The Adventures of Shah Esma'il: A Seventeenth-Century Persian Popular Romance

The Adventures of Shah Esma'il recounts the dramatic formative years of the Safavid empire (1501-1722), as preserved in Iranian popular memory by coffeehouse storytellers and written down in manuscripts starting in the late seventeenth century. Beginning with the Safavids’ saintly ancestors in Ardabil, the story goes on to relate the conquests of Shah Esma'il (r. 1501-1524) and his devoted Qezelbash followers as they battle Torkmans, Uzbeks, Ottomans, and even Georgians and Ethiopians in their quest to establish a Twelver Shi'i realm. Barry Wood’s translation brings out the verve and popular tone of the Persian text. A heady mixture of history and legend, The Adventures of Shah Esma'il sheds important light on the historical self-awareness of late Safavid Iran.