the

Safavī Dynasty, p. 208‒209.
43The missionaries, finally, were popular, among commoners as

much as the elite, for the medical skills many brought with them
and the healing magic they were thought to possess. As noted,
various foreign observers insisted that Iranians loved images of
Christian saints and attributed healing power to them.93 The
missionaries’ (presumed) medical knowledge and curative talents
literally opened doors, even the inner sanctum of the homes of the
elite. Success in curing illness counted as useful for the spread of
God’s word.94 This remained a pattern for the ages.95 The
aforementioned Pereira de Lacerda observed that many Muslims
were drawn to the Augustinian convent of Isfahan in hopes of being
cured from disease.96 Others insisted that Iranians often brought
their sick children to the missionaries to have the Gospel read over
the infants’ heads, and that many had thus received baptism on
their deathbeds. One Carmelite father claims to have baptized
3,000 Šīʿī children in this manner.97 Even grand vizier Shaykh ʿAlī
Ḫān (in office 1669‒1689), an official known for his anti-Christian
sentiments, is said to have had a missionary read the Gospel to his
sick son.98 Decades later, Maḥmūd Ġilzāʾī, the head of the Afghan
band that seized Isfahan, asked the ‘healing gospels’ to be read to
him during a bout of insanity.99
• 100 Hentsch, Imagining the Middle East, p. 37.
• 101 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 430‒434, 456‒458.
• 102 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 452.
44For the Christians of the Orient and even of Spain, everyday

contact with Arab civilization had a tempering effect on their
theological quarrel with Islam.100 In Iran, human interaction had a
similar working. Missionaries housed travelers regardless of their
faith or provenance; they themselves, in turn, were accommodated
28 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
and given shelter by the (Protestant) Dutch in Bandar Abbas. In

Isfahan, they engaged in reciprocal visits and exchanged
pleasantries and gifts. The Dutch even furnished them credit.101
Father Raphaël du Mans is the quintessential figure here: his role
as representative of the church, tasked to try and convert non-
Christians, was overshadowed—and certainly has been
overshadowed in modern scholarship—by his role as broker and
informant. Jean Chardin, for instance, enjoyed du Mans’s
hospitality during several of his visits, and du Mans introduced him
as well as many other travelers to Safavid grandees. All this
prompted a Jesuit colleague to complain that du Mans had spent
fifty years engaged in discussion with court officials and literati,
doing too little for God and the Church all this time. To this criticism
du Mans is said to have responded by stating that it was quite
something that he hadn’t lost his faith in the process.102
• 103 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 462‒470, 502‒511.
45Of course much of this openness and receptivity was a function

of making a virtue out of necessity. Parties that would have lived in
separate worlds to the point of shunning each other at home of
needs found common ground by being relegated to a common
social space in a foreign land. The missionaries justified their
interaction with non-Catholics by referring to extraordinary
circumstances. Even the Carmelites, bound by a vow of poverty
and contemplative insularity, succumbed to the inevitability of social
contact in the Iranian environment.103
• 104 For the Mughal Empire, see Lefèvre, Pouvoir impérial, p. 18‒
19.
46This inclusiveness, finally, was the ultimate hallmark of smart

imperial management. Safavid Iran was less diverse than Mughal
India, linguistically as much as ethnically and religiously, but its
most successful rulers followed the same sensible inclusionary
policy of allowing people to adhere to their own religions and
fostering an atmosphere of toleration at court.104
• 105 Schjeldahl, “Brotherhood”, p. 103.
29 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
• 106 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 514‒519.
• 107 The observation about the growing assertiveness by the

ʿulamāʾ was made by Raphaël du Mans. See Ric (...)
47It is important not to idealize all this from either side, not to paint
a romantic portrait of convivencia à la Andalusia, as some form of
multiculturalism avant la lettre. In the words of art critic Peter
Schjeldahl, reviewing an exhibit in New York City of works by
Francisco de Zurbarán, the Counter Reformation “didn’t fancy
tolerance”.105 The Safavids didn’t fancy tolerance either. For all the
toleration they exhibited, it is important to remember that interest in
and sympathy for Christianity in the Safavid realm had its
limitations. It could never compete with politics, raisons d’État, so to
speak, having to do with wielding and maintaining power. The shah
was clearly a protective buffer against clerical intolerance.106 But
he ultimately was the head of an Islamic polity, a trustee of the
divine, tasked to upheld the Muslim order. By the same token, it is
surely no coincidence that Iran’s religious authorities became more
assertive as of 1667, the year when Shah Sulaymān, having just
acceded to power under the name Ṣafī II, was floundering, ill and
feeble, projecting weak royal power.107 ‘Toleration’ as a result
could never become institutionalized; even in practice it had to cede
to the imperative of the Twelver Šīʿī nature of the state and society,
for this was the bedrock of society, the primordial force that lent
legitimacy to the very dynasty.
48Why is all this significant? I think it is significant for the glimpse

into an alternative universe that this interaction offers us in the
current global climate of recrudescent religious sectarianism, ethnic
conflict and political bigotry. Between 1555, the year of the Peace
of Augsburg, and 1618, the beginning of the Thirty Years War,
Europe underwent a process of what historians call
confessionalization, the imposition of the faith along the principle of
cuius regio, eius religio. Nothing of the sort happened in Safavid
Iran. Twelver Šīʿism was its official faith, to be sure, and examples
of oppression of adherents to other faiths abound, but there was
enough space at the level of practical discourse to allow for
divergent interpretations of inter-faith truth and meaning, just as
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there was enough space within the Safavid administrative structure

for Sunnī proclivities among various grand viziers and at least one
of the dynasty’s rulers— Shah Ismāʿīl II (r. 984/1576‒985/1577). If
Safavid rulers didn’t fancy tolerance, most did practice a distinct
form of toleration, an admixture of pragmatism, curiosity and a
philosophically underpinned perspective on faith as multifarious
and, essentially, a private affair.
Conclusion
• 108 Bauer, Die Kultur der Ambiguität, passim.
• 109 Ahmed, What is Islam, p. 175, 201. On his publication, see

also Emilio G. Platti’s essay in this is (...)
• 110 Ahmed, What is Islam, p. 278.
49Of late, several scholars have argued that Islam in its premodern
manifestation inherently tolerates a large measure of ambiguity;
indeed, that, despite appearances, ambiguity—the reconciliation of
oppositional elements—is its essence.108 Especially the late
Shahab Ahmed discerns in premodern Islam a vast land of
“dazzling diversity”, of far greater ethnic, linguistic and religious
variety than post-Roman Europe ever exhibited, a universe of
“intrinsic pluralism and complexity”, yet unified in a “common
paradigm of Islamic life and thought.”109 Islam, Ahmed argues, is
capacious, capable of accommodating contradiction. Islam in its
pre-disenchanted state is a protean faith and way of life, open to
wonderment and exploration, embracing a variety of mutually
opposing statements.110 Cosmopolitanism, a way of being open
and flexible to the world, permeated premodern Islam. Internally,
Muslims have been dealing with difference, diversity and
disagreement for 14 centuries, Ahmed insists.
50Ahmed arguably pushes his argument too far—incorporating

elements found in Muslim-majority societies that by most accounts
are extraneous to Islam and disregarding many Islamic beliefs and
practices that reflect intolerance rather than openness—but he
does conjure up a set of sensibilities that seem particularly valid for
the eastern half of the territory stretching from the Balkans to
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Bengal, what today we call the Persianate world. And within that
realm especially Twelver Šīʿism with its acceptance of continued
revelation appears open to versatility. It shares such versatility with
Catholicism. For all their shared authoritarian, top-down authority
structures, and despite instances of persecution, both faiths have
always left room for diversity and multiplicity, allowing for divergent
interpretations and a willingness to engage in dialogue with those
who differ, clearly with the aim of prevailing, of persuading one’s
opponent, but with the added goal of learning something from and
about that same opponent. This communality surely facilitated the
ease with which representatives of both groups engaged in
discourse in Safavid Iran.
• 111 Ange de St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159. This

was, of course, also the case at the cou (...)
• 112 Manucci, Storia do Mogor, vol. 1, p. 41.
• 113 See Manucci, Storia do Mogor.
• 114 See Manucci, Storia do Mogor.
51The interest shown in Christianity by Iranians, the elite as much

as the common people, was in part a matter of fascination with its
paraphernalia, its iconography, its symbolism, the idea of
sainthood, the notion of the second coming. But it also reflected
inherent curiosity and a willingness to test one’s beliefs against
those of others with rational arguments. The Carmelite Ange de St
Joseph in the later 17th century referred to such inquisitiveness
when he (erroneously) insisted that among Muslims only the
Iranians permitted open discussion of religious issues.111 His
contemporary Niccolao Manucci, who, having left his native Venice
at a young age, spent a lifetime in the Muslim world, elaborated on
this assertion. He put the freedom he experienced in Iran in a
comparative perspective by pointing out that Iran was the only
country in the Islamic world where one was permitted to “use
arguments, make inquiry, and give answers in matters of religion
without the least danger”.112 In Iran, he insisted, there was liberty
“to put and reply to questions on matters of the Christian religion
between Christians and Persians, without fear of being interfered
32 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
with on that account”.113 Everywhere else—in the Ottoman

Empire, Arabia, the Mughal realm, Balkh, Bukhara and among the
Uzbeks and the Pathans—nothing of the sort was possible: religion
was inviolable, only to be questioned at the risk of death.114
• 115 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 258.
52Given all this, one understands why Chardin called the Iranians
essentially deists.115 At the risk of generalization, one could say
that, in many ways, they still are. Then as now, the ‘literalist’ ʿulamāʾ
did have reason to be worried.
Top of page
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Notes
1 The total number may have been upwards of 300,000. See

Herzig, ‘Armenian Merchants of New Julfa’, p. 60‒61; Ghougassian,
Emergence of the Armenian Diocese of New Julfa, p. 30‒31.
2 Della Valle, “Informatione della Georgia”, p. 8.
3 In 1695 the total number of Carmelites in Iran is said to have

been eight, four in Isfahan and two each in Shiraz and Basra. See
[Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 514.
4 Poullet [d’Armainville], Nouvelles relations du Levant, vol. 2, p.

274.
5 Tavernier, Les six voyages, vol. 1, p. 420.
6 Hartman, “William of Augustine”, p. 222.
7 For explicit examples of clerical unhappiness with the presence of

the missionaries in Iran, see [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the
Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 261; de Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 62; Florencio
del Niño Jesús, Biblioteca Carmelitano-Teresiana, vol. 2, p. 111.
8 For an editio princeps of della Valle’s anti-Islamic polemical work,

see Catherina Wenzel’s critical edition of the original Persian
version in this issue, as well as Michael Weichenhan’s transcription
of the Latin translation of della Valle’s work.
9 For this, see Halft, “Schiitische Polemik”; “Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī”;
43 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
and Piemontese, Persica vaticana, p. 281, 288, 292, 297, 299, 312,
314, 316‒317.
10 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 255. See

also Eskandar Beg Monshi, History of Shah ʿAbbas, vol. 2, p. 960‒
961.
11 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 314‒316; de

Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 62, 69‒70.
12 Nationaal Archief, VOC 1215, Gamron to Batavia, 30 March

1657, fol. 864; Richard, Raphaël du Mans, vol. 2, p. 143.
13 See, for example, Troupeau, “Les églises d’Antioche”.
14 The resulting blending and the measure of mutual toleration this

produced are still visible in various ways in the Georgian capital
Tbilisi. The old city houses the only mosque known to this author
that features two adjacent prayer niches, miḥrābs, one for Sunnīs
and one for Šīʿīs. A short walk away, a Zoroastrian ātiš-gāh (fire
temple) and a proud synagogue testify to a long history of tolerance
and co-existence in Georgia. For conditions in Georgia under
Safavid control, see Rayfield, “What Did the Iranians”, p. 41.
15 Examples include Palestine at the annual Nabī Mūsā festival

until this erupted in violence in the 1920s; Morocco, where
traditionally Jews as well as Muslims would visit shrines of each
other’s holy men; and the autonomous republic of Tatarstan in
Russia, which has been called the centre of ‘Volga coexistence’,
and a ‘collective Islamic-Christian space’. For Morocco, see Voinot,
Pèlerinages judéo-musulmans. For Tatarstan, see Rubin, Russia’s
Muslim Heartlands, p. 139‒140. Another example is the cult of St
George in various locales. See Laird, “Boundaries and Baraka”;
Sack, “St. Sergios in Resafa”. A modern example of initial
ecumenical worship turning into confessional separatism is
Vloeberghs, “Worshipping the Martyr President”, p. 87.
16 Pitton de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage, vol. 2, p. 321.

Chardin qualifies this observation by insisting that, although
Georgians easily converted to Islam for the purpose of gaining
employment and emoluments from the Safavid crown, they
44 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
jealously guarded their faith in Georgia itself, preventing the

Safavids from even building a mosque in Tbilisi other than a small
one inside its fortress. See Chardin, Voyages, vol. 2, p. 67, 79‒81.
17 Couto, “Les festins à la cour”, p. 571; Brummett, “The Myth of

Shah Ismail”.
18 Vermeulen, Sultans, slaven en renegaten, p. 57.
19 Farhad, “The Dīvān of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir”, p. 502; Necipoğlu,

“Persianate Images”.
20 De Orta Rebelo, Un voyageur portugais, p. 120‒121.
21 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 46‒47.
22 Krusiński, History, vol. 1, p. 128.
23 See Stronge, “The Land of ‘Mogor’”, p. 106.
24 For the iconography of Twelver Šīʿism, see Fontana, Iconografia

dell’Ahl al-bayt; and the contributions in Khosronejad (ed.), Art and
Material Culture.
25 See Fontana, Iconografia dell’Ahl al-bayt, p. 22‒29 and plate

VIII.
26 Amir-Moezzi, Le Guide divin, p. 235.
27 De Silva y Figueroa, Commentaries, p. 476. For common roots

and similarities between St George, Ḫiżr (and Elijah), see Haddad,
“‘Georgic’ Cults”; Riches, St. George. Until the modern Arab-Israeli
conflict complicated matters, Jews, Muslims and Christians jointly
visited the shrine of Elijah, Mār Ǧirǧis (St George) and Ḫiżr in
Palestine. See Laird, “Boundaries and Baraka”.
28 Pereira de Lacerda, L’ambassade en Perse, in Gulbenkian (ed.),

Estudos históricos, vol. 2, p. 93.
29 Gulbenkian, “De ce qu’avec la grâce de Dieu”, p. 158; Ange de

St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 164‒165.
30 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 8, p. 104‒105. Chardin adds that, at the

instigation of a rich Armenian merchant who had visited Italy, the
New Julfans had, of late, reluctantly agreed to go against their
custom of leaving their churches unadorned, by having the interior
45 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
of the Vank Cathedral painted. They soon came to regret this

decision, though, for while Muslim visitors found the images
entertaining, many also saw them as an offensive form of idolatry.
This created a dilemma for the Armenians, who at various times
contemplated removing the paintings, yet left them in place so as
not to raise the ire of Muslims by depriving them of their
entertainment.
31 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 349.
32 De Bruyn, Reizen, p. 173.
33 The Christian spouse is mentioned in Lefèvre, “Su

un’ambasciata persiana”, p. 365. For the Morgan Bible, see
Simpson, “Shah ʿAbbas”.
34 Bailey, Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, p. 35.
35 Aṛakʻel of Tabriz, History, vol. 1, p. 96‒97.
36 The role of Safavid court officials in commissioning art is

emphasized by Habibi, ʿAli Qoli Jebādār. For Armenian merchant
patronage, see Landau & van Lint, “Armenian Merchant
Patronage”.
37 Letter Juan Taddeo di San Elisio, n.d., in Biblioteca da Ajuda,

Lisbon, 46‒IX‒19.
38 Habibi, ʿAli Qoli Jebādār, p. 108.
39 See Sobers-Khan, “Women as Symbols”, p. 135.
40 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 54.
41 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 206.
42 De Gouvea, Jornada do Arcebispo, p. 134.
43 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 245.
45 Shah ʿAbbās I routinely socialized with foreign visitors. Ṭahmāsb

Qulī Ḫān was said to love Christians and to eat and drink with them
without being concerned about the law of purity. See Zakʻaria of
Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 87. Pietro della Valle noted how
46 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
interested Iranians were in this type of discourse. See Piemontese,

Persica vaticana, p. 282‒283. For other examples, see Richard,
Raphaël du Mans, vol. 1, p. 43‒44; de Bourges, Relation, p. 87.
Such gatherings were not confined to the capital. The Capuchin
Gabriel de Chinon spent twenty years in Isfahan and from there
was sent to Tabriz, where he founded a Capuchin convent. He was
held in great esteem by the local khan, who discussed the Qurʾān
with him. See du Mans, Estat de la Perse, p. C, CI, n. 1.
46 See the contributions in Lazarus-Yafeh et al. (eds.), The Majlis;

as well as Abdullaeva, “Origins of the Munāẓara Genre”; Seyed-
Gohrab, “The Rose and the Wine”.
47 Tolan, Saracens, p. 233‒239; Kedar, “Multilateral Disputation”.
48 Alonso, “El primer viaje”, p. 537.
49 Until the mid-17th century, the missionaries saw debate with

Muslims as a means toward conversion. See Windler, Missionare in
Persien, p. 242‒245.
50 Alonso, “Documentación inédita”, p. 311.
51 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 249‒255.
52 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 70. See also Ange de St Joseph,

Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159.
53 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 33.
54 It is unclear which of the three Sasanian Yazdigirds is meant

here.
55 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 33‒35.
56 See Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 35.
57 Ange de St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159.
58 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 299, 306, 349.
59 Alonso, “El primer viaje”, p. 537.
60 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, Mémoires historiques, vol. 2, p. 24‒26;

The Chronicle, p. 48‒50.
61 Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 147‒149.
47 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
62 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 516‒517; Krusiński, History, vol. 1,

p. 129.
63 See Matthee, Persia in Crisis, p. 183‒191.
64 The treatise, held by the Vatican Library, MS Pers. 49, is titled

Risāla dar bayān-i iʿtiqādāt va maẕhab-i kalimat Allāh-i ʿīsavī. See
Piemontese, Persica vaticana, p. 361.
65 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 398‒399. See also Bedik, A Man of

Two Worlds, p. 225‒226.
66 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 514.
68 See Zakʻaria of Kʻanakʻeṛ, The Chronicle, p. 173‒175.
69 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 46‒47; Richard, Raphaël

du Mans, vol. 2, p. 224‒226. According to de Rhodes, the
arguments made by the missionaries had little effect on the
Muslims, yet did sway the Armenians who participated in these
debates.
70 [Villotte and Frizon], Voyages d’un missionnaire, p. 134‒136.
72 Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Gall. 97ii, Claude

Ignace, Isfahan to Claude Bouchier, Rome, 10 Nov. 1665, fols. 331‒
332.
73 A third, non-eyewitness description is given by Maertial de

Thorigne, a Frenchman who resided in Aleppo and who compiled
reports from various locales in the East. See Richard, Raphaël du
Mans, vol. 1, p. 153‒166.
74 Tavernier, Les six voyages, vol. 1, p. 487‒502; Daulier

Deslandes, Les Beautez de la Perse, p. 30‒37; Kroell (ed.),
Nouvelles d’Ispahan, p. 18‒19; Richard, Raphaël du Mans, vol. 1,
p. 154‒155.
75 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 398‒399. For more grumbling about

the prominent role of Christians in this period, and the fear that they
might take over, see Ǧaʿfariyān, Ṣafaviyyah, vol. 2, p. 791.
48 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
76 See Chardin, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 216‒217, and vol. 6, p. 444‒

445; as well as Kaempfer, Exotic Attractions, p. 28.
77 In Landau, “European Religious Iconography”, p. 425.
78 Krusiński, History, vol. 1, p. 131.
79 For this, see Matthee, “Safavids under Western Eyes”.
80 As Stefan Halikowski-Smith argues, several qualities made

prelates good envoys, including their vows of obedience, which
gave them a certain pliancy; their status as men of the cloth, which
gave them a cover; their familiarity with pomp and circumstance;
and their role as confessors, which taught them to keep secrets.
See Halikowski-Smith, “The Friendship of Kings”, p. 104.
81 Herbert, Travels in Persia, p. 168.
82 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 163, 446‒

447.
83 See Matthee, “Between Aloofness and Fascination”.
85 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 6, p. 155, claims that the Iranians

perceived the Augustinians as ambassadors of Portugal, the
Carmelites as envoys from the Pope, and the Capuchins and the
Jesuits as emissaries from France.
86 Kaempfer, Exotic Attractions, p. 193‒194, 273.
87 Della Valle, Viaggi, vol. 1, p. 659.
88 Olearius, Vermehrte Newe Beschreibung, p. 512; Andersen &

Iversen, Orientalische Reise-Beschreibunge[n], p. 149.
89 Berchet (ed.), La Repubblica, p. 221‒222.
90 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 46‒47; Zimmel,

“Vorgeschichte und Gründung”.
91 On him, see Thi Kieu Ly Pham’s essay in this issue.
92 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 326‒327.
93 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 244‒245.
49 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
94 Anonymous, “Mémoire de la mission d’Erzeron”, p. 286.
95 See Anonymous, “Mémoire de la province du Sirvan”, p. 50.
96 Pereira de Lacerda, L’ambassade en Perse, p. 93.
97 De Rhodes, Relation de la mission, p. 39‒40; Ange de St

Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 164‒165; Wilson, “History of the
Mission”, p. 687‒688. See also Zimmel, “Vorgeschichte und
Gründung”, p. 15.
98 Richard, Raphaël du Mans, vol. 1, p. 109, n. 272.
99 Krusiński, History, vol. 2, p. 150. See also Lockhart, Fall of the

Safavī Dynasty, p. 208‒209.
100 Hentsch, Imagining the Middle East, p. 37.
101 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 430‒434, 456‒458.
102 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 452.
103 Windler, Missionare in Persien, p. 462‒470, 502‒511.
104 For the Mughal Empire, see Lefèvre, Pouvoir impérial, p. 18‒
19.
105 Schjeldahl, “Brotherhood”, p. 103.
106 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 514‒519.
107 The observation about the growing assertiveness by the

ʿulamāʾ was made by Raphaël du Mans. See Richard, Raphaël du
Mans, vol. 1, p. 77 et 82.
108 Bauer, Die Kultur der Ambiguität, passim.
109 Ahmed, What is Islam, p. 175, 201. On his publication, see

also Emilio G. Platti’s essay in this issue.
110 Ahmed, What is Islam, p. 278.
111 Ange de St Joseph, Souvenirs de la Perse, p. 158‒159. This

was, of course, also the case at the court of the Persianate
Mughals, especially during the reigns of Sulṭān Akbar (r. 963/1556‒
1542/1605), and Ǧahāngīr (r. 1013/1605‒1037/1627). See Bailey,
“Between Religions”; Alam & Subrahmanyam, “Frank Disputations”;
50 of 51 2/2/24, 10:34 PM
Xavier, Mirʾāt al-quds; Lefèvre, “The Majālis-i Jahāngīrī”.
112 Manucci, Storia do Mogor, vol. 1, p. 41.
113 See Manucci, Storia do Mogor.
114 See Manucci, Storia do Mogor.
115 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 5, p. 258.
Top of page
References
Bibliographical reference
Rudi Matthee, “Safavid Iran and the Christian Missionary

Experience”, MIDÉO, 35 | 2020, 65-100.
Electronic reference
Rudi Matthee, “Safavid Iran and the Christian Missionary

Experience”, MIDÉO [Online], 35 | 2020, Online since 29 October
2020, connection on 02 February 2024. URL: http://
journals.openedition.org/mideo/4936
Top of page
Copyright
The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All
other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights
reserved”, unless otherwise stated.
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Safavid Iran and The Christian Missionary Experience

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Safavid Iran and the Christian

Abstract | Index | Outline | Text | Bibliography | Notes | References |

This essay examines the relationship between the Safavid ruling

as well in the mutual fascination, as reflected in an inherent

Cet article étudie la relation entre l’élite dirigeante safavide et les

‫‪dans la fascination mutuelle entre les deux groupes, comme en‬‬

‫‪3 of 51‬‬ ‫‪2/2/24, 10:34 PM‬‬

• 1 The total number may have been upwards of 300,000. See

1As cross-border migration and resistance to it go, the early 17th

• 2 Della Valle, “Informatione della Georgia”, p. 8.

• 3 In 1695 the total number of Carmelites in Iran is said to have

• 4 Poullet [d’Armainville], Nouvelles relations du Levant, vol. 2, p.

• 5 Tavernier, Les six voyages, vol. 1, p. 420.

3The number of European missionaries who arrived in Iran in the

• 6 Hartman, “William of Augustine”, p. 222.

• 7 For explicit examples of clerical unhappiness with the presence of

• 8 For an editio princeps of della Valle’s anti-Islamic polemical work,

• 9 For this, see Halft, “Schiitische Polemik”; “Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī”;

• 10 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 255. See

• 11 [Chick] (ed.), Chronicle of the Carmelites, vol. 1, p. 314‒316; de

4The success of the Catholic missionaries may have been limited,

a major intrusion of Christian elements into their society and, more

• 12 Nationaal Archief, VOC 1215, Gamron to Batavia, 30 March

5Iran’s Šīʿī clerics continued to show their displeasure with the

subsequent expulsion of the Armenians from Isfahan proper in

6None of this resistance is really surprising, coming as it did from

7This latter aspect of the interaction between Islam and Christianity

Narrative and Iconographic Šīʿī-Catholic Convergence

• 13 See, for example, Troupeau, “Les églises d’Antioche”.

• 14 The resulting blending and the measure of mutual toleration this

• 15 Examples include Palestine at the annual Nabī Mūsā festival

• 16 Pitton de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage, vol. 2, p. 321.

8Muslim admiration for Christianity, its art and architecture, its

regard to Islam. The Safavid movement itself emerged in the

• 17 Couto, “Les festins à la cour”, p. 571; Brummett, “The Myth of

• 18 Vermeulen, Sultans, slaven en renegaten, p. 57.

9The persona of Shah Ismāʿīl, the founder of the Safavid state at

sources claimed that Ismāʿīl’s guard included many Christians,

• 19 Farhad, “The Dīvān of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir”, p. 502; Necipoğlu,

• 20 De Orta Rebelo, Un voyageur portugais, p. 120‒121.

• 21 De Gouvea, Relaçam, p. 46‒47.

• 22 Krusiński, History, vol. 1, p. 128.

10As for the Virgin Mary, representations of her, with or without

• 23 See Stronge, “The Land of ‘Mogor’”, p. 106.

• 24 For the iconography of Twelver Šīʿism, see Fontana, Iconografia

• 25 See Fontana, Iconografia dell’Ahl al-bayt, p. 22‒29 and plate

• 26 Amir-Moezzi, Le Guide divin, p. 235.

11The emotive power of religious symbolism and aesthetic

• 27 De Silva y Figueroa, Commentaries, p. 476. For common roots

12At least one contemporary observer, the Spanish envoy Don

García de Silva y Figueroa, who visited Isfahan in 1618‒1619,

• 28 Pereira de Lacerda, L’ambassade en Perse, in Gulbenkian (ed.),

• 29 Gulbenkian, “De ce qu’avec la grâce de Dieu”, p. 158; Ange de

• 30 Chardin, Voyages, vol. 8, p. 104‒105. Chardin adds that, at the

• 31 Bembo, Travels and Journal, p. 349.

• 32 De Bruyn, Reizen, p. 173.

13Various contemporary eyewitnesses testify to the Safavid

form of benediction.29 Two generations later, the well-known

• 33 The Christian spouse is mentioned in Lefèvre, “Su

14Shah ʿAbbās I, one of whose spouses was Christian, was among

• 34 Bailey, Jesuits and the Grand Mogul, p. 35.