Michael Rubin reviews Ernest S. Tucker’s Nadir Shah’s Quest for Legitimacy in Post-Safavid Iran. In the early eighteenth century, Nadir Shah tore like a whirlwind across the Iranian plateau. The ...

The name “Hasht Behesht,” meaning “Eight Paradises,” evokes an image of divine splendor, and the palace lives up to its title through its remarkable architectural brilliance and intricate decorations.

With their sumptuous surfaces, original designs, and technical sophistication, luxury textiles played a critical role in the social, cultural, religious, and economic life of Safavid Iran (1501–1722).

Iran commemorates Sheikh Baha’i on April 23rd every year for his contributions as a scholar who integrated scientific knowledge with religious thought, shaping intellectual and practical life in the ...

"With their sumptuous surfaces, original designs and technical sophistication, luxury textiles played a critical role in the social, cultural, religious and economic life of Safavid Iran (1501-1722).

Intricately patterned Persian carpets are renowned the world over, with the Safavid period considered one of the high points of the art form. But because relatively fewer have survived, other textiles ...

How an Afghan tribal leader took on two of the most powerful empires in the world and won independence for Afghanistan. The pivotal legacy of the Battle of Chaldiran still reverberates 500 years later ...

In “Fashioning an Empire: Safavid Textiles From the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (comprising the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler ...