WI no Safavids?

[Ran Exilis]

What if Ismail Safavi somehow failed to gain power in Azerbaijan?

How likely would the rise of a new Persian empire be without the Safavids?

And how different would the situation in the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire be if no powerful Twelver Shi'ite empire arises in Persia?

 

[MerryPrankster]

Twelver Shi'ism may not become the majority-religion in Iran at all. I think Abdul said prior to the Safavids, they were Sunni.

 

[Ran Exilis]

Indeed, prior to the Safavids, the majority of Persians were Sunni.

 

[Admiral Brown]

I think i read somewhere that the consolidation of Shiism in Iran interrupted the continuity between the Otoman Sunnis and the Central Asian Sunnis, and that this lead to the gradual decay of Central-Asian Islamic centers (cause artisans, thelogues and thinkers couldn't get there any longer in good numbers). It was just the author's idea, though...

 

[Max Sinister]

I think Central Asia was finished off by the Mongols, incl. Timur.

 

[Ran Exilis]

I think Central Asia was finished off by the Mongols, incl. Timur.

I'm not so sure about that; in spite of the ravages of the Mongols and Timur Lenk, the core of Timur Lenk's empire (Samarkand, etc.) did flourish for a while under the rule of Timur and his successors...