Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Assessment
Shah ruled with a passionate zeal for justice and the welfare E of his subjects. He frequented tea houses and other meeting places of ”
the ordinary people in order to learn of extortion aiyj -tbe-part-of hisofficials^ his punishment of corrupt officials He showed unusual religious tolerance, grantnm pfivibges to-many. Christian groups. The dark side of his character was reserved for his own sons and members of his own family. The experiences of his youth, when he was marked for execution by his uncle, Shah Isma’il

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Political and Cultural History of Islam

II, had left him with a morbid fear of conspiracy Originally, he followed the practice of his predecessors in appointing the princes of the blood royal as provincial governors, but after a series of revolts and intrigues in favour of his i,ons, the royal princes were confined to the harem, where their only companions were women and eunuchs.
As his obsessi\e fear of assassination increased. Abbas began to put to death or to blind any member of the royal family who caused him anxiety in this regard. In this way, one son was executed and two were blinded and imprisoned. Abbas died without an heir capable of succeeding him. Though Abbas possessed great stature as a monarch even in an age notable for its outstanding rulers-his great achievement in first saving the Safavid Empire from collapse and then raising it to new heights of splendour is marred by his treatment of his own family and the fact that his reforms contained within them the seeds of the future decay of both dynasty and state.’
Abbas’s reign also marks a peak of Persian artistic achievement. Under his patronage, carpet weaving became a major industry, and fine Persian rugs began to appear in the homes of wealthy European burghers. Another profitable export was textiles, which included brocades and damasks of unparalleled richness. The production and sale of Silk was made a monopoly of the crown. In the illumination of manuscripts, book binding, and ceramics, the work of the period of Abbas’ is without equal; in painting it is among the most notable in Persian history. Abbas moved his capital to Isfahan, which he proceeded to embellish, drawing on all the resources that the artistic flowering of the preceding two or three centuries had produced.
Magnificent parks and palaces, great open squares where troop maneouvres or vast polo games could proceed and, above all, impressive mosques, hospitals, schools, and caravanserais sprang up through his munificence and that of his family and his successors. The use of coloured tile to decorate buildings, especially great noble domes, was at its height, it has been complained that, typically of a Mate’ art, the work was over refined and over-resplendent, the solid lines of the structure almost disappear in the blaze of magnificent colour. This is surely a misjnHgm^n^ »* iv£ uave seen jn anv casg5
the brilliance of Isfahan even now does not cease to delight the imagination.
1 Muhammad Arshad. Islamic History. P.401.
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