This is the first book on the Eurasian silk trade in early modern times. Most of the raw silk spun in Europe from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries was imported from Iran via the Ottoman markets. For the Eurasian silk trade, the armenian suburb of New Julfa was the hub and controlled a vast commercial network covering half the world, from Amsterdam to the Philippines. Silk was exchanged for Europe's imported American silver. Iran was entirely dependent on these Armenian silver imports reaped from the silk trade. The cash brought in by the silk trade was used for Iran's state building and centralization in the seventeenth century. Studying this trade as well as the administration which organized it, brings to light, for the very first time, the political economy of Safavid Iran.

The Shah's Silk for Europe's Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India, (1530-1750) (University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies)

Business & Money

Ina Baghdiantz McCabe

International

University of Pennsylvania

The Safavid dynasty represented the pinnacle of Iran’s power and influence in its early modern history. The evidence of this – the creation of a nation state, military expansion and success, economic dynamism, and the exquisite art and architecture of the period – is well-known. What is less understood is the extent to which the Safavid success depended on an elite originating from outside Iran: the slaves of Caucasian descent and the Armenian merchants of Isfahan. This book describes how these elites, following their conversion to Islam, helped to transform Isfahan’s urban, artistic and social landscape.

Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran

History

Sussan Babaie

Kathryn Babayan

Massumeh Farhad

Middle East

I.B.Tauris

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Books by Ina Baghdiantz McCabe