If the story of the Golden age of Ottoman Court arts sounds familiar, it is because it is similar to the development of the Golden Age of arts in the Persian Empire. Only 50 years after Suleiman established his formal system of court artisans, Shah Abbas I began making similar changes in the art of the Persian Safavid Dynasty. Abbas ruled Persia from 1588 to 1629. The designs of the Safavid dynasty appear similar to those found in the Ottoman Empire.
But there is a great debate among scholars, one that mimics a great chicken or the egg debate. The debate surrounds whether existing Persian designs heavily influenced the Ottomans, or whether Persian designs copied the court designs of the Ottomans.
Of course, both sides claim they are correct. The two dynasties shared a long and movable border for some time, and there was inevitably some cultural exchange in both of these dynasties. However, both of them claimed first rights to their designs and that they were the original author of them. Both of them used these designs to elevate the glory of their empires.
One may note that while the court rugs of the Ottoman ruler Suleiman were in adherence to the issuance of “official” designs, Persian rug weavers had considerably more freedom. This is because the “hold” of Islam was looser on them. Many still practiced Zoroastrianism and continued to incorporate the traditional ancestral tribal designs into formal works for the Persian courts. Remote Anatolian tribes were still producing these ancient tribal designs, but they were officially erased from the Court of ruler Suleiman and replaced by notably Islamic carpet designs.