Shah Tahmasp's Heretic: The Nuqtavi Uprising at Qazvin

The Safavid Empire: Persia's Return to Greatness — Fexingo History · May 12, 2026 · 4m

In 1574, a startling heresy shook the Safavid capital of Qazvin. A mystic named Dervish Khusraw led a movement called the Nuqtavis, who believed that the divine spark existed in every human being and that the end of the Islamic cycle was at hand. Shah Tahmasp I, once a zealous patron of Shiite orthodoxy, found himself confronted by a threat that infiltrated his own court. Drawing on the work of historian Kathryn Babayan, this episode explores the Nuqtavi challenge, the shah's brutal crackdown, and the execution of Dervish Khusraw. We also discuss how the Nuqtavi ideas survived underground and…