The Empires of the Near East and India: Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities

The city of Qandahar (2006 estimated population of 324,800) in today’s Afghanistan has had a rather tumultuous past. Within the last three decades alone, the city has endured prolonged interference and occupation. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989) fueled a brutal civil war, which was followed by the ruthless rule of the Taliban regime (1996–2001). Taliban governance, in turn, collapsed due to the invasion by the United States and its “allies” after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al-Qaʿida operating from Afghanistan, leading to a new era of chaos and sociopolitical instability.

As important as this city has been for the region and for imperial powers in recent years, scholarship concerning its sociopolitical and religious history remains in its infancy as evidenced by the dearth of monographs and scholarly articles.¹ Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a subgenre of popular literature has emerged, retrieving orientalist imaginings of the city and its inhabitants. Books such as Virgins of Kandahar, Lord Roberts of Kandahar (a recent reprint of an old classic), and The Girl from Kandahar speak volumes about the damaging effects of neo-orientalist perceptions at a time of rising xenophobia in Europe and North America.²

The city’s premodern history is no less eventful. Qandahar was a part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (559–339 BCE), taken by Alexander III of Macedon in 329 BCE, and coveted by many succeeding political orders that ruled the area. Qandahar’s political importance was intimately linked to its commercial value due to its location on the east-west trade route, which resulted in the city becoming prosperous and culturally vibrant. Large caravans carrying cloth, cotton, sugar, spices, and indigo passed through this Afghan town on their way to cities in central Iran and beyond.3 Jurisdiction over this lucrative transit route was paramount to those who claimed dominion over the region.

During the fifteenth century, members of the Timurid dynasty that controlled eastern Iran laid a natural claim to the area after the great Central Asian conqueror Timur (d. 1405) subjugated Qandahar and its dependencies in 1383–84.⁴ Under the rule of his descendants, particularly Shah Rukh (d. 1447) and later Sultan Husain Bayqara (r. 1469–1506) and his talented minister Mir ʿAli Shirnavai (d. 1501), the city gradually became a small hub of intellectual activity that attracted poets, craftsmen, and scholars. What fueled this development was the relative political stability, which safeguarded vast trade networks that brought into the city ideas, commerce, and the promise of prosperity.

In the first half of the sixteenth century, when both the Safavid and Mughal empires were in an expansion phase, Qandahar’s distant location created the impression that it was a city marooned and without “proper ownership.” Situated on the utmost periphery of both empires, firm control of Qandahar’s politics and commerce was difficult to achieve, which made it a suitable target for “rebel” forces. Its symbolic political significance and real economic value added to its vulnerability to imperial takeover, creating a setting for repeated military violence. In contrast to more centrally located Safavid towns such as Kashan, Isfahan, and Shiraz, during this time Qandahar witnessed much more strife due to frequent invasions by both dynasties. Yet, the fate of the city, as will be seen below, would be tied to the very survival of the Safavid state more than two centuries later.

The city’s distance from either imperial capital made its conquest logistically difficult while making its capture tantalizingly promising. A successful takeover required meticulous planning, infinite resources, and impeccable timing. The Safavids managed to hold the city for nearly five decades broken up into two time periods when, first, Tahmasb I (r. 1524–1576) and later his grandson, ʿAbbas I (r. 1587–1629), were able to commit enormous military resources to guard it from the Mughals. The powerful Uzbek confederation fiercely contested the presence of the two empires in its backyard and posed a constant threat to the geopolitical ambitions of the two empires. As the rivalry among the powers intensified during the early seventeenth century, jurisdiction over the city of Qandahar resurfaced.

To which of the seven climes (ancient territorial conceptions) Qandahar belonged was an important political question that needed an answer.5 Had the Mughals, the Safavids, and the Uzbeks searched previous geographies to settle the question and justify their claim to the city historically, they would have been disappointed. One of the most widely cited geographers of the era, the mid-fourteenth-century Ilkhanid bureaucrat Hamd Allah Mustawfi, offers little information about Qandahar, but his contemporary, the anonymous author of Haft Kishvar (The Seven Realms), locates Qandahar as a fringe city of India (Hind).⁶ The author of Haft Kishvar was no doubt influenced by a previous conception of Qandahar’s locale. A much older geographical treatise, the anonymous tenth-century Hudud al-‘Alam unequivocally locates Qandahar within the realm of Hindustan.⁷

With the rise of the Timurid dynasty in the fifteenth century, Khurasan became a center of their power, and Qandahar was envisioned within their domain. This is reflected in the late fifteenth-century geographer Mu‘in al-Din al-Asfazari’s conception of the city, for example.⁸ The Timurid historian Ghiyath al-Din Khvandamir (d. 1534), author of the famed work Habib al-Siyar and who later served the early Mughal rulers (first Babur and later his son Humayun), is surprisingly hesitant to consider the city as part of Hindustan and belonging to his patrons, perhaps due to the earlier Timurid designation of Qandahar as part of Khurasan.⁹

Geographers in the service of the Safavids, such as Muhammad Mufid Bafiqi, had few reservations regarding where to locate Qandahar and explicitly considered it as part of the fourth clime that includes Khurasan and towns such as Balkh, Marv, Tus, and other major provinces at the limits of the Safavid’s eastern territories.¹⁰

Closer to the center of power, Iskandar Beg Turkman, Shah ʿAbbas’s royal secretary who produced a major history of the Safavid house when the dispute over Qandahar reemerged in the early seventeenth century, follows the Timurid categorization and explicitly claims the city to be a part of Khurasan, a province that the dynasty indisputably considered its own as part of its conception of Iran-zamin and “protected lands.”¹¹ This allowed Iskander Beg to justify his patron’s invasion as reclamation of lost territory, however imagined, a claim that Shah ʿAbbas also makes in his letter translated here.

Iskandar’s interpretation and his king’s claim to the city rested primarily on Shah Ismail’s (r. 1501–1524) temporary annexation of the city in 1511, followed by that of Shah Tahmasb whose policy helped the Safavids retain the city for much of the later sixteenth century. Nevertheless, the Mughal house had an older hereditary claim to the region through their direct descent from Timur, who subjugated the region in 1383. Although the geographers differed in their view regarding to which of the two realms—Hindustan or Khurasan—Qandahar belonged over the centuries, political men at court sought to serve their respective rulers’ territorial ambitions and bring this fringe town within their imperial domain.

Both the early Safavid and Mughal rulers found the province of Qandahar indispensable for their expansionist objectives. Babur’s Turco-Mongol Chaghatay troops, who considered Transoxiana to the north inhospitable due to the presence of the formidable Uzbek confederacies, found respite from their threat in this province; therefore, it was vital for his survival. The early Safavid Qizilbash riders, however, whose center of power was near Azerbaijan, eastern Anatolia, and central Iran, also feared the oft-brewing Uzbek military threat in Transoxiana, which could destabilize their eastern frontiers.¹³ Khurasan, one of the most important and vulnerable Safavid provinces, with its prized city of Herat, bore the brunt of several major Uzbek offensives throughout the sixteenth century, and its defense became paramount for the Safavids. Control of Qandahar meant the ability to better protect Khurasan because the Safavids could dispatch reinforcements quickly from there when needed and to bolster their meager presence on their eastern frontier. In their deliberations, certainly the commercial importance of the city did not go unnoticed.

In 1537, Shah Ismail’s son and successor, Tahmasb, after gaining full reign of state affairs and surviving the bloody civil war that had raged for a decade between the Qizilbash confederates after his accession, marshaled enough forces to take the city. That effort was wasted when a year later the Mughal prince Kamran (d. 1557) challenged his brother Humayun’s (d. 1556) claim to the throne and in the ensuing struggle for succession occupied the city.

Humayun, suffering a string of defeats, fled to the Safavid court. Tahmasb received him royally because he saw a valuable opportunity in supporting Humayun’s bid to regain the Mughal throne.14 In exchange for military aid, Humayun would have to renounce his claim to the city¹⁵ and profess Shiʿism as his faith.¹⁶ The issue of Humayun’s conversion is a complex one and calls into question the conventional notions of conversion in this period as discussed by Rudi Matthee in chapter 1 of this volume. His decision to acquiesce may have served, for instance, as a symbolic act that acknowledged Tahmasb’s dominance and confirmed his patronage of a new “client.” Aside from the significance of the power dynamic, Tahmasb would have been hard pressed to commit his meager resources, already depleted from years of war with the Ottomans, to the exiled Mughal ruler without something valuable in return. Humayun agreed to the conditions, but, as is often the case in compulsory political pacts, he likely had no intention of honoring either condition. The city fell to Safavid forces in 1545. When Tahmasb’s newly appointed governor died, Humayun wasted no time in incorporating the city into his territory and extricating himself of any Shiʿi leaning.

Humayun was a direct descendant of the great conqueror Timur, who was also known as the true “Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction”; it was widely believed that his exploits had been foretold and verified through astrological calculations.¹⁷ It seems that such a pedigree furnished Timur’s descendants with a genuine claim to authority over a vast kingdom that included Qandahar. Perhaps the Mughal dynasts believed that this was a greater legitimacy for territorial claims than Tahmasb’s sacred imami lineage.¹⁸

At that time, Tahmasb and his beleaguered troops were on the verge of collapse when the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman (d. 1566) and Tahmasb’s own brother, the renegade Prince Alqas (d. 1550), led a massive invasion into Iran to divest him of the Safavid crown. As a result, he did not have sufficient resources to deal with Humayun’s breach of their agreement on the eastern fringe of his kingdom. When peace with the Ottomans was finally reached in 1555 and ratified in a treaty at Amasya, Tahmasb felt secure enough to organize an eastern campaign to retake the city. Humayun was dead by the time the Safavid campaign got under way, and Tahmasb and his generals used the turmoil at the Mughal court to their advantage. His forces recaptured the city in 1558 and retained it for nearly the rest of the century. From this point on, Tahmasb and later Safavid monarchs considered Qandahar to be the outmost limit of their domain.

Tahmasb points to this conception of the extent of his kingdom in his memoirs. In one notable passage, he describes how he was about to turn the renegade Ottoman prince Bayazid—who had taken refuge at his court—over to the Ottoman delegation because he had discovered that the prince had plotted to poison him and his inner circle; he tells Bayazid:

Praise the Lord! What ill had I done to you? My sin was that I did not wish rebellion and turmoil to reign, and wanted through pleading to reach peace and good will, and with Sultan Suleiman’s approval, to grant you a domain in the limits of Qandahar (dar sar hadd-i Qandahar) the way I had done to Padishah Humayun. Is this how you repay me?

After that, I jailed him, and stripped some members of his entourage (of all possessions) and abandoned them to wherever they wanted to stray.¹⁹

Decades later, when Tahmasb’s grandson ʿAbbas (d. 1629) ascended the throne in 1587, the Safavid house’s authority was severely weakened once again because of the power struggle among the Qizilbash confederate chiefs. The Ottomans, always attentive to Safavid internal affairs, took advantage of Qizilbash disunity and captured Iran’s western provinces. This time they were able to create a foothold in Azerbaijan and occupy the former Safavid capital of Tabriz for almost two decades. To make matters worse for the young shah, the Uzbeks renewed their military efforts to annex much of Khurasan in the east. The Safavid house, once again, was facing a two-front invasion and in a dire struggle to retain the territory conquered by Shah Ismail. At this low point, the Mughal emperor Akbar (d. 1605) joined in on the land-grab frenzy—taking advantage of the rising Uzbek threat—and accepted Qandahar governor Muzaffar Husain Mirza’s (a minor Safavid prince) offer to annex the city in 1595.

Once he had secured peace with the Ottomans at Sarab in 1618, ʿAbbas turned his full attention to Qandahar. Predictably, his diplomatic attempts to persuade Jahangir (d. 1627) to relinquish the city in his favor failed; no one expected the Mughal emperor to simply surrender a city through exchange of envoys. If Jahangir had accepted, the loss of Mughal prestige alone would have been unimaginable.20 At the very least, a decent siege was to be expected, especially for a commercial town such as Qandahar with its legendary impenetrable walls, which had compelled more than a few of its keepers to hold fast in previous sieges.²¹

The contemporary chronicler Mirza Beg Junabadi reported on a debate at the Mughal court regarding the fate of Qandahar while the Safavid ambassador Zaynal Beg was in attendance. When Jahangir hesitated to make a decision, the highly influential queen Nur Jahan (d. 1645) and her allies recommended capitulation, but another faction expressed firm opposition to any concession. As Junabadi writes:

But some of the unintelligent [at court] and those whose pride had overcame them like the Prince Khurram [that is, the future Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan], Ghiyath Beg, and Khan Kakhaki opposed surrendering [the city], and in the garment of arrogance they abandoned prudence and conveyed that “it does not befit kingly honor (namus) to relinquish a province that was won by the sword through a single dispatch. True that in kingship there are all kinds of royal largess, but granting of provinces has never become customary among kings. They [the Safavids] will consider [our] decision based on their deception foolish and say ‘with a single missive we grabbed a great province from that so-and-so king.’ In any circumstance, not to concede has preeminence.” ²²

Prior to Zaynal Beg’s mission, ʿAbbas had led two unsuccessful attempts to take the city, once in 1604–05, the year Emperor Akbar died, and once more in 1607. At last, in 1622, after enough men had died, he and his troops enjoyed their long awaited victory. In the same year, his devoted general Imam Quli Khan, with the help of the English warships, also wrested the islands of Qishm and Hurmuz from the Portuguese, adding to the Shah’s sense of triumph.²⁴

ʿAbbas’s reconquest of Qandahar is an example of an imperial appropriation of a productive frontier commercial and cultural hub. The Mughals had hereditary rights to rule the city and its districts and believed that this surpassed any political agreements they had previously made with the Safavids. ʿAbbas, however, flouted the rationality behind hereditary rights and pressed his case based on his grandfather’s accord with Humayun. He alluded to this in his letter to Jahangir translated here.

In a royal expression of ta‘aruf, a type of hyperbolic comity, Iskandar Beg tells us that his master made two gold keys; upon one Qandahar was carved, and on the other names of several provinces of Iran from which the Mughal emperor was to choose as a gift. The seemingly superficial gesture shows ʿAbbas’s well-known political shrewdness toward his powerful Mughal adversary who was caught in an enfeebling diplomatic position.²⁵ It was vital that ʿAbbas kept his relations with Jahangir as friendly as possible, for there were too many commercial networks and intellectual links between the two realms to risk further antagonism.²⁶ As such, he continuously sent envoys to Jahangir’s court throughout this period to maintain amiable relations and to keep himself informed of Mughal affairs. Among the gifts that he sent Jahangir was a spectacular ruby upon which was inscribed the name of one of Jahangir’s ancestors, Mirza Ulugh Beg (d. 1449) son of Shahrukh son of Timur.²⁷

At ʿAbbas’s death six years later, he bequeathed to his successor, Safi (r. 1629–1642), both secure borders and a stable political system, an arrangement he certainly did not possess when he ascended the throne.²⁸ Safi was not as astute a politician as his grandfather and is blamed for losing Qandahar less than a decade into his reign (1638–1649). His successor. ʿAbbas II, however, made it a priority to retake the city, which he did in 1649. Qandahar would remain in Safavid hands for the rest of the century.²⁹

Later Safavid shahs, including ʿAbbas II, prided themselves over the role that their ancestors played in helping to lay the foundation of the Mughal dynasty and often referenced Tahmasb’s support of Humayun against the usurper Prince Kamran and his help in restoring the Mughal crown to its rightful heir.30 In fact, ʿAbbas II commissioned a large mural in the Chihil Sutun palace in Isfahan depicting the royal banquet that Tahmasb held in honor of Humayun. What ʿAbbas II wished to project in this mural was the power and self-confidence that comes from having a celebrated dynastic legacy. By the time of ʿAbbas II’s generation, the Safavid shahs could use that currency to send a bold political message. It is no coincidence that he chose the subject of Humayun’s seeking refuge nearly a century ago in his ancestor’s court precisely at the time when he wrested Qandahar from the Mughals.

By the opening of the eighteenth century, when the two empires began to show signs of political and military decay, Qandahar had become an isolated border city, caught between two shrinking empires. In the absence of a powerful central authority that could keep competing interest groups at bay, the city was subjected to the political machinations of ambitious military governors such as Gorgin Khan and Mir Wais, which led to prolong periods of unrest.³¹

As the city changed hands between the Uzbeks, the Safavids, and the Mughals a few times during its early modern history, in the violence of war it was soldiers with amputated limbs, farmers who were plundered by the approaching armies, and city peddlers whose families starved during the long sieges who paid the ultimate price.³² This territorial dispute is a poignant example of the fortunes of a fringe city whose inhabitants were caught amidst the ambitions of powerful rulers. Eventually the city that the Safavids worked so hard to preserve became the base of operation for Mahmud Ghilza’i and his Afghan confederate army, who sacked the Safavid capital Isfahan in 1722 and brought a once powerful dynasty to an inglorious end.³³

Qandahar had lost much of its luster by the time Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) captured it in 1738. The city soon became the seat of power of a short-lived Afghan empire forged by Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747–1773), who is considered by most Afghans to be the founder of their nation.

The following correspondence between Shah ʿAbbas and Emperor Jahangir provides a firsthand account of a diplomatic waltz between two powerful monarchs at the height of their imperial powers.³⁴ It is written in an ornate style of Persian (the lingua franca of the time) that was characteristic of royal diplomatics during the medieval and early modern periods. In contrast to the antagonistic nature of Safavid-Ottoman relations, the Safavid’s foreign policy toward the Mughals was generally amiable, which is evidenced by the voluminous correspondences between the two courts as well as by their extensive commercial and cultural interactions.³⁵ Dispute over possession of Qandahar was one of the exceptions in their otherwise friendly relations.

May the zephyrs of invitations that wafted from the fragrant gale of that blossom of yearning become the perfume of separation, and the rays of eulogies the splendor of whose purity the gathering of union has been illuminated become the rescuer of the darkness of estrangement.36 The aroma of the kingly banquet and the authority of the supreme lord, the Shadow-of-God [that is, ʿAbbas], that has become the candle of that gathering relays to the knowledge-loving heart and heaven-binding mind of that brother who is equal to [my] life [that is, Jahangir], who is the mirror of the countenance of insight and intuition, and the reflection of the perfection of the creation’s truth, that following the inescapable event regarding that heavenly Prince, my father [Muhammad Khudabandah] that transpired in Iran, certain domains have seceded from the guardianship of this blessed dynasty.

Since this destitute servant [Shah ʿAbbas] of the [Heavenly] Court was adorned with the affairs of kingship, in the protection of Divine victory and with the support of companions, he has resolved to forcibly remove enemies that have occupied [our] lands. And, Qandahar that has been in possession of forces connected to that lofty dynasty [the Mughals] that we recognize as part of our own [family] [and therefore we] did not raise an objection [to this offense]. We had anticipated [however] that for the sake of alliance and brotherhood that they [the Mughal court] in the manner of their celestially ranked ancestors would address the issue.

When no action was taken, even with the dispatch of numerous missives, direct and indirect, we assumed that perhaps this land is no longer subject to negotiation and commanded that the [city] be returned to the descendants of this dynasty [Safavids] so that our adversaries would be silenced.

Some postponed and delayed taking action, and when the truth of the matter became known to friends as well as foes, and when no answer indicating acceptance or rejection [of the dispute] was received, it entered [my] benevolent mind to plan an expedition to Qandahar.³⁷ Perhaps in this manner, the servants [that is, Mughal military officials] of that famed and prosperous brother [Jahangir], based on friendship and the special relationship that exists between us, would welcome [our] felicitous army and be in our attendance so that unity between us would be apparent to all once again, and cause the silence of slanderers.

With this purpose in mind and without any siege machines we set out, and when we reached the region of Farah,³⁸ we dispatched a missive to its governor making clear our intention concerning the conquest of Qandahar so that he may welcome us as guests. We sent a message to the keepers of the castle that there is no estrangement between the shadow of God [Shah ʿAbbas] and the victorious Prince [Jahangir] and whatever territory there is we recognize as each other’s, and that our intention was sightseeing so that they would not undertake actions that would cause any animosity. They chose to ignore the truth and the tradition of friendship and unity and exhibited contumacy and disobedience. When we reached the castle, we dispatched a missive once again and for ten days we forbade our victorious army to get near the fortress. Our guidance was to no use as they persisted in their defiance.

When such negligence was no longer tenable, the Qizilbash army even without any siege machines began to seize the fortress and in little time leveled the tower and the citadel. The defenders then surrendered asking for mercy. Since the days of old, deep affection has existed between these two lofty dynasties, and the ways of brotherhood have existed between us since that august Prince’s majestic heir-apparency to such an extent as to cause envy among the rulers of the earth. [Because of this and] based on our innate magnanimity, we forgave their faults and errors and instead made them recipients of our care and benefaction. In safety and under the supervision of our eminent commander Haydar Beg who is among the old faithful Sufis of this court, we have sent them to the majestic [Mughal] court. Indeed, the inherited and acquired foundation of justice and unity is strengthened to such an extent that it would not be damaged because of some affair that due to destiny manifested itself from hidden possibilities.

And [concerning] the king [ʿAbbas], the sapling of the garden of prophecy and guardianship (vilayat), the finest of the ʿAlid house,39 and the essence of the Safavid house, who without a reason sought to cause melancholia in the orchid of affection, friendship and brotherhood, upon which to the end of time the dust of imperfection would not settle. Certainly, the tradition of solidarity and unity among rulers of the world was not such that while professing to strengthen brotherhood and friendship (which one swears upon one’s head), and spiritual affinity that undoubtedly exists between [us], [he would] undertake a hunting expedition [that is, sayr va shikar] in such a manner. Alas! Woe to our incomparable affection!

The arrival of [your] blessed letter of apology regarding the conquest of Qandahar that Haydar Beg and Vali Beg accompanied was the cause of much delight and exhilaration. It may not remain hidden from the majestic acumen of that august and fortunate brother [Shah ʿAbbas] that until the arrival of the royal ambassador Zaynal Beg to our celestial court no missive concerning the appeal for Qandahar had reached us.40 At that time while we were occupied with a hunt in the pleasant clime of Kashmir, the leaders of the Deccan based on their shortsightedness strayed from the path of obedience and servitude and rebelled. Thus it became necessary to punish and discipline them, and so our victorious banners turned toward Lahore. We had assigned our son Prince Shah Jahan to accompany the triumphant armies to deal with the accursed while we embarked toward the capital of the caliphate (dar al-khilafah) Agra. It was at this time that Zaynal Beg [the ambassador] arrived and brought the affectionate letters of that gracious lord. We considered this expression of friendship as an auspicious sign and marched toward the capital city to suppress the corrupt [rebels]. Even in that jewel-studded epistle, there was no appeal regarding Qandahar. Zaynal Beg conveyed the request orally and we responded that there is no refusal in anything between that fortunate brother and I. [We told Zaynal Beg] that God almighty willing, after we have dealt with the Deccan, we will send him on his way in a suitable manner, and because he had traveled a long time [we commanded that] he may rest in the seat of power, Lahore until we summon him.

After we arrived at Agra, the seat of the caliphate, we summoned him [so that he may obtain permission to leave]. Since this mendicant of the Heavenly Court [Jahangir] is aided by Divine Favor, the Deccan was conquered. We then turned toward Punjab and intended to send forth [Zaynal Beg]. However, due to some important affairs and the hot weather we instead marched toward Kashmir, whose agreeable climate is beyond dispute among the itinerants of the world. After arrival to that delightful kingdom, we summoned Zaynal Beg to show him the pleasure-inducing hunting grounds one by one and to grant him permission to leave. It was at this time that the news of that mighty brother’s intention of conquering Qandahar, which we could not even imagine, reached us. We were stunned that he would undertake [the expedition] to acquire such an abandoned village himself and overlook our friendship, brotherhood, and alliance. Even though trustworthy scouts continued to bring news of the expedition, we would not believe [them].

Once the truth was manifested, we commanded ʿAbd al-‘Aziz Khan to do all that he could to secure that brother’s [that is, Shah ʿAbbas’s] satisfaction. Until now, the bond of brotherhood remained strong, and we would not equate this level of affection and loyalty with the whole world, nor would we compare it to any priceless gift. However, brotherhood and sense of righteousness merited that [your majesty] should have remained patient until the arrival of [our] emissary…. Perhaps [your majesty] would have found [our] terms agreeable. Which side wise men of the world would judge to be the adornment of covenant, honesty, and the source of nobility and magnanimity?

May the Lord Almighty in all circumstances provide protection and victory, and bestow everlasting triumph and grace.

1. Important works that have made inroads into the history of Qandahar (and Afghanistan) thus far include the Mir Muhammad Sadiq Farhang, Afghanistan dar Panj Qarn-i Akhir (Tehran, 1380); Warwick Ball. “The Seven Qandahars: The Name Q.ND.Har. in the Islamic Sources.” South Asian Studies 4 (1988): 115–42; C. Edmund Bosworth, ed., “Kandahar,” in Historic Cities of the Islamic World (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Jahanbakhsh Thavabeq, “Nigarishi bar Shurish-i Shir Khan Afghan dar ʿAsr-i Shah Safi (1040 H.Q.),” Majalah-yi Danishkadah-yi Adabiyat va ‘ulum-i Insani, Danishgah-i Isfahan 40 (1384): 89–108; Sussan Babaie, “Shah ʿAbbas II, the Conquest of Qandahar, the Chihil Sutun and Its Wall Paintings,” Muqarnas 11 (1994): 125–42; S. K. Banerji, “The Capture of Qandahar by Humayun, September 3, 1545,” Journal of the United Provinces Historical Society 13, no. 1 (1940): 39–50; Willem Floor. “Arduous Travelling: The Qandahar-Isfahan Highway in the Seventeenth Century,” in Iran and the World in the Safavid Age, ed., Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 207–35; Mohammad Afzal Khan. “Safavis in Mughal Service: The Mirzas of Qandahar.” Islamic Culture 72, no. 1 (1998): 59–81; C. P. Melville. “From Qars to Qandahar: The Itineraries of Shah ʿAbbas I (995–1038/1587–1629),” in Études Safavides, ed. J. Calmard (Tehran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1993), 195–224.

4. Beatrice Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 66–74. For a general summary of Timur’s rise to power and conquests, see David Morgan, Medieval Persia (1040–1797) (New York: Longman, 1988),83–100. For a detail discussion on the intellectual history of fifteenth century Iran, see Ilker Evrim Binbas, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

5. According to Zoroastrian belief based on the Gathas and the Avesta (c. 1700–1000 BCE), the world is divided into seven concentric climatic zones, Iran being at the center. Some medieval and early modern geographers passed on the legend that Alexander of Macedon designated the “seven climes of the earth” as such. See, for instance, Muhammad Mufid Bafiqi’s Mukhtasar-i Mufid, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1390), 17–18, 257–63. In the mid-fourteenth century, Hamd Allah Mustawfi conveyed the belief that the Prophet Idris divided the earth into the seven regions: Hamd Allah Mustawfi Qazvini, Nuzhat al-Qulub, ed. Muhammad Dabir Siyaqi (Tehran, 1388), 55–56. The fifteenth-century Timurid geographer Hafiz Abru, on the other hand, explained the seven divisions based on distance and latitude/longitude calculations: Shahab al-Din Khafi (Hafiz Abru), Jughrafiya-i Hafiz Abru, ed. Sadiq Sajjadi, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1375), 93–99.

16. ʿAbdi Beg Shirazi, Takmilat al-Akhbar, ed. A. H. Nava’i (Tehran, 1369), 94; Khvurshah ibn Qubad al-Husayni, Tarikh-i Ilchi-i Nizam Shah: Tarikh-i Safaviyah az Aghaz ta Sal-i 972 Hijri Qamari, ed. Muhammad Reza Nasiri and Koichi Haneda (Tehran: Anjuman-i Athar va Mafakhir-i Farhangi, 2000), 331–32, from Muhammad Qasim Astarabadi’s Tarikh-i Firishtah. For details of Humayun’s sojourn in Iran, see Ray Sukumar, Humayun in Persia (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1948).

17. In the ensuing two centuries after Timur’s death, the term Sahib-qiran (Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction), referring to the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter during which time a world conqueror is born and other momentous events occur, lost its special prestige as more rulers across the Near East and India included the epithet to their royal titles.

21. Bafiqi, Mukhtasar-i Mufid, 262. A typical siege would last months, and food was the most important necessity. The army, having the most power among the besieged groups to enact violence, had the first chance at securing nourishment, followed by the elite who could afford protection through connections with the army. The rest of the population suffered coercion and unbridled cruelty at the hands of thieves, neighborhood strongmen, and soldiers. Before letting the news of an impending siege reach the ears of Qandaharis, an experienced governor would have had rounded up as many known criminals as he could and tried to be the first to secure all the food storages.

26. Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian Relations: A Study of the Political and Diplomatic Relations Between the Mughal Empire and Iran (Tehran: Iranian Cultural Foundation, 1970); Muzaffar Alam, “Trade, State Policy and Regional Change: Aspects of Mughal-Uzbek Commercial Relations, c. 1550–1750,” JESHO 37, no. 3 (1994): 202–27; N. R. Farooqi, “Diplomacy and Diplomatic Procedure Under the Mughals,” Medieval History Journal 7 (April 2004): 59–86; Stephen F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Willem Floor, “Commerce vi. From the Safavid through the Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica 6, no. 1 (1992): 67–75.

29. ʿAbbas II’s reconquest of the city in 1649 was widely celebrated. The eminent poet of the era, Sai’b Tabrizi, wrote a eulogy Qandahar-namah (The Tale of Qandahar) in commemoration of the event. Sa’ib Tabrizi, Divan-i Sa’ib Tabrizi, ed. Muhammad Qahraman, vol. 6 (Tehran: Shirkat-i Intisharat-i ‘ilmi va Farhangi, 1985–1991), 3602–3608.

30. Starting in Tahmasb’s reign, Safavid historians credited him for reinstating Humayun on the Mughal throne. See, for instance, Khvandamir, Zayl-i Tarikh-i Habib al-Siyar, 209. This trend can be seen even after the fall of the Safavids. See, for example, Abu al-Hasan Qazvini, Favayid al-Safaviyyah, ed. Maryam Mir-Ahmadi (Tehran, 1367), 4.

33. Mirza Muhammad Mar‘ashi Safavi, Majma‘ al-Tavarikh, ed. ʿAbbas Iqbal (Tehran, 1362), 51–58; Tadeusz Krusinski Judasz, The History of the Revolutions of Persia, vol. 2 (London, 1728), 3–13. Several Safavid princes declared their sovereignty as shahs after the capital fell, but their claims were short-lived and ineffectual. For a detailed study of the fall of the Safavids, see Rudi Matthee, Persia in Crisis: The Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012).