Safavid-Ottoman Encounters in Persian Travel Prose and Poetry (1505–1741)

Abstract:Safavid-Ottoman encounters in Persian travel texts, none of which explore Europe, transcend the one-dimensional accounts of Shiite-Sunni rivalry often propagated in historical, jurisprudential, and polemical texts, and instead offer more complex manners of theorizing diverse and first-hand encounters between Safavid and Ottoman subjects. Sunni travelers, who moved from Iran to Mecca and beyond, tend to reveal more affinity with the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman sultans, rather than the Safavid shahs, as the embodiment of Shiite Iran. By decoding these predominantly understudied and overlooked travel texts—particularly those composed in verse—as self-documented attempts at self-inscriptions, scholars might better assess how Safavid Shiite and Sunni travel writers navigate their selfhood and envision the Ottomans as they move away from Safavid Iran towards the Ottoman realms.