Shah Abbas the Great

If Shah Ismail is considered the Cyrus of Iran's post-Islam era, Shah Abbas was certainly it's Darius. During his reign, Iran regained its international place and became a center of trade and business in the near east. Shah abbas made his capital, Isphahan, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, he patronized art and architecture. He financed several scientist and help them achieve their goals. It was during his time that Shi'it Islam really found it's roots and became the official religion of the country. He was a great man with a very open mind, so much that he even attended church with his christian subjects for the christmass celebration.

Shah Abbas succeeded his father in a very hard time. The whole country was engaged in controversy about the furture king. It was not very easy for a 17 year old prince to rule the country. The first thing Abbas did was to calm the Qazvin court. He convinced everybody of his rightfulness to the throne. Then he headed east to defeat the rebels. His next action was to move the capital from Qazvin to Isphahan, a city in the central parts of Iran that was not close to the borders.

At this time, foreign powers, mostly Uzbecks and Ottoman's, were attacking the country. Abbas knew that he can not fight on two wars at once, so he made peace with Ottomans. Then he attacked Uzbeks and in a very long and bloody battle, defeated their armies and captured their leader, Abdulmomen Khan. Abbas executed the Uzbek Khan and this put an end to the Uzbek attacks. His next action was to resume the old war with Ottomans. This time he was in luck! The Ottoman emperor at this time was himself engaged in a lot of internal comflicts, so he was not able to raise and army strong enough to defeat Abbas' well trained soldiers, so Abbas destroyed the Ottoman powers and restored Iran's rule to the parts of the country captured by Ottomans.