Persia

Persia was reunited under the Safavid dynasty, which arose from a Sufi order based at Ardabil.

In 1501 Ismail I became shah and made Twelver Shiism the state religion. The Safavids ruled Iran and neighbouring lands until Afghan forces captured Isfahan in 1722; their rule was restored in 1729 and ended in 1736. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar reunited Iran and was crowned in 1796; under his successor Fath-Ali Shah, Persia lost much of the Caucasus to Russia in the early nineteenth century.