Latest / The Safavid Empire: Persia's Return to Greatness — Fexingo History
The Fall of Herat 1588: How Shah Abbas I Reunited Safavid Persia
In 1588, a young Shah Abbas I inherited a fractured Safavid empire: Qizilbash warlords carved up the provinces, Uzbeks had seized Herat and Khurasan, and the Ottomans pressed from the west. This episode follows Abbas's first great military campaign the reconquest of Herat, a fortress city that had been under Uzbek control for nearly a decade. We explore how Abbas outmaneuvered the fractious Qizilbash, forged a new army of gholam slave-soldiers, and used a combination of siegecraft, deception, and brutal tribal politics to retake the city. The fall of Herat in 1588 marked the beginning of…
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