Tabrīz

Tabrīz outlived the Ilkhans as a capital, serving the Qara Qoyunlu, under whom the Blue Mosque was raised, and then the Aq Qoyunlu. In 1501 Ismail I was crowned here as the first Safavid shah and made Twelver Shi'ism the faith of his realm, forcing the mostly Sunni townspeople to convert. The new dynasty also made the city its front line against the Ottomans: Selim I sacked it after Chaldiran in 1514, Tahmasp I moved his court to the safety of Qazvin in 1555, and from 1585 until Abbas the Great retook it in 1603 the Ottomans held Tabrīz outright.

The 18th century brought one disaster after another, an earthquake in 1721 that killed some eighty thousand people, an Ottoman invasion soon after and another great quake in 1780. Revival came with the Qajars, who made Tabrīz the residence of their crown princes. Abbas Mirza governed here from 1799, and after a Russian army had briefly taken the city in 1828 he made it the starting point of Iran's first reforms, importing machinery, setting up a regular post and remaking the army on Western lines.