Shah Ismail II: The Safavid King Who Tried to Abolish Shiism

The Safavid Empire: Persia's Return to Greatness — Fexingo History · May 30, 2026 · 10m

In 1576, when Shah Tahmasp died after fifty-two years on the throne, his son Ismail II ascended — and immediately launched a brutal campaign to undo everything his father had built. He murdered his own brothers, purged the Qizilbash elite, and most shockingly, he publicly cursed the first twelve Imams and ordered a return to Sunni Islam. This episode explores Ismail II's short, bloody reign: his imprisonment under Tahmasp, his alliance with the Qizilbash and Sunnis, his persecution of Shia clerics and gholams, and his mysterious death after just eighteen months. We examine the sources —…