SAFAVID-SOCIAL

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

• Meritocracy-prove yourself worthy
• Warrior aristocracies and absolutist monarchs
• Landlord class and peasantry class
• Artisans
• Bazaar merchants

WARRIOR ARISTOCRACY

• Enjoyed luxurious lifestyle-need for peasants
• Assigned to villages-peasants provide basic needs
• Shah (title of emperor)

LANDLORDS/PEASANTS

• Landlords did not own the peasants
• Peasants perform basic tasks
• Empire expansion=more landlords and peasants
• Some peasants would flee
• Expansion made that difficult

ARTISANS/BAZAAR MERCHANTS

• Handicraft production increased
• Trade increased within empire
• More jobs for engineers, stonemasons, carpenters
• Few extensive contacts with overseas traders

WOMEN

• Legal and social disadvantages
• Subordinated to fathers and husbands
• Meager outlets for artistic/scholarly expression
• Limited largely to contacts within own family
• Perform household chores and domestic handicrafts

WOMEN OF MEN IN POWER

• Wives/concubines had some influence behind throne
• Active in trade/money lending
• Invoke provisions in law that protected womens' rights

KEY PEOPLE

• Sail al Din-founder
• Ismâ'il-commander
• Red Heads-followers
• Sufi