Silver in Iran’s Early Modern State-building
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- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- Coins and Silver in Iran
- Iran’s political economy and a new elite
- The socio-political transformation brought about by European silver
- The status of merchants in Safavid Iran
- The Royal Treasury
- The Importance of Muslim Armenians in the Mint
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1 XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006 Session 106
Persia is like a vast caravansarai which has but two doors, one is on the side of Turkey through which silver from the the West come in, they are piastres which come from the New World to Spain, go to France through Brittany, cross through France to Marseilles, where they leave for Turkey; then they come here where they are melted and made into abasis which is money equivalent to a teston or a quarter of an écu. Some take their piastres all the way to India, there those Blacks don’t rely on a touching stone, they brake them in half, if they are good they take them. If not they give you back the coins…the Bagnans will sooner discover a fake abassi among a thousand than a dog would chase a partridge in an open field, since they are able sarraf and money testers. The other door is Bender Abassi or Kommoron, on the Sinus Persicus, to go Surrat in the Indies, where all the money in the Universe is unloaded as if into an abyss as it does not come out since it is used for merchandise, you gain over Persia 5 or 6 per 100.1 As Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Muzzafar Alam have pointed out Shah Abbas’ reign(r.1587-1629) is given great importance in Safavid historiography, far surpassing even the famous Mughal Emperor Akbar in Mughal historiography or Sultan Suleyman in the Ottoman case.
2 Many transformations occurred during his rule that justify his lion’s share in Iran’s history, but economic changes and the new European presence due to the international silk trade partly explain Abbas’ visibility. Yet this visibility has been a political one and the economic aspects of his reign are slowly being noticed. There is a body of literature on Safavid economic history, but those writing it would be the first to admit, my self included, that it is a very incomplete picture and that much remains to be done to highlight the sophistication of Iran’s economic position or its domestic economy, be it under the rule of its best known monarch. The sophisticated studies that exist for the Ottoman Empire and Mughal India are scarse. This paper has no pretension to offer a remedy, only to uncover a part of the picture on the role played by silver in Iran’s state-building. 2 It is not only because of European observers that the first third of the seventeenth century, Abbas’ reign has drawn so much attention, in fact most European observers like Rapahël du Mans, who is quoted above wrote much later. Abbas’ initiatives and those of his entourage brought major transformations that are worthy of such attention and scrutiny. A new capital with splendid architectural buildings, the reform of the army, the flourishing of the arts all depended on a new economic prosperity achieved under his reign. This demanded cash, which agricultural revenue did not bring. A new flow of imported silver bullion reached Iran under Shah Abbas because of Iran’s silk trade with Europe via the Ottoman markets. 3 The usual prejudice that Iran’s society remained entirely pre-capitalist runs through much of the scholarship produced on Safavid Iran’s.
4 Accepted views such as the one expressed by the Capuchin Raphaël du Mans’ that Safavid Iran was simply a corridor for trade have cemented opinions that Iran was not a monetized society and that silver flowed directly like a river to India, for a profit of around 5 percent. Silver in Iran’s state-building has been eclipsed by studies on foreign trade. The silver trade to India was certainly crucial, India was Iran’s main trading partner, there is no question about it, but I have strived to show, that in addition to foreign trade, silver played a role in the domestic realm, that it was crucial to Iran’s political economy and state building. Because of this influx of silver bullion the first part of the seventeenth century was a uniquely prosperous and significant moment in Iran’s early state building. 5 Only less than a handful of people study the economy of Safavid Iran, there is no equivalent for the Aligarh school, ior any other any other school for that matter, which has successfully argued against similar notions of stagnation for the subcontinent, led by Irfan Habib’s ideas a good number of scholars have shown that India was monetized as early as the sixteenth century. Indeed a whole school would be needed to argue effectively against seventeenth century Iran being a stagnant and pre-capitalist state, but as a beginning in several pieces of work I have strived to do so, by concentrating on the Armenians in Safavid Iran. Because the Christian i See for student for this school The making of history : essays presented to Irfan Habib. edited by K.N. Panikkar, Terence J. Byres, Utsa Patnaik. London : Anthem Press, 2002. 3 Armenians were the main importers of silver into Iran, 6 and some Muslim Armenians both played a crucial role in the economic administration of Iran. Some of these Muslim Armenians were ghulams or slaves of the shah 7 . One finds both Mulim Armenians and ghulam Muslim Armenians in the mints and together with their Christian counterparts were crucial to Iran early state buidling 8 . Today’s views on merchant diasporas and ethnic minorities and the projecting back of history with the models of thought national histories have imposed have played no small part in some resistance in accepting the major political role played by this group. Another issue has also been an avowed resistance among some scholars of Iran, shaped by views on oriental despotism, to accept Iran’s Safavid rulers as administratively sophisticated planners.
Since most of us here are not specialists of Safavid Iran a brief introduction to coins and silver in Iran is de rigueur. Currency was part of the many reforms undertaken by Shah Abbas. Between 1615 and 1620 the shah made many monetary innovations. He revised the entire accounting system to impose uniform currency throughout his realm. The ‘abbäsï was the new coinage that was aiming to become the standard one across the country. This new coinage issued by Shah Abbas existed both in silver and in gold. 9 Money and coins in Iran have been described in passim in administrative manuals such as the Tazkirat al-muluk as well as by European travelers, There are also Armenian sources: There were 50 ‘abbäsïs to the Persian tümän according to Hovhannes’ account book, the tümäni n 1686 was equivalent to 306.4 grams of silver. Numbers and coins are rare for this period so his testimony is important, by the time Hovhannes was writing between 1682-93, the silver content of the ‘abbäsïs had been altered, as it was 384 grams under Shah Abbas. Except for last years 13 years of the seventeenth century where it was hugely devalued, the ‘abbäsï coins had remained rather stable throughout the century. 10 From 1629-42 all ‘abbäsïs, both gold and silver, weighed 120 grains, from 1642 to 1661 they were struck at 120 and 144 grains, after 1666 the silver 144 grain ‘abbäsïs was discontinued and the 120 grain coins remained. Before the major devaluation of the ‘abbäsï in 1687 when it started being struck at 114
4 grains, Jean Baptiste Tavernier gives the equivalence of the 120 grain ‘abbäsï to French coinage: réale or French ecu = 3 ‘abbäsï and one shähï (shähï or chayet is 1/4 of an ‘abbäsï ) réale= 60 sols and the ‘abbäsï = 18 sols and 6 deniers. If you go to Pierre Marteau’s well known site there is a good converter established by Stephen Album that compares the ‘abbäsïs with smaller coinage, the shahi and bisti 11 . The shahi was the main circulating silver coin. The mints struck anything coming into the borders into‘abbäsïs and other local coinage. All the coins were round, and as is common to Islamic usage, none of them had the portrait of the king in the manner of European coinage. They simply bore the shah’s name on one side, the town of the mint and the date on the other. What circulated most was copper. Copper money was more oval, and was imprinted with a lion in Isfahan and a sun instead of the name of the Shah. Olearius (1603-71) leaves us the best record of many local coins with different effigies” The ordinary mark of it is a stag, a deer, a goat, a satyr, a fish, a serpent, or some such thing. At the time of our travels, the kasbeki were marked at Isfahan with a lion, at Scamachie with a devil, at Kaschan with a cock, and in Gilan with a fish”. 12 The only dissertation touching on silver circulation in Iran studies the very end of the seventeenth century a period of silver penury on a global scale. 13 Despite the persistence of ‘abbäsïs the throughout the seventeenth century goods rarely were counted in ‘abbäsïs, but in larins. Larins were the currency of Basra. They were in the shape of a doubled up thread of silver, about two fingers wide on which the name of the ruler appears. 14 Adam Olearius visited Isfahan in 1636, about the same time Tavernier made his first trip to Persia describes the money circulating within the domestic market, he sees silver and brass but hardly any gold in circulation: The ordinary money of Persia is of silver and brass, very little of gold. The Abbas, the garem- Abbas, or half-Abbas (which they commonly call Chodabende), the scahi, and bistri, are of silver. The former were so called from Shah Abbas, by whose command they were first made, being in value about the third part of a rixdollar; so that they are about 18d. sterling though they do not amount by weight to above 15d. Shah Chodabende gave his name to the half-Abbas. The scahi are
5 worth about the fourth part of an Abbas, and two bistri and a half make a scahi. Shah Ismail had coined in his time a kind of money which was called Lari, and it was made after the manner of a thick Latin wire, flatted in the middle, to receive the impression of the characters, which showed the value of the piece. The Persians call all sorts of copper or brass money, pul, but there is one particular kind thereof, which they call kasbeki, where of forty make an Abbas. When they are to name great sums, they accompt by tumains, each thereof is worth fifty Abbas. Not that there is any piece of money amounting to that sum, but the term is only used for the convenience of accounting, as in Muscovy they account by rubles and in Flanders by thousands of livers. They will receive from foreigners no other money than rixdollars, or Spanish ryals, which they immediately convert to Abbas, and gain a fourth part by the money. The king of Persia farms out the mint to private persons, who gain most by it, and share stakes with the money-changers, whom the call xeraffi, who have their shops, or offices, in the Maydan, and are obliged to bring all foreign money to the public mint, which they call Serab-Chane. 15 The passage makes clear that the mints must collect all incoming silver bullion and convert them to ‘abbäsï, and that these mints are farmed out by the shah to individuals. Nevertheless he makes clear that the shah himself profited from the mints, indeed elsewhere I have studied these profits, the were of 2%, from the mints and this currency conversion. 16 . The shah collected profits even from the craft of the money changers. Apart from moneys brought in through trade taxation brought in money, the deported Armenians of Julfa brought in a substantial amount of taxation; They yearly pay the King 500 Tomans, and have an Armenian to Govern them, whom they call Kelonter, that is to say the greatest, and he is put in and turned out by the King when he pleases. They address themselves to this Kelonter in all their Affairs, and Controversies, and it is he that Taxes them for raising the five hundred Tomans, which they yearly pay the King. But besides the Kelonter they have another Royal Officer, who is a Deroga, for judging their criminal affairs. 17 Yet this is not their biggest contribution, I have demonstrated elsewhere that thanks to the silk trade they were the chief importers of gold and silver to Iran. 18 Tavernier writing in the 1670’s narrates that there were several mines of gold and silver in Iran, but that their exploitation was so profitless that it had given rise to a general expression for labor lost. There was a paucity of gold and silver in circulation in Iran and much hoarding. The Armenians played a unique and crucial role in the economy of Safavid Persia—their trade with Europe and the Ottomans was the only source for gold and silver, 19 as Europe was Iran’s main source of gold and silver: 6 So all the gold and silver of Persia comes from foreign lands, and particularly from Europe, as I have said in the chapter on moneys. Since the reigh of Shah Abbas I to the reign of Shah Abbas II, one saw more silver in Persia than presently; and the Armenian merchants brought it from Europe to Persia where it was reduced to local money. But since a few years they only bring ducats and sequins as being more portable. 20 The word
qurûsh is used for the silver imported by the Armenians in an administrative manual the
. It refers to Turkish piastre, the most common coinage brought back by the Armenian merchants from the Levant. During the second half of the century Iran went through a silver scarcity that has been well studied by Rudi Matthee. Iran was no exception as it is well known to economic historians that this was a global situation. Yet as we will see further in this paper the Safavid administration took it upon itself to remedy this scarcity by taking some radical domestic measures. .
I have argued at length elsewhere that the Christian Armenians of Julfa renown exporters of Iranian raw silk even before they came to Isfahan in 1604 became central to the shah’s state- building as they were to become the chief importers of the silver into Iran 21 In the seventeenth century the Julfan Armenians imported glasses, telescopes, clocks and glass beads and broadcloth to Iran, but never enough to cover the cost of silk sold to Europe. Consequently, large quantities of silver bullion were transported back into Iran after the sale of raw silk on the Ottoman markets. 22 This thirst for silver held true throughout the East, from Persia, to India and the Islands of South East Asia, as well as China and it was a very profitable trade become more lucrative as bullion traveled East. It is for their established skills in the trade of silk for silver that they were settled in Iran. A more obscure, but central economic role was played by converted Armenian and Georgian
23
Both groups are central to Iran’s political economy and state building. This new elite played both a political and economic role which lies at the heart of Iran’s political economy between 1604 and 1661. I have demonstrated through Safavid sources that the silver obtained
7 through Julfan Armenian raw silk exports was important to the financing of the administration of the Royal Household or khasse, which acquired unprecedented importance under Abbas I. Most of the silver which entered Iran was brought in by the Julfan Armenians once they arrived in the borders of Iran. 24 Also clearly demonstrated elsewhere was that the Julfan Armenians and the ghulams were both attached to the Royal Household, one branch of the Safavid government, the trade of the first group helping to finance the salaries and incomes of the other. 25 Iran had no major exploitable silver mines and needed to export silk in order to obtain cash. The key to the political role of the New Julfans, is spelled out in Safavid royal edicts. 26 The Christian New Julfans had an active role in the Safavid palace structure and formed an elite with the Muslim Armenians and Georgians as they too were attached to the same branch of the government. The Royal Household or ( khasse-i sharifeh ) was one of the two branches of Safavid administration, the other being the Mamalek, sometimes called the State in opposition to the Private Royal Household. 27 .
their commercial skill enriched the Safavids and helped them consolidate their power. It has been demonstrates that in Iran the Julfans were also integrated into the political elite, within the court, and had a very high rank as did some Armenian converts to Islam, the
yet that despite this the Christian Julfans remained the relatively independent political rulers of an autonomous small Armenian merchant oligarchy, an Armenian city-state granted to them as a franchise, New Julfa. Isfahan and New Julfa would become the hub of the international silk trade in the seventeenth century, even though many scholars have contended that Abbas failed in his initial plan of making Isfahan the capital of silk by not succeeding diverting it from its Ottoman route.
28 There is little proof, despite the Shirleys’ and other English testimony, that Abbas actually wanted to avoid the traditional Ottoman routes of the silk trade. 29 Silk was Iran’s main export and almost the sole source of much needed import of silver bullion. The Ottomans were long established customers of raw silk themselves on the Ottoman markets where many European 8 merchants, the Englsih, the Dutch, the French and the Italians bought Iran’s silk from the New Julfans. Studying silver brought in against silk holds the clue to this relationship between the shahs and the New Julfans far better than silk does, silver also links the Armenians to the ghulams. The silver imported by the Armenians was administered through the ghulams in charge of the mints. Muslim Armenians seem to be predominant in the mints, handling the silver once it was within Iran. The Provost of New Julfa participated with many important officials belonging to the Royal Household in the organization of the silk for silver trade not only on the Ottoman markets but within Iran. Ghulams were also Caucasian deportees like the Armenians of Julfa on the Aras, mostly Georgian and Armenians, many of them had come to Iran in the successive deportations that took place between 1530 and 1630,some were to become part of the ghulam elite. Unlike the Julfans, however, the Armenian ghulams were converts to Islam. The Christian Julfan Armenians were settled in New Julfa, an entirely Armenian suburb of the capital, where they had thirteen churches and were given the privilege of their own religion, which the shah even protected against Catholicism. Looking for the way silver and gold brought in by Armenian traders were channeled within Iran makes the tie between Iran’s early state building under the Safavids and the Armenian “outsiders” clear. Abbas many reforms demanded cash flo. It is significant to note as we have earlier that his fiscal reform and his introduction of a new coin to impose common currency dates between 1615-20, when the Armenian trade of Iran’s silk actually got etablished. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, states that Armenians prefer selling their merchandise to the French rather than to the other nations of Europe because they pay in silver as opposed to the English or the Dutch who obligate them to taking half of their payment in cloth. A little further he writes that: As one is obliged in entering the kingdom, either in Erivan or in Tauris where currency is coined to declare all the silver one has for it to be melted and coined in the kings name, under penalty of a heavy fine for the countering parties if they are to be discovered. But if a merchants affairs do not permit him to stop either in Erivan or in Tauris, and it is more practical for him to take his silver to 9 the mint in Isphahan, he can just take a bill from the master of the mint in Erivan or Tauris by which it is attested that he has duly made his declaration 30 These major mints at the border, Erevan and Tabriz in the capital mints played a major role in imposing the abbasi as coinage after collecting all the silver and gold entering Iran. There were three main mints at the time in Iran, but there were others, all the silver entering the kingdom absolutely had to be recoined with the king’s effigy under penalty of a heavy fine for false declaration or failure to declare. The mint at Huwayza, close to the port of Basra was studied by Rudolph Matthee was especially active in the second part of the century. 31 Silk was a ready cash business, and the Europeans often had trouble obtaining silver, in Iran measures were taken so that the Dutch would have to sell against goods and not require silver. 32 The trade of silk for silver would be the specialty of the New Julfans in seventeenth century Iran. Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire both had a very important demand for raw silk for their own weaving industries. The Europeans were by no means the only consumers of silk. Consumption of raw silk for the looms in Iran and in the Ottoman Empire is often forgotten at the expense of exports to Europe, mainly because of reliance on European sources in the study of the silk trade. For the silk exports to Europe the small Armenian town of Julfa on the Aras was so important in the sixteenth century that it was marked on Ortelius’ 1570 Atlas of the World. 33 . It
claimed its place on the map, quite anomalously, among capitals and major towns like Jerusalem and Istanbul under the Europeanized name of Chinla. 34 Abbas’ move was to secure the silk trade within Iran via the Julfans was not a small victory, according to Halil Inalcik, the European demand for Iranian silk cannot be overestimated, because profits from it formed the structural basis of the development of both the Iranian and Ottoman economies. For this reason even during proclaimed blockades and during Safavid Ottoman wars silk continued to cross the Ottoman border, and reached the main Levant markets 10 of Aleppo, Bursa and later Izmir. 35 Therefore the silver flow to Iran was not interrupted by war. Julfan prominence in the silk trade, their knowledge of the Ottoman and European markets, their established network, their ability to bring in gold and silver, made them important to Abbas’ state- building ambitions. The Shah also took substantial measures as did most monarchs in the seventeenth century to forbid silver and gold from leaving the borders of his realm. The socio-political transformation brought about by European silver In Iran the social basis of the ruling class was modified not by these massive deportations from the Caucasus, but because of a new elite of Caucasian origin. Economic planning was part and parcel of this reorganization of the elite in Iran as in turn prosperity was a sine qua non for the political planning that marks the reign of Abbas I. The new Caucasian ghulam governors of provinces were an important element in establishing Safavid royal control over the production of silk from 1619 to 1629 and before that in the integration into crown lands, the khasse , of all of the major silk-growing regions—the provinces of Guilan, Mazandaran, Qarabagh. The rule of these governor dependant on the shah opened an era of unprecedented control over silk production. Shirvan was conquered last in 1607 but never became crown land even though its governors subsequently were ghulams like the rest of the silk producing provinces. The first to have a
famous Saru Taqi would govern Mazendaran and Guilan. 36 Access to them and the whole region was also a priority that was achieved by the construction of major roads for the transport of silk. A 250 kilometer road ran from Kvar south of Teheran to the town of Farahabad and a 500 kilometer road was built to run the entire Caspian shore from Khurassan to Azerbaijan. 37 Local governors and feudal families were replaced by ghulams in a systematic fashion. 38 The forced settlement of scores of Armenian and Georgian silk workers to Guilan and Mazandaran in 1604 was another step to tighten control at the lower level, it established a foreign group of workers as a device to disrupt the local feudal loyalties. The local peasants were resettled elsewhere, and skilled and unskilled Armenian silk workers alike were installed in their place. 39
11 Studies on Iranian merchants are sorely lacking. It is important to discuss the Mulsim merchants in Iran, as there are some major changes for Iranian merchants that can be traced not by any work done on Iran but by work done on Iranian migrating to India or even Thailand, more specifically families have been studied in the Deccan and Golconda. The term merchant itself may lead to misinterpretation because of European models. It has been argued by Vladimir Minorksy and others that the Armenian were a bourgeoisie. That indeed would have been a major social transformation, but it is an error of mirroring European realities onto Asia. In Europe there was a division between the landed warrior elite and he merchant bourgeoisie, in fact France made substantial reforms under Richelieu so that its landed nobility, a traditional warrior class, would not lose their titles if they traded abroad in the new commercial companies he intiated. The European model was projected on scholarship on Asia, thereby dividing merchant and warriors and landed nobility in different groups. Again since Iran there is scant scholarship on the matter we have to turn to work done on India that addresses the issue. Nearly two decades ago, C.A. Bayly and Sanjay Subrahmanyam wrote a seminal article about merchants in both Northern and Southern India.
40 In both regions they described wealthy merchants as “portfolio capitalists”, importantly they demonstrated that in both regions the division between a warrior and merchant class, so dear to European historiography does not hold true in India. After a close scrutiny of the lives and preoccupations of Armenian merchants in Iran, as well as a study of the economic role of the
detailed scrutiny 41 . In Iran there was no clear division between warrior landowners and merchants, and that not only feudal lords were often merchant princes, but that the Armenian merchant diaspora was also landed owning and armed, and sometimes maintained armies. 42 The
traditional view that a merchant diaspora could not play an political role has also attracted my attention and elsewhere I have written at length about how it does not hold true for the Julfans in Iran and how the model for diasporas was initially based on the Julfans by Philip Curtin should be amended after we know more about their role in Iran. 43 A precursor to my views about Iranian merchants can be found in the work of Jean Aubin on Azeri merchants, who were land owners, 12 warriors and merchants all at once. What was true as a social reality for merchant networks in India and Iran is equally true of the Armenians, whose provost was a prince. He ruled the networks both commercially and politically and as I have demonstrated elsewhere he even bore the Persian title of shah on top of his own Armenian princely title. Beyond the fact that they are Christian little else differentiates the wealthiest New Julfans from the “portfolio capitalists” in Asian networks studied by Subrahmanyam and Bayly working on India. Ina Iran’s political economy the Julfans played the same role as the “portfolio capitalists” found in India. Wealthy Muslim merchants in Iran y have not been notice or studied within iran, but those who were displaced by this new elite of Caucasians have been noticed in the same article and elsewhere. Since wealthy Iranian merchants were often feudal lords, their power was a threat the Safavids as demonstrated by a ten year war of succession; after 1590 the shah wary of feudal opposition and rivalries relied on a new power base which had no ties to the Iranian lords. 44 The political use made by Abbas of these new comers, the Julfan Armenians, who rose to the highest posts, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam has argued in another article was tied to the departure to Thailand, the Deccan and Golconda of important Iranian feudal families wh traded with India, who at this juncture were deprived of power. 45 He argued that the success of the Armenians might be responsible for the departure of the Muslim Iranians to India a land of opportunity. Now in the present state of our knowledge it is clear that it is the political use made of this whole new elite and the shah’s use of these new arrivals that confirm the tie between the two events, the rise of a new elite and departure of a previous one. One example of such an exiled wealthy merchant and feudal lord is found in Golconda, from a ruling family, originally dislodged from the Caspian shore by Shah Abbas’ reforms and resettlement of the silk producing regions. 46 Other major Iranian families, who left and became “portofolio merchants in India” are discussed in some detail by C.A Bayly and Sanajay Subrahmanyam. It is hard to imagine they would start with nothing they must have brought their wealth from Iran. Deaprture was not unique to Muslim merchants, all who fialed to be in this protected new elite chose to go and explore better opportunities, one famous Julfan Armenian provost who lost his bid for power in the administration in Iran left for India, he
13 was many Armenian merchants who did so even in the first third of the seventeenth century. 47 Very little work has been done on Mulsim Iranian merchants in Iran for this period, leaving the false impression that they were not important. There existed a similar problem for Turkish merchants who are beginning to be better studied after being equally invisible to scholarship. 48 Moreover, the merchants and the aristocrats were not two different groups in Iran, but one. 49 Describing an Armenian Iranian merchant a French document has to explain: “ he occupied himself with the most considerable trade of the East Indies. This occupation is to his greatest advantage as it is without exception that the nobility of Persia, Armenia and all of Asia is engaged in trade, without it implying anything derogatory.’ 50 There existed no equivalent class to the European urban bourgeoisie in Iran until the twentieth century, yet Iran had many merchants. Some were Muslim merchants were prominent in the silk trade in the sixteenth century. 51 The shahs themselves engaged in trade. There is a very clear example of the shah iiacting as venture capitalist associating himself with other merchants. A
document, first described by Charles Melville defines the rules imposed by the shah in 1619 for a royal monopoly on silk. It shows the clear tie there was between the appointed ghulams , the shah, and the merchants in the silk trade. 52 The edict states that no one is to be allowed to buy be it a mann of silk without permission from the viziers and kalantars of the provinces. 53 The royal decree is addressed to the administrators of the provinces of Guilan, Shirvan, Ganja, Qarabagh, Tabriz and Ardabil. 54 . It is very precise as to the shah’s prices of the next season’s production: a kharvar of silk (290 kilos) would be purchased from the producers for 30 Tabrizi Tumans. This decree proves the importance of the silver brought in from the Ottoman markets by the Armenians and some other merchants from the Caucasus: Wealthy Georgian and Armenian merchants were given an advantage by this royal decree. An entire region’s production of silk was clearly reserved for them by the shah. The silk of Guilan was consigned by decree to a Georgian Jew, Khwaja Lalazar Yahud, residing in Farahabad, but originally from Kakheti Geeorgia. The silk of Shirvan and Qarabagh was consigned to Khwaja Safar and Khwaja Nazar of Julfa, now residing in New ii
14 Julfa.. Most interesting is the clear tie established in this 1028/1619 royal decree between Khwaja Nazar , provost and ruler of New Julfa, and the shah’s silk factor Muhib Ali Beg Lalah. The decree clearly states that the silk reserved for the Armenian Provost Khwaja Nazar should be sold in the realm of the Ottomans[ Dar al-Saltanah of Istanbul], Khwaja Nazar was the appointed the treasurer of the cash raised for the silk sold. Once bought the equivalent in scarlet , gold, and Turkish textiles Nazar should send the proceeds to Muhib Ail Beg ( Lala Beg) in Isfahan. 55 Lala beg was called the shah’s treasurer and silk factor by Pietro Della Valle. 56 Lala Beg collected the benefits of the silk trade from Khwaja Nazar for the shah, a lucrative post which was not without its dangers. Nazar was head of a highly organized network of Armenian merchants who employed factors to travel and sell the silk for a commission. 57 The permitted sale of silk to merchants coming from Anatolia for forty six Tumans, sixteen Tumans higher than production price, shows that the customary purchase of merchants coming in from the Ottoman Empire to the Caspian shore remains an important source of silver. Nevertheless the role played by the Armenians is clear in European sources, mainly through observers like Tavernier and Della Valle. In his letters Pietro Della Valle summarizes the role of the New Julfans: “[Gli Armeni] sono in somma al Re di Persia appunto come I Genovesi al Re di Spagna, che né essi posson vivere senza il Re, né Re senza loro.”[“They are to the king of Persia like the Genoese are to the King of Spain, neither can they live without the king, nor the King live without them”] 58 That the Genoese were the bankers of the King of Spain is common knowledge 59 but that the New Julfan Armenians were the financiers of the Shahs has remained unnoticed because scholars have been concentrating on their role as silk exporters and not as importers of silver and gold. Even less noticed is the economic role of the ghulams. Many converted Armenians and Georgians, in high administrative posts, would actively help Shah Abbas both in the mint and also as intermediaries in the royal silk trade with Europe. 60 The real protagonists in Iran for this European silk trade were ghulams, they dictated the terms. Govenors of provinces were also in a
position of intermediaries in the silk trade. Allaverdi Khan, was the famous general who conquered the Caucasus for Abbas, he was made governor of the province of 15 Fars, this was a mjor province for trade. He would leave a dynasty of ghulam such as Imaam-quli Khan and Davud Khan who continued to hold high positions not only politically but posts that had crucial economic meaning to the silk for silver trade. Silk had to be expedited through their territories of Fars and Lar,. A governor who was not in the shah’s service could bring obstacles by demanding fees, which he had the authority to do and slow down the trade. 61 Therefore in addition to ghulams directly involved in trading there were ghulam governors of provinces whose role in taxation and expedition was crucial to the shah’s monopoly and to the enrichment of his royal treasury. Allaverdi Khan’s family in Fars were the authority that the English and Dutch factors working for the Companies had to deal with. The Christian Armenians of the khassa played the role of financing the ghulam administration and providing cash salaries. A Safavid royal decree make clear that the gold and silver brought in by the silk trade is collected then delivered by the provost of the Armenians, Khwaja Nazar, to the Royal Household, this remained true after Abbas’ death in 1629 after the monopoly was broken. 62 The royal edict proceeds to renew the order by Abbas I to Khwaja Nazar,
still the provost and kalantar of New Julfa (r. 1618-36), to take all the gold and silver imported by the Armenians and deliver it to the Royal Household, as dues. 63 Most importantly, it states that the revenue of the silk exports, silver and gold went to pay of the administration of the Royal Household. This essentially makes the Armenians exporter the financial wing of the khassa administration to which they were themselves attached. The bullion imported by the Armenians paid for the salaries of the some of the officials employed within the government as a passage in the
attests the bullion imported by the Armenians paid for the salaries of the some of the officials employed within the government, as the following passage attests: During the reign of former monarchs the whole of the profits from the vâjibî of the Mint [was as follows]: in the best years, when merchants brought from outside masses of qurûsh coins and when, at the time of particular prosperity ( ‘ayn-i ma‘mûrî ) of Isfahan, 400 workers, all present, were daily employed in the Nine Departments of the Mint, and the fabrication of [plated] silver thread ( naqda-sâzi? ) and copper coins ( fulûskârî ?)was
farmed out ( ijâra) for 500 to 600, or 700 tumâns the farm holder, on behalf of all the farm [given to him by] the Divan used to send to the Treasury 1000 ashrafîs
[silver coins] 16 and 100 dastaja kila [sic] [large ashrafî coins], which at the [given] rate were worth 250 tumâns approximately, and moreover used to pay 350 tumâns as salary to the M u‘ayyir , the Darrâbî-bâshî and other persons of the Private Household who were in possession of drafts (
). Apart from the above mentioned sum, nothing else was sent to the Treasury. From ancient times until now, one sixteenth of the sum entering the Private Household had been assigned to the Mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik
64 The above is excerpted from the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk regarding the mint., 65 After describing the silver brought in by Armeniana trade the manual states that it was “used to pay 350 tumâns
as salary to the M u‘ayyir
, the Darrâbî-bâshî and other persons of the Private Household who were in possession of drafts ( arbâb-i avâlât ). Apart from the above mentioned sum, nothing else was sent to the Treasury. From ancient times until now, one sixteenth of the sum entering the Private Household had been assigned to the Mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik. 66 The mints acted as a central bank for salaries, drawn by ( havaleh)drafts. In addition to this direct salary for the administrators, there are several commissions, given as a form of taxation on that money, among them the seignorage of the shah himself (usually 2% on the whole sum). 67 The fees of the mu‘ayyir al-mamâlik , were also a commission, one-sixteenth of the whole sum that entered the Royal Household, the profits from farming out the mint to private persons. The salary of the mu‘ayyir , the
darrâbî-bâshî a are clearly named. Other salaries based on the drafts held by additional members of the household are mentioned, although who thye were is not specified in the passage.
Under Abbas the army was being paid in cash. Troops of ghulâmân, never supplanted the troops of the feudal
, but the shahs sustained an army of their own. Chardin writes of twelve thousand soldiers with muskets which he calls mousquetaires thinking of the French example but Abbas the Ottoman model in mind: “ he thought that the Turcs had found it necessary in their conquest to form a large infantry which they called Yengichery or Jannissaries, which in Turkish means new army, or new troops, that he would form a similar one to oppose the.” 68
administration of the Royal Household. 69 There were other revenues for the Household including taxes, among them taxation on silk paid by the Armenians at five tumâns per load. 70 However, the 17 author of the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk is correct in pinpointing that the piastres brought in by the Armenians, was by far the largest source of cash. These Safavid sources establish beyond any doubt the financing of the Safavid state by Armenian trade both under Shâh ‘Abbâs I and his successor. All of the gold and silver entering Iran had to be minted, the mint also being one of the departments (
) under the Royal Household. Under Abbas the head of the mint was a protegé of Lala beg, a certain Mullayim Beg. Mullayim
Beg was the mint master and his mentor Lala
Beg also has been called the treasurer of the shah. Pietro Della Valle describes the great autonomy he had in managing the silk trade, he wrote that the shah let Lala Beg, grow fat on the silk trade just so long as he ran it well. 71 As the 1619 decree demonstrates Lala Beg received the proceeds of the Levant silk trade from Khwaja Nazar of Julfa. They did not do the accounting , however which was done through an elaborate administration and well recorded. Every Armenian Christmas the Armenian Provost received the Shah in his home and offered him gifts. After the feast came annual presents to the shah, worth at least four or five thousand French écus a. If Tavernier is correct and twenty
were equal to 300 écus, this astronomical sum is the equivalent of 300 to 360
Grandees also received gifts, the eunuchs in particular. Tavernier then tells us that this is nothing much compared to the principal gift that goes to the shah’s mother on Christmas day. According to the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk , fees
and presents, called pîshkash , are counted as part of the salaries of the officials. One can attempt to give these sums offered by the Armenians a sense of scale by comparing them to the salaries given in the Tadhkirat al-Mulûk . The vizier, the highest-ranking official, collected annual fees of 830
tumâns, and the head of the aram, also of very high rank, earned 300 tumâns per year, although it was not the whole of their income as this passage makes clear.. 72 These wages were in cash but there were other gifts in kind as the tradition of gifts is an important element in Safavid economy.
73 Every gift was also recorded in an elaborate and highly oranized system of accounting. 18 The Royal Treasury The economic adminstration of the Khassa has been explored elsewhere. 74 The royal workshops, buyutat, and the artisans employed within them, were the also units of the khasse. All of the workshops were under the authority of the supervisor of the royal workshops ( Nazer-e buyutat )with the exception of the mint, where the controller of the essay, also called mint master, Mullayim Beg under Abbas, reported directly to court. 75 Samples of the goods the workshops produced were put yearly under seal by the Nazer, so that what was consumed and paid for by the Royal Household would conform to what had been approved. Each year expenditure for the Royal Household were calculated for the six months to come The Nazer, although he kept accounts for it, could not enter the royal treasury but controlled all entries and debits, among the most important of all the holdings of the royal treasury were textiles, and jewels. The issue of the circulation of silver and silver scarcity is often thought about with amounts of f Spanish and Japanese silver obtained for the European Asian trade. Issue of hording really impeded circulation. Hording silver and gold was common in European courts as well as in Asia. If we believe him Chardin describes the great honor he had to have a rare and very rapid glimpse of the treasury while examining jewels for the shah. He describes priceless pearls and rubies the size of an egg while visiting in 1673, in a period which is not the height of silver entry into Iran, he wrote the following: “When I was at the Treasury, they drew a curtain in front of a wall, which I saw all covered up with bags, stacked upon each other all the way up to the ceiling. There could have well been three thousand bags, that I judged from their shape to be bags of silver.” He goes on to say that he was told that all the walls were covered like this and that each bag contained fifty
sometimes some of the bags were exchanged for ducats which he qualifies as the only gold that entered Iran. 76 Chardin’s contention that only one twentieth of what entered the shah’s treasury ever left it, and that it was a “gouffre”, a cave, that swallowed all the precious metal is as well known as his affirmation that the Safavid shahs were richer than the Sultan and the Grand Mughal. 19 Nevertheless the royal treasury sustained the Royal Household, salaries were paid with it, the shah with the monopoly engaged in trade himself and therefore invested, and it is a cliché that no use was ever made of it. It stems perhaps from the view that capitalism could no grow in an Asian society like Iran, as the idea of a surpluses being reinvested in trade or infrastructure does not fit Marx’s much quoted views on the Asiatic mode of production, which imply an eternally stagnant pre-capitalist phase for the continent of Asia. Save for the very famous and visible Saru Taqi, who was not a eunuchs in the traditional sense but was punished into becoming one, the important economic role played by the Eunuchs has been overshadowed by the fantasies engendered by the haram in European writing. The Eunuchs played the foremost role in the treasury. Once again Chardin, who had better access to the economic mechanisms of the Royal Household than other foreign, writes that the royal treasury was the exclusive and reserved domain to Eunuchs, that in the accounting department of the
royal treasury because it was inaccessible to anyone but the Eunuchs. “ The Nazir, or great intendant of the Royal Household [khasse], is the Controller of the treasury, he has to know what everything that enters it and everything that leaves it , but it is forbidden for him to set foot in the different rooms reserved for the treasury.” He goes on to write that the treasury “ is guarded by a Eunuch and all the officials that have the right to enter it are all Eunuchs.” 77 The black eunuch in charge of the treasury was called the Sahib-i jam and was equal in rank to the chief of the haram. 78 The important silver trade from Iran to India, Safavid Iran’s main trading partner, and the gem trade from India to Iran, both mostly in the hands of Indian and Iranian and Armenian merchants. The Europeans di not penetrate it until well into the eighteenth century. This trade has prompted writer such as Raphaël du Mans to erroneously compare Iran to a corridor for silver. 79 Another erroneous image also prevails, that of the Indians as simple moneychangers who were responsible for starving Iran by depriving it of its silver. Silver was always said to disappear by the European travelers, into the “cave” of the royal treasury of in 20 India. It has been said one in the treasury it never reappeared, yet, as demonstrated it went beyond the royal treasury and was a great use was made of silver for cash payment to a ghulam administration. In Iran’s political economy as a whole this new service elite was now paid cash salaries. 80 . The Importance of Muslim Armenians in the Mint The Armenian trade diaspora in Iran has always been looked at as if it were only comprised of the Christian New Julfans in the silk trade. Muslim Armenians should be included in Armenian Diaspora, eventhough arguably very quickly after their conversions their intial identities were not important. I have argued elsewhere because of networks formed in the powerful elites that rules Isfahan that this identity remained after conversion and similar work has been done on the Georgians. Mulim Armenians, sometimes ghulams, sometimes not, played a major economic role with the silver imports through the administration of the mints where silver had to be deposited. The crucial role of the ghulams in the mints remains to be studied. As a preliminary insight is offered through one extraordinary career. During the reign of Shah Abbas II illustrates the many problems that concern us here, the preeminence of ghulams in the mint, the ties between New Julfa and the ghulams, and the importance of ghulam economic power at court. Perhaps better than any other example Mohammad Beg’s career may point to the preeminence of Muslim Armenian converts in the mints. His destiny also highlights the previously unnoted importance of the ghulams in the administration of Christian New Julfa. The first part of Abbas II reign would have a strong Muslim Armenian component among its high administrators. The political ascendancy of a Muslim Armenian from Tabriz, the second
career owes much to another Armenian convert Allaverdi Khan from. Son of the Armenian
Khan
, Allahverdi Khan had been master of the hunt (
since
1644, when the shah was eleven years old. He is not to be mistaken for his famous namesake, another Armenian, his namesake Shah Abbas I’s general and governor of Fars. The master of 21 the hunt was an office that was held exclusively by Armenians in the seventeenth century. This member of the household had a direct link to the New Julfans, he represented their interests to the shah.
81 This link between the Christian suburb and a high official of the palace has not been stressed, but it is an important one. It once again highlights the interdependence of the ghulams and the Armenians in the palace system. This administrator had a most privileged position for gaining the shah’s ear as the hunt was a favorite sport. He later brought the strategic skills he used to organize the royal hunt to the office of general ( qullar-aqasi ), which he held until his death in 1663. This high position as head of the army gave him the power to install at court a newly converted Armenian protégé, who took the Muslim name of Muhammad Beg . Muhammad Beg was a Tabrizi Armenian who is often erroneously said to be of modest origins, the son of a tailor. He is always called a recent convert to Islam, however it seems his father was already converted. He was from a ghulam family who had occupied high posts at court. He himself occupied the post of head tailor in the royal workshops (qaychachi-bashi). 82 This
important post had also been occupied by another Armenian convert the ghulam general Qarachqay Khan. 83 His very first political post , however, was within New Julfa. His father’s post must have helped get him to become the darugheh , or city vizier, of the Christian suburb of New Julfa, the second highest post after the provost. It is not clear if this appointment was also due to Allaverdi Khan, as the master of the hunt was close to New Julfa’s administration as the intermediary between the suburb and the shah, or if this post marks the beginning of their encounter. Mohammed Beg would rise through the intervention of his patron . First he was the harbor master of Banddar Abbas, an economically important post, then shortly after in 1648 occupies the high post of controller of the essay (mo’ayyer al-mamlek) where his accomplishments led through Allaverdi Khan’s recommendation to the post of supervisor of the royal workshops or (nazer-e-boyutat). 84 Next Allaverdi Khan sponsored him to succeed his own rival at court: the orthodox Grand Vizier Sultan
al- Ulama
, and thanks to this in 1653, the Armenian convert became grand vizier.
85 The desperate demand for cash makes one wonder if any single reformer could have 22 changed the situation. When he was controller of the essay he had issued a new abbassi coin, lighter in weight by at least ten percent, in great part because cash had become scarce. His appointment as a grand vizier was prompted by economic considerations and it was believed that the Muslim Armenian vizier , who had close ties with the mints as well as the New Julfans would bring his economic expertise to court and solve some of the urgent need for silver. The war with Mughals over Qandahar, the enormous architectural projects such as the expensive construction of many palaces and caravansaries had made Abbas II’s royal treasury desperate for cash. Abbas II investments truly argue againt the image of hording monarchs and a stagnating economy, yet his ambitions caused a major crisis at a time well know to economic historians as a time of world wide silver scarcity. Hailed as the official, who could come up with new reforms to enhance the revenues of the royal treasury, he had a formidable task ahead. His new abbassi coin had changed little to the real situation. 86 As corporate manager would do today, he first downsized, eliminating posts the administration. His efforts to raise cash and curb expenditure involved eliminating some high posts reserved to ghulams, the army was paid in cash since Abbas I, such as the post of general (Sepahsalar ) of the entire army, to save on those high cash salaries. He tried to mine silver within Iran, and even engaged a French charlatan by the name of Chapelle de Han , a self-styled mineralogist to assess the resources of the mines in Iran. This was to no avail. He also instituted a mercantilist policy of a ban on silver and gold exports, which was strictly supervised by the essayer of the mint who was none other than is own son Mohammad Amin Beg. To aquire control his kinsmen were given the monopoly of two posts that he had previously occupied himself, harbor master at Bandar Abbas, a lucrative post for tolls and controller of the essay where his son succeeded his brother. 87 Some of these measures only served to amplify to the difficult economic situation that ensued from his mismanagement. 88 Nevertheless, more importantly for our prupose here, it is important to note that his family was now in the key posts that controlled the economy. After he failed to compensate for the lack of silver by his measures, Allahverdi Khan , put an end to his protégé’s administration in 1661. During this entire period, the orthodox sharî’a -
23 minded jurists greatly resented the rule at court of these Armenian converts to Islam at court. In the course of their careers Muhammad Beg, his brother Hasan Beg and his son were all three controllers of the essay, although there are several other examples, in this brief overview their careers illustrate the preeminence of converted Armenian ghulams in the highest posts in the mints. In Ottoman territory, the role of the Ottoman Armenians in the mint is well known. Much more needs to be done on the mints in Iran before the structure of power that led to these successions within Muslim Armenian families is uncovered. Download 290.61 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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