Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam
The Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam was a process of forced conversion that took place roughly over the 16th through 18th centuries and turned Iran (Persia), which previously had a Sunni majority population, into the spiritual bastion of Shia Islam. It was a process that resulted in hostility with Iran's Sunni neighbours, mostly the Ottoman Empire. The conversion also ensured the dominance of the Twelver sect within Shiism over the sects of Zaidiyyah and Isma'ilism – each of whom had previously experienced their own eras of dominance within Shiism. Through their  actions, the Safavids reunified Iran as an independent state in 1501 and established Twelver Shiism as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. As a direct result, the population of the territory of present-day Iran and neighbouring Azerbaijan were converted to Shia Islam at the same time in history. Both nations still have large Shia majorities, and the Shia percentage of Azerbaijan's population is second only to that in Iran. Pre-Safavid Iran. Iran's population after the Arab conquest and conversion was mostly Sunni of  the Shafi'i and Hanafi legal rites until the triumph of the Safavids (who had initially been Shafi'i Sufis themselves). Ironically, this was to the extent that up until the end of the 15th century the Ottoman Empire (the most powerful and prominent Sunni state and future arch-enemy of the Shia Safavids) used to send many of its Ulama (Islamic scholars) to Iran to further their education in Sunni Islam, due to a lack of Madrasahs (Islamic schools) within the Ottoman Empire itself. Persia was also a seat of Sunni learning. The Sunni Iranians had always held the family of  Muhammad in high esteem. In contrast, before the Safavid period, a minority of Iranians were Shia and there had been relatively few Shia Ulama in Iran. Shah Ismail I of Iran. From 1500 to 1502 Ismail I conquered Tabriz in Iran, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and parts of Dagestan (North Caucasus, today a part of Russia). He would take most of the next decade to consolidate his control over Iran, where most of the Persian population was still Sunni. His army spread out first to the central regions in 1504. He captured southwestern Iran between 1505 and 1508 before  finally conquering the Khorasan region and the city of Herat in 1510. According to Daniel W. Brown, Isma'il was "the most successful and intolerant [Shiite] ruler since the fall of the Fatimids". It appears that he aimed for complete destruction of Sunni Islam, and he largely achieved that goal in the lands over which he ruled. His hatred of the Sunnis knew no bounds, and his persecution of them was ruthless. He required the first three caliphs to be ritually cursed, abolished Sunni Sufi orders, seizing their property, and gave Sunni ulama a choice of conversion, death, or exile. Shi'ite  scholars were brought in from other regions to take their place. Reasons for Ismail's conversion policy. More than most Muslim dynasties, the Safavids worked for conversion to their branch of Islam and for ideological conformity. The reasons for this conversion policy included: Methods of converting Iran. Ismail consolidated his rule over the country and launched a thorough and, at times, brutal campaign to convert the majority Sunni population to Twelver Shiism and thus transform the religious landscape of Iran. His methods of converting Iran included: The fate of Sunni and Shia Ulema (scholars). Sunni Ulama. The early Safavid rulers  took a number of steps against the Sunni Ulama of Iran. These steps included giving the Ulama the choice of conversion, death, or exile and massacring the Sunni clerics who resisted the Shia transformation of Iran, as witnessed in Herat. As a result, many Sunni scholars who refused to adopt the new religious direction lost their lives or fled to the neighboring Sunni states. Arab Shia Ulama. After the conquest, Ismail began transforming the religious landscape of Iran by imposing Twelver Shiism on the populace. Since most of the population embraced Sunni Islam and since an educated version of Shiism  was scarce in Iran at the time, Ismail imported a new Shia Ulama corps from traditional Shiite centers of the Arabic speaking lands, largely from Jabal Amil (of Southern Lebanon), Mount Lebanon, Syria, Eastern Arabia and Southern Iraq in order to create a state clergy. Ismail offered them land and money in return for loyalty. These scholars taught the doctrine of Twelver Shiism and made it accessible to the population and energetically encouraged conversion to Shiism. To emphasize how scarce Twelver Shiism was then to be found in Iran, a chronicler tells us that only one Shia text could be  found in Ismail's capital Tabriz. Thus it is questionable whether Ismail and his followers could have succeeded in forcing a whole people to adopt a new faith without the support of the Arab Shiite scholars. The rulers of Safavid Persia also invited these foreign Shiite religious scholars to their court in order to provide legitimacy for their own rule over Persia. Abbas I of Persia, during his reign, also imported more Arab Shia Ulama to Iran, built religious institutions for them, including many Madrasahs (religious schools) and successfully persuaded them to participate in the government, which they had shunned  in the past (following the Hidden imam doctrine). Conversions beyond Iran. Azerbaijan. After conquering Tabriz in Iran, along with Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan, and Armenia from 1500 to 1502, one of the first acts of Ismail was to declare Twelver Shiism to be the state religion, despite the predominance of Sunni Muslims in the newly acquired territories. After the declaration, a conversion campaign was launched and Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, came under heavy pressure to accept Shiism. The imposition of Shiism was especially harsh in Shirvan, where a large Sunni population was massacred. Thus, the population of Azerbaijan was forcibly  converted to Shiism in the early 16th century at the same time as the people of what is nowadays Iran, when the Safavids held sway over it. Modern-day Azerbaijan therefore contains the second largest population of Shia Muslims by percentage right after Iran, and the two along with Iraq and Bahrain are the only countries where a majority of the population is, at least nominally, Shia Muslim. Iraq. Ismail seized Baghdad in 1508. However, his armies zealously killed Sunnis and actively persecuted them through tribal allies of the Shah. His armies also destroyed several important Sunni sites, including the  tombs of Abū Ḥanīfa and Abdul-Qadir Gilani. The Safavids even expelled the family of Gilani from Mesopotamia. After declaring Shiism the official form of Islam in Iraq, Ismail forced his new Iraqi subjects to convert to Shiism and outlawed Sunni practices. He then returned to Persia. These draconian actions by the conquering Safavids caused the Mesopotamian Sunnis to seethe with resentment. Likewise, under Tahmasp I, central and southern Iraq, including Baghdad and Basra had remained in Safavid hands and efforts were being made to establish Shiism in place of Sunnism in these lands. Sunni scholars who refused to accept  Shia doctrines were executed and Sunni tombs and shrines were destroyed once again, while the main mosques were converted for Shia use only. While not extensive, some conversions did take place, and those remaining faithful to Sunnism were subjected to persecution until Suleiman the Magnificent expelled the Safavids from most of Iraq. When the Safavids returned in 1624 under the rule of Abbas I of Persia and reconquered Baghdad, they once more again massacred the Sunni inhabitants. Significant figures during the conversion process. Ismail II. Ismail II's reign (1576–77) was marked by a pro-Sunni policy. With the assistance  of Makhdum Sharifi Shirazi, the new Sadr, Ismail II strove to reverse the anti-Sunni practices among the populace. More specifically he strove to halt the public defamation of Aisha and the ritual cursing of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman (including the banning of the "tabarrā'iyān", known as the "tabaqa-yi tabarrā'i", whose official occupation was to publicly curse such figures and other supposed enemies of the Ahl al-Bayt), which rose during the early Safavid rule. A few motives may account for Ismail II's approach to the anti-Sunni propaganda. A primary one was that he was keen  to comply with one of the Ottoman demands of the Peace of Amasya concluded in 1555, which called for an end to the vilification of the first three Sunni Caliphs, thus placating the Ottomans and solidifying his own personal position. Another was his attempt to weaken the clerics as he attempted to forcibly demand land grants from Sayyids and Shia Ulema. The shah also clashed with the Ustajlu tribe and a number of Qizilbash amirs who were allied to the clerics. Thus, the public denunciation of Sunni emblems became one stage on which this power struggle between the Shah and  the cleric-Qizilbash group was played out. The Shah hoped to weaken the public appeal of the Amili clerics who administered and encouraged ritual cursing of the first three Sunni Caliphs among Iranians. His Sunni flirtation was also intended to reach out to the still-strong Sunni sympathies among Persians. Despite their quick rejection of Ismail II's policies, the majority of Ulema and the military-political centre avoided a confrontation with him, even though in place of zealous Shia scholars like the Astarabadis, the Shah appointed Ulema with Sunni leanings such as Mawlana Mirza Jan Shirazi and Mir Makhdum  Lala. Ismail II also wanted to do away with the inscribed names of the 12 imams on the Safavid coinage, but his attempt came to nought. Abbas I of Persia. Shiism did not become fully established until the reign of Abbas I of Persia (1587–1629). Abbas hated the Sunnis, and forced the population to accept Twelver Shiism. Thus by 1602 most of the formerly Sunnis of Iran had accepted Shiism. A significant number, however, did not accept Safavid rule, prompting Abbas to institute a number of administrative changes in order to further transform Iran into a Twelver Shia state. Muhammad  Baqir Majlisi. Under the guidance of Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (1616–98, one of the most important Shiite clerics of all time), who devoted himself to (among other things) the eradication of Sunnism in Iran, the Safavid state made major efforts, in the 17th century to Persianize Shiite practice and culture in order to facilitate its spread in Iran among its Sunni populace. It was only under Majlisi that Shi'a Islam truly took hold among the masses. Emergence of a clerical aristocracy. Because of the relative insecurity of property ownership in Persia, many private landowners secured their lands by donating them to  the clergy as so called "vaqf". They would thus retain the official ownership and secure their land from being confiscated by royal commissioners or local governors, as long as a percentage of the revenues from the land went to the ulama and the quasi-religious organizations run by dervishes ("futuvva"). Increasingly, members of the religious class, particularly the mujtahids and the seyyeds, gained full ownership of these lands, and, according to contemporary historian Iskandar Munshi, Persia started to witness the emergence of a new and significant group of landowners. Sultan Husayn. During the reign of Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722) (the  last effective Safavid Shah), there was a lot of religious unrest and religiously motivated rebellions in the Safavid state. Amongst the foreign interests, decades of misrule by incapable Shahs, and tireless wars against the Safavid's arch rival, the Ottoman Turks, and new imperial rival, Russia, that wrecked the Safavid state and made it decline. The religious unrest and rebellions were especially provoked by his ill-fated persecution of the Sunnis living under his control. These troubles contributed to the further destabilization of the Safavid empire (towards the final years of its existence) and were factors that contributed in bringing  the Safavids into an existential crisis. Despite the heavy decline of the Safavid state, it was when Sultan Husayn tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects from Sunni to Shia in the Safavids' easternmost territories of southern Afghanistan that caused Mir Wais Hotak (chief of the Ghilzai Afghans) to start a rebellion in the Kandahar region in 1709. Mir Wais and his Sunni Afghans killed the Safavid governor George XI of Kartli, along with the Shah's armies, and made the Afghan area free from the Shia's rule. The declaration of independence at Kandahar in 1709 was a turning  point that was followed by the conquest of Herat by the Ghilzai Afghans in 1715 and the invasion of Iran. By the same course of the 1710s, there were numerous other uprisings and insurrections in other parts of the Safavid domains, often inspired by the persecutions instigated against non-Shiite minorities by the leading Shia Safavid ulama, e.g. the 1721 sack of Shamakhi, in the northwestern part of the Safavid domain, which resulted in the massacre of thousands of its Shia inhabitants. Mir Wais' son Mahmud defeated the Safavids in the 1722 Battle of Gulnabad, marching west to besiege and  capture their capital, Isfahan, thus effectively ending the Safavid dynasty. Nader Shah. During the reign of Nader Shah, an anti-Shiite policy was implemented. Nader made an unsuccessful attempt to return Iran to the Sunni fold by propagating the integration of Shiism into Sunnism as the fifth of the already extant four Sunni Madh'habs (to be called the Jaafari Madh'hab). However, the scheme to establish this form of Sunnism as the state religion failed to win support among most of the population. The reasons for his anti-Shia policy included: He implemented the following anti-Shia policies: After Nader's  death and the rapid disintegration of his empire, Shiism was quickly restored and religious properties were built up again in the following century. Historical outcome of Ismail's conversion policy. Ismail's conversion policy had the following historical outcomes: