1. See Todorov, Tzvetan The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other, trans. from the French (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 4.Google Scholar

2. See, in chronological order, Walser, S. Schuster Das Safawidische Persien im Spiegel europäischer Reiseberichte, 1502-1722 (Baden-Baden: Grimm Verlag, 1970)Google Scholar; Chaybany, Jeanne Les voyages en Perse et la pensée française au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1971)Google Scholar; Stevens, Sir Roger “European Visitors to the Safavid Court,” Iranian Studies, 1: Studies on Isfahan (1974): 421-57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gurney, D. “Pietro della Valle: The Limits of Perception,” Bulletin of the School of Asian and African Studies 49 (1986): 103-16.Google Scholar For Middle Eastern and Islamic views of the West, see Lewis, Bernard The Muslim Discovery of Europe (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982).Google Scholar Savory, Roger “Muslim Perceptions of the West: Iran,” in Lewis, Bernard et al., eds., As Others See Us: Mutual Perceptions, East and West (New York: International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 1985)Google Scholar, examines the evolution of the Iranian view of the West. To my knowledge, the only booklength study that deals exclusively with the history of Iranian perceptions of the West is ^cAbd al-Hadi Haᵓiri Nakhustīn rūyārūᵓīhā-yi andīshahgarān-i Īrān bā dī rūyā-yi tamaddun-i būrzhvāzī-yi Gharb (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1367/1988).Google Scholar

3. The best example is Lewis, Muslim Discovery.

4. See Jahn, Karl Die Frankengeschichte des Rašīd ad-Dīn (Vienna: Verlag der österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977).Google Scholar

5. For references to Westerners in the works of these poets, see ^cA. Ruh Bakhshan, “Dar bārih-i chigūnigī-yi āshnāᵓī-yi Īrānīyān bā Farang wa Farangīyān wa bāztāb-i ān dar ash^cār-i Mawlawī wa Ḥāfiz,” Nāmah-i Pārsī 2, no. 3 (1376/1997): 158-77. See also Ghanoonparvar, M.R. In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), 3-4Google Scholar, who notes that the image of the Westerner in classical Persian poetry is generally a negative one.

6. For this, see Mohebbi, Parviz Techniques et ressources en Iran du 7e au 19e siècle (Tehran: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1996), 191-93.Google Scholar

7. This point is made by Savory, “Muslim Perceptions,” 74.

8. For the idea that Iran's self definition began to be an extension of Europe's ability to shape images, see Cole, Juan “Invisible Occidentalism: Eighteenth-Century Indo-Persian Construction of the West,” Iranian Studies 25 (1992): 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. See Rasul Ja^cfariyan ^cIlal-i bar uftādan-i Ṣafavīyān. Mūkāfāt-nāmah (Tehran: Markaz-i chap va nashr-i sazman-i tablighat-i Islami, 1372/1993), 210-11.Google Scholar The latter characteristic is said to refer to the fact that Isfahan was long a bastion of militant Sunnism.

10. Mahmud b. Hidayat Allah Afushtahᵓ-i Natanzi Naqāwat al-āār fī ẕikr al-akhyār, ed. Ishraqi, Ihsan (2d ed., Tehran: Shirkat-i intisharat-i ^cilmi wa farhangi, 1373/1994), 484, 541Google Scholar; Munshi, Iskandar Beg History of Shah Abbas the Great (Tārīkh-i ^cālam-ārā-yi ^cAbbāsī), ed. and trans. Savory, Roger 2 vols. pag. as one (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978), 668, 1171Google Scholar; Munshi, Iskandar Beg and Walih Isfahani, Muhammad Yusuf Ẕayl-i tarikh-i ^cālam-ārā-yi ^cAbbāsī, ed. Khwansari, Suhayli (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-yi Islamiyah, 1317/1938), 15Google Scholar; Muhammad Ma^csum b. Khwajigi Isfahani Khulāṣat al-siyar. Tārīkh-i rūzgār-i Shāh Ṣafī Ṣafavī (Tehran: Intisharat-i ^cilmi, 1368/1989), 50Google Scholar; Tahir Nasrabadi, Mirza Muhammad Taẕkirah-i Naṣrābādī, ed. Dastgirdi, Wahid (3d. ed., Tehran: Kitabfurushi Furughi, 1361/1982), 79.Google Scholar

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12. Chardin, Jean Voyages de Mr Jean Chardin en Perse, aux Indes et autres lieux d'Orient, 10 vols. and atlas, (Paris: Le Normant, 1810-11), 9:206.Google Scholar

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14. Ibid., 39.

15. Kaempfer, Engelbert Am Hofe des persischen Grosskönigs, 1684-1685 (Tübingen: Horst Erdmann Verlag, 1971), 88.Google Scholar See also Muhammad Yusuf Walih Qazvini, “Khuld-i barīn,” British Museum, MS Or. 4132, fol. 77 and 83, where the Kurds are called “bad-nihād,” evil-natured.

16. Nasiri, Dastūr-i shahriyārān, 145, 179.

17. Ibid., 216.

18. Bedik, Petrus Chehil sutun sue explicatio utriusque celeberrimi, ac pretiosissimi theatri quadraginta columnarum in Perside orientis, cum adjecta fusiori narratione de religione, moribus (Vienna: Leopoldi Voigt, 1678), 387.Google Scholar

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20. Afushtahᵓi Natanzi, Naqāwat al-āār, 563, 382, 381.

21. See Andersen, Jürgen and Iversen, Volquard Orientalische Reise-Beschreibungen, ed. Lohmeier, Dieter (Schleswig: Johan Holtwein, 1669; facs. ed., Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1980), 152.Google Scholar

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23. See Tahir, Mirza Muhammad “Wahid” Qazvini, ^cAbbāsnāmah, ed. Dihqan, I. (Arak: Davudi, 1329/1951), 95Google Scholar; and Bedik, Cehil sutun, 387.

24. Ibid.

25. Husayn Mustawfi, Mirza Muhammad “Āmār-i mālī wa niẓāmī-yi Īrān dar 1128 ya tafṣīl-i ^casākir-i fayrūzī-yi maᵓair-i Shah Sultan Husayn Ṣafavī,” ed. Danishpazhuh, Muhammad Taqi Farhang-i Iran-zamin 20 (1353/1975): 409.Google Scholar

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27. Thevenot, Jean de Voyages de Mr. de Thevenot en Europe, Asie et Afrique, 3 vols. in 5 tomes (3d ed., Amsterdam: M.C. le Céne, 1727)Google Scholar, vol. 3, Suite du Voyage de Mr. de Thevenot au Levant, 373.

28. See Membré, Michele Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia (1539-1542), trans. Morton, A.H. (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1993), 41, 52Google Scholar; and Walsh, J.R. “The Historiography of Ottoman-Safavid Relations in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Lewis, Bernard and Holt, P.M. eds., Historians of the Middle East (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 197-211.Google Scholar

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30. See Qazvini, “Khuld-i barīn,” fol. 83v.; and Chardin, Voyages, 3:185Google Scholar.

31. See Dickson, Martin “Shah Tahmasb and the Uzbeks (The Duel for Khurasan with ^cUbayd Khan: 930-946/1524-1540)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1958), 43, 185-86.Google Scholar Andersen, describing the arrival of an Uzbeg delegation to Isfahan in early 1648, noted how the Uzbeg envoy intended to dismount out of respect for the Safavid monarch once he viewed Shah ^cAbbas II, and how the latter prevented him from doing so. See Andersen/Iversen, Orientalische Reise-Beschreibungen, 152.

32. For this, see McChesney, R.D. ‘“Barrier of Heterodoxy’?: Rethinking the Ties between Iran and Central Asia in the Seventeenth Century,” in Melville, Charles ed., Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996), 231-68.Google Scholar

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34. For this, see Matthee, Rudi “Iran's Ottoman Diplomacy during the Reign of Shāh Sulaymān I (1077-1105/1666-94),” in Eslami, Kambiz ed., Iran and Iranian Studies: Essays in Honor of Iraj Afshar (Princeton: Zagros Press, 1998), 148-77.Google Scholar

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36. Munshi, Iskandar Beg Tārīkh-i ^cālam ārā-yi ^cAbbāsī, 2 vols. pag. as one (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1350/1971), 981-82.Google Scholar

37. See Iskandar Beg Munshi and Muhammad Yusuf Walih Isfahani, Ẕayl-i tārīkh-i ^cAbbāsī, 200-203.

38. Jenkinson, Anthony et al., Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia, eds. Morgan, E. Delmar and Coote, C.H. 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1886), 1:145-47.Google Scholar

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45. See Chronicle of the Carmelites, 1:446-47Google Scholar, letter Fr. Angelus, O.C.D., 1 Sept. 1672; and Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague, VOC 1779, 10 Dec. 1708, fol. 313, and, for a mid-seventeenth-century Persian treatise on the proper behavior of non-Muslims, including dress codes and bans on outings during periods of rain, Muhammad Taqi Majlisi, “Aḥkām-i ahl-i ẕimmah,” ed. Hasan Matlabi, Sayyid Abu'l Mīrā-i Islāmī-yi Iran , 8 vols. (Tehran: Kitabkhanah-i hazrat-i Ayat Allah al-^cUzma Mar^cashi Najafi, 1373-7/1994-8), 3: 709-16.Google Scholar As was typical of such decrees, they were never thoroughly enforced and would never last long. They were, however, issued until the late nineteenth century, at least against the local Jewish population. See Littman, David “Jews under Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia,” Wiener Library Bulletin, new ser. 32 (1979): 7Google Scholar, for an example of such a decree issued in Hamadan in 1892.

46. For this, see Haᵓiri, Nakhustīn rūyārūᵓīhā, 480-89; and idem, “Reflections on the Shi^ci Responses to Missionary Thought and Activities in the Ṣafavīd Period,” in Calmard, Jean ed., Etudes Ṣafavides (Paris: Institut français de recherche en Iran, 1993), 151-64.Google Scholar

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49. Membré, Mission, 31.

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54. Ibid., 33.

55. Kaempfer, Am Hofe, 180-81.

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59. Bedik, Chehil sutun, 387.

60. Nasrabadi, Taẕkirah-i Naṣrābādī, 206.

61. Ibid., 97.

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64. See Chronicle of Carmelites, 1:165Google Scholar. Even after the restitution of Hormuz to Safavid control in 1622, Iranian officials seem to have disliked the Portuguese for their imperious behavior. It is interesting to compare this to the Chinese image of the Portuguese in the seventeenth century. In Ming China, the Portuguese had the reputation of being violent and unruly, and were seen as cannibals, kidnappers, slave traders, smugglers and marauders. See Fok, K.C. “Early Ming Images of the Portuguese,” in Ptak, Roderik ed., Aspects in History and Economic History, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1987), 143-55Google Scholar; repr. in Disney, Anthony ed., Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450-1800 (Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1995), 113-25.Google Scholar

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72. Chronicle of the Carmelites, 1:489Google Scholar. See also Bushev, P.P. Posol'stvo Artemii Volynskogo v Iran v 1715-1718 (Moscow: Nauk, 1978), 8Google Scholar, and Lockhart, Laurence The Fall of the Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 61-62.Google Scholar

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76. For this, see Matthee, “Iran's Ottoman Policy.”

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78. Shah Safi (1629-2) requested an enameler, a diamond cutter, a watchmaker, a jeweler, a painter, an armor-maker, and a cannon-maker from the King of England. See J. Qaᵓim-maqami Yakṣad u panjāh sanad-i tārīkhī (Tehran: Chapkhanah-i artish-i Shahinshahi-yi Iran, 1348/1969), 34.Google Scholar A list included in a letter sent by Shah Sulayman to King Charles II in 1079/1668-69 similarly contains a request for an enameler, a watchmaker, a diamond cutter, a goldsmith, a gunsmith, a painter, and a cannon-maker. See Fekete, L. Einführung in die persische Paläographie. 101 persische Dokumente, ed. Hazai, G. (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977), 529-33.Google Scholar

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80. Petis de la Croix, Extrait du journal, 143.

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90. See Layla Diba, “Clothing,” in Encyclopaedia lranica, and the pictures in Lewis, Muslim Discovery, 252-53.

91. Milstein, Rachel “The Battle of Chaldiran: A Persian Oil Painting,” Israel Museum Journal 8 (1989): 43.Google Scholar See also Canby, “Farangi Saz.“

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95. Poullet, Sr. Nouvelles relations du Levant…avec une exacte description…du royaume de Perse, 2 vols. (Paris: L. Billaine, 1668), 2: 217.Google Scholar

96. du Mans, Raphaël “De Persia 1684,” in Richard, Raphaël du Mans, 2:298-99.Google Scholar

97. Chardin, Voyages, 4:117-19.Google Scholar

98. Chardin, Voyages, 2:352Google Scholar. Mansour Sefatgol in a recent article has drawn attention to such inconsistencies in Chardin's portrayal of the familiarity of Iranians in Safavid times with the outside world, and in particular with Europe. It seems to me that, while it is true that Chardin contradicts himself on certain concrete issues, e.g. the existence of maps, this and other examples to the contrary do not invalidate his general proposition that Iranians were rather poorly informed about Europe. See Sefatgol, Mansour “Īrān-i ^casr-i Ṣafavī az nigāh-i Shārdin. Pizhūhashī guzarā dar bārah-i safarnāmah-i Shardin wa nigāhī bih tarjumah-i jadīd-i ān,” Kitāb-i Māh 1:6-7 (1377/1998): 6-11 (9).Google Scholar

100. Olearius, Vermehrte newe Beschreibung, 434.

101. See the map of the world's “inhabited quarter” by Sadiq Isfahani of Jaunpur in India, whose origins were evidently Iranian, in Joseph E. Schwartzberg, “Geographical Mapping,” in J.B. Harley and David Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. 2, bk. 1, Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 391.Google Scholar

102. Ottoman cartography in the seventeenth century was by far the most sophisticated, beginning with the famous Piri Reis. Having come under European influence, much of it served military purposes. Nothing comparable exists for the Safavid state. See Ahmet Karamustafa, “Military, Administrative and Scholarly Maps and Plans,” in Harley and Woodward, eds., Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, 209-27. For the evolution of Islamic cartography, see Gerald R. Tibbets, “Later Cartographic Developments,” in ibid., 137-55.

102. The official was Mirza Rafi^c, the Shah's dawātdār. See Bushev, Posol'stvo, 135.

103. Archives des Missions Etrangères (AME), Paris, 351, Letter Gaudereau 3 April 1696, fol. 3. In early Qajar times familiarity with geography was still not a given among educated Iranians, as is illustrated in the question that the vizier Mirza Rizaquli posed to the Frenchman Romieu of whether the Sea of France was the same as the Sea of Constantinople. See Ch. de Voogd, “Les français en Perse (1805-1809),” Studia Iranica 10 (1981): 261.Google Scholar

104. Chardin, Voyages, 3:427-28.Google Scholar See also Stevens, “European Visitors,” 448.

105. See AME, Paris, vol. 350, Mercier, Isfahan, to Paris, 28 Nov. 1667, fols. 263-66.

106. Chardin, Voyages, 4:89Google Scholar, 192, 197.

107. Chardin, Voyages, 3:429-30.Google Scholar

108. Poullet, Nouvelles relations, 2:217-18.Google Scholar

109. Fryer, John A New Account of East India and Persia Being Nine Years’ Travels 1672-1681, ed. Crooke, William 3 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1912), 1:323.Google Scholar

110. Bushev, Posol'stvo, 50.

111. Mustawfi, Muhammad Mufid Moḫtaṣar-e Mofīd des Moḥammad Mofīd Mostoufī, ed. Najmabadi, Seyfeddin 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1989), 1:12.Google Scholar

112. For Husayn ^cAli Beg, see Alonso, Carlos “Embajadores de Persia en las Cortes de Praga, Roma y Valladolid,” Anthologica Annua 36 (1989): 144-70Google Scholar; for Musa Beg, see Vermeulen, U. “L'ambassade persan de Musa Beg aux Provinces-Unies (1625-1628),” Persica 7 (1975-78): 145-53;Google Scholar for Naqdi Beg, see Wright, Denis The Persians Amongst the English (London: I.B. Tauris, 1985), 1-8Google Scholar; for Muhammad Riza Beg, see Herbette, Une ambassade.

113. Herbette, Une ambassade, 201-2.

114. For this, see Haᵓiri, Nakhustīn rūyārūᵓīhā, 159-64, 176.

115. ARA, VOC 1520, Rapport van Leenen, 20 June 1692, fols. 213v-14.

116. See, for example, The Ship of Sulayman, ed. and trans. O'Kane, John (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 20.Google Scholar The similarity with contemporary China is striking. The elite of Ming China, too, assumed that foreigners would be attracted to their country to pay homage to its ruler, and, more plausibly than in the case of Iran, thought that foreigners needed Chinese products much more than China needed foreign commodities. The Chinese conception of the tribute system went even further, however, including a ban on all trade in Chinese ports by foreigners not connected with tribute embassies. See Wills, John E. Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K'Ang-hsi, 1666-1687 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984), 15, 19.Google Scholar

117. See Roubakhshan, A. “Farang et farangi chez Bīdel,” Luqmān 12:1 (1995—96): 83-93.Google Scholar

118. This is not true for China, a country that the Irannians may have esteemed as a civilization on a par with their own. Sayyid ^cAli Akbar “Khataᵓi,” who was most likely a merchant from Transoxania, in the first decade of Safavid rule visited China and in 922/1516 finished writing the Khatāy-nāmah, his travelogue of the journey. See Khatāy-nāmah. Sharḥ-i mushāhadāt-i Sayyid ^cAli Akbar Khatā'ī dar sar-zamīn-i Chīnī, ed. Afshar, Iraj (Tehran: Markaz-i asnad-i farhangi-yi Asya, 1352/1973, 2d ed., 1372/1993).Google Scholar

119. For the negative images of blacks in classical Persian literature and culture, see Southgate, Minoo “The Negative Images of Blacks in Some Medieval Iranian Writings,” Irannian Studies 17 (1984): 3-36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar