1 Parts of this article were presented at the 1999 Middle East Studies Association meeting in Washington D.C. I would like to thank Kathryn Babayan, Maria Subtelny, and others for their comments.

2 Scammel, V.G., The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion c. 1400–1715 (London 1980) 77–90Google Scholar.

3 A famous quote used for this argument come s from Jan Pieterszoon Coen's advice to the ruling Dutch council of the Heeren XVII in December of 1614: ‘From experience, your lordships ought to know very well that in India trade is driven and maintained under the protection and favour of your weapons, just as the weapons are furnished from the profits of trade, in such wise that trade cannot be maintained without war, nor war without trade’. Tracy, James D., ‘Introduction’ in: Tracy, James D. ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350-1750 (Cambridge 1993) 1Google Scholar.

4 A seminal study of Asian commerce and its fledgling relationship with the different competing Europeans powers of England, Holland, and Spain was offered by Steensgaard, Niels, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of Caravan Trade (New York 1974)Google Scholar. Steensgaard asserts, among other things, that the English and Dutch were in fact quite leery of some of the Asian despotic regimes, and were reluctant to adopt aggressive trading policies for fear of introducing unjustifiable overhead costs, i.e. defensive fortifications, repairs, ammunition. It was only later towards the end of the seventeenth century that the English East India and Vereenigde Oosl-Indische companies became distinctly mor e controlling. Other studies, like Chaudhuri's, K. N. ‘Braudelian’ Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean From the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge 1990) andGoogle ScholarCurtin's, PhilipCross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, emphasise the European companies as simply another trading element in what was a large and complex trading rhythm in the Indian Ocean.

5 In 1607, Philip III signed the treaty of Sitva Torok with th e ‘Turk’, thus allowing the Ottoman sultan Mehmed III to concentrate on his campaigns in Persia.

6 Ferrier, R.W., ‘Trade From the Mid-14th Century to the End of the Safavid Period’ in: Jackson, Peter ed., Cambridge History of Iran VI (Cambridge 1986) 424Google Scholar.

7 ‘Abbas was obviously hoping to use the English as leverage in his commercial negotiations with the Portuguese and the Dutch; moreover, the shah ‘desired to have an alternative trading outlet far from the Ottoman dominated routes to the West and those controlled by the Mughals to the East’. Ferrier, R.W., ‘The Terms and Conditions Under Which English Trade was Transacted with Safavid Persia’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49 (1986) 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 For an excellent presentation of Shah 'Abbās's capricious treatment of the European trading companies, see Matthee, Rudolph, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600-1730 (Cambridge 1999)Google Scholar.

10 The Safavids originated as a sūfi mystical order, or tarīqah, in Äzārbaijān in the thirteenth century. Under its leaders, Sultān Junaid (r. 1447-60) and Sultān Haidar (r. 1460-1488), the order became increasingly militant and political and adopte d a policy of holy, frontier war (ghazā) against Christian communities in the Georgian Caucasus. See Woods, John, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (Salt Lake City 1999) 141–143Google Scholar, and Roemer, Hans Robert, Persien aufdem Weg in die Neuzeit: Iranische Geschichte von 1350-1750 (Beirut 1989) 236–238Google Scholar.

11 Matthee, , The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran, 73Google Scholar.

12 Good discussions of these problems can be found in Aubin, Jean, ‘L'avenement des Safavides reconsidere: Etudes Safavides III’, Moyen Orient & Ocean Indien 5 (1988) 1–130Google Scholar; Idem, ‘Sah Isma'Il et les Notables de l'lraq Persan’, foumal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 2 (1959) 37-81; Dickson, Martin, Shah Tahmasp and the Uzbeks (Princeton 1958)Google Scholar; and Haneda, M., Le Chāh et les Qizilbāš: le système militaire Safavide (Berlin 1987)Google Scholar.

13 Robert and Anthony Sherley had arrived with twenty-six Europeans who claimed to be ‘representatives’ of various European monarchs. Anthony Sherley was sent shortly afterwards to different European powers with letters of accreditation while his brother remained behind as a hostage. Robert Sherley, in that time, became quite close to the shah and served as a military advisor, ambassador, and cultural attache until his death i n 1628.

14 Savory, Roger, ‘Barud: V. The Safavids’, EI² I, 1068Google Scholar; Lockhart, Lawrence, ‘The Persian Army in the Safavi Period’, Der Islam 34 (1959) 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roemer, Hans Robert, ‘The Safavid Period’ in: Jackson, Peter ed., Cambridge History of Iran VI (Cambridge 1986) 265Google Scholar.

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16 Matthee, Rudi, ‘Unwalled Cities and Restless Nomads: Firearms and Artillery in Safavid Iran’ in: Melville, Charles ed., Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society (London 1996) 394Google Scholar.

17 Minorsky primarily based his description of the army on what the French traveler Jea n Chardin had witnessed in the latter half of the seventeenth century. See Minorsky, Vladmir, Tadhkiral al-mulūk: A Manual of Safavid Administration (London 1934) 32–33Google Scholar.

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19 For a good discussion of tiyūl, see Fragner, Bert, ‘Social and Internal Economic Affairs’ in: Jackson, Peter ed., Cambridge History of lran VI (Cambridge 1986) 513–516Google Scholar.

20 See a complete copy of the treaty in East India Company, Danvers, C. ed., Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East VI (Amsterdam 1968) 31Google Scholar.

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22 Eventually, the shah agreed to pay for packing and transport costs from Gīlān and Māzanadārān to Qazvīn; thereafter, the costs were to be assumed by the Steensgaard, E.I.C., The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century, 380Google Scholar.

23 This is, of course, the ‘price revolution’ of the seventeenth century, which constituted one of the many features of what has been called ‘the seventeenth-century crisis’. See Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’ in: Ashton, T. H. ed., Crisis in Europe, 1560-1660, Essays from Past & Present (London 1965)Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, E. J., ‘The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, Past & Present V and VI (1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Steens-gaard's, N. excellent article in Parker, G. and Smith's, L.edited collection of essays: The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London 1978)Google Scholar.

24 Steensgaard has reconstructed French exports from the Levant for the year 1621-1622 on the basis of a series of ships' manifests. Forty-four ships, sailing from Alexandria, Alexandretta, Smyrna, Acra, Seydon, Tripoli, and Constantinople, carried a total of 137,000 kg of silk, a figure substantially higher than for previous years. Steensgaard, , The Asian Trade Revolution, 185–187Google Scholar.

25 Matthee sums it up nicely: ‘Shah ‘Abbas in 1619 skilfully exploited an optimal constellation of circumstances to derive maximum benefit from Iran's export trade in raw silk’. Matthee, , The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran, 103Google Scholar.

26 Maqämī, Jahāngīr Qā'im, Yeksad va panjāh sanad-i tārīkhī: az jalāyiryīn Iā pahlavi (Tehran 1970) 23Google Scholar.

27 This comes from a farmān issued by the shah in 1608, which describes a ‘Captain Paul a from England’. It is almost certainly Robert Sherley himself, since there were no other Englishmen who had spent any considerable amount of time in Iran. See Maqāmī, , Yeksad va panjāh sanad-i tārīkhī, 21Google Scholar.

28 Röhrborn, Klaus Michael, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhunderi (Berlin 1966) 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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31 Jalāl al-Dīn Munajjim Yazdī, Tārīkh-i 'Abbāsī, Ms., London, British Library, Or. 6263, ff. 100a-100b.

32 Yazdi, , Tārīkh-i 'Abbāsi, fol. 101aGoogle Scholar.

33 Yazdi, , Tārīkh-i 'Abbāsi, fol. 109b. See alsoGoogle ScholarFaroughy, Abbas, Histoire du Royaume de Hormuz: Depuis son Originejusqu'd son Incorporation dans I'Empire Person des Sefevis en 1622 (Brussels 1949) 94Google Scholar.

34 Herbert, Thomas, A Relation of Some Yeares Trvaile, Beginne Anno 1626 (London 1634) 62Google Scholar.

35 His titulature on one farmān, dated 1629 (1039 A.H.), reads ayālat va shaukat va hashamat panāh jalālat va 'adālat va nasfat dastgāh 'alijah amīr al-umarā (the refuge of government, dominion, and magnificence, the epitome of splendour, justice, and equity, chief of the amirs). Untitled Collection of Royal Decrees, Ms., London, British Library, Harley 109, fol. 14a. A review of other Safavid titulature suggests that these were indeed unique, near royal, honorifics for an amir. See Mitchell, Colin Paul, ‘Safavid Imperial Tarassul and the Persian Insha Tradition’, Studia Iranica 37/2 (1997) 195–196Google Scholar.

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37 Until the twentieth century, it was believed that Robert Sherley had introduced firearms to the Safavid state. To the contrary, Professor Bacque-Grammont has proved that Shah Ismā'il I (r. 1501-1524) had used cannons in siege warfare. Bacqué-Grammont, Jean-Louis, Les Ottomans, les Safavides, et lewrs Voisins (Leiden 1987) 167–168Google Scholar. We also hear from the Venetian ambassador to Shāh Tahmāsp (r. 1524-1576), d'Alessandri, that the Ottoman asylum-seeker, Prince Bayāzīd, brought thirty pieces of artillery as a gift. See d'Allesandri, Vincentio, ‘Narrative of the most Noble Vincentio d'Allesandri’ in: Grey, C. ed., A Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia-in the XVth and XVIth Centuries 49/2 (1873) 228Google Scholar.

38 The report that the Russian Czar Ivan sent one hundred pieces of cannon an d five hundred firearms to Qazvīn during the reign of Tahmasp is debatable. Likewise, C.R. Boxer has challenged Inalcik's suggestion that the Portuguese gave the Safavids two hundred pieces of cannon and 10,000 men to fight the Ottomans - there were only 10,000 Portuguese in the entire South Asian theatre of operations. See Inalçik, Halil, ‘The Socio-Political Effects of the Diffusion of Fire-arms in the Middle East’ in: Yapp, M. and Parry, V. J. eds, War, Technology, and Society in the Middle East (Oxford 1975) 195–217Google Scholar; Boxer, C. R., ‘Asian Potentates and European Artillery in the 16th-18th centuries: A Footnote to Gibson-Hill’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38/2 (1965) 156–172Google Scholar.

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58 Qādiri, Jarūn nāma, fol. 46b.

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63 Boxer, , ‘Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian Gulf’, 95–97Google Scholar.

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68 I would like to thank Professor Matthee for clarifying this point for me.

69 According to Matthee, components needed to manufacture cannons and gunpowder, saltpetre, charcoal, iron, copper, and tin, were largely unavailable in Iran. Matthee, ‘Unwalled Cities and Restless Nomads’, 396. Also, references to saltpetre and lead appear in Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series III, 306Google Scholar; VI, 173.

70 The French traveler, Jean de Thévenot, describes the foundry in Thévenot, Jean de, Suite de Voyage de Levant (part III) (Paris 1689) 463Google Scholar.

71 Public Record Office, State Papers, 104/40, pt. 1, f. 54.

72 The original of this letter can be found in Public Record Office, State Papers, 102/40, pt. 1, f. 54. A facsimile is given in Fekete, L., Einführung in die Persische Paläographie (Budapest 1977) 529Google Scholar; and transcriptions in: ‘Abd al-Husain Navā'I, Asnād va mukātabāt-i siyāsī-yi Irān (Tehran 1981) 71Google Scholar; Maqāmī, , Yeksad va panjāh sanad-i tārīkhi, 33Google Scholar; and Tājbakhsh, Ahmad, Tārīkh-i Safaviyya (Tehran 1994) 699Google Scholar.

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74 Professor Herzig has done a relatively thorough statistical analysis of Persian raw silk trade. In 1621, English and Persian peddling merchants exported a combined total of 213,000 kg of raw silk through the Levant, while the E.I.C. managed only 37,000 kg. The combined total of both E.I.C. and V.O.C. exports of silk through th e Persian Gulf in 1634 was 112,000 kg, whil e the shipments through the Levant to Marseilles alone is estimated close to 300,000 kg. See Herzig, Edmund, ‘The Value of Iranian Raw Silk Exports in the Safavid Period’, Iranian Studies 25 (1992) 64–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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