INTRODUCTION

The architectural achievements surveyed in this chapter range over four hundred years of Persian history. The first half of our period was one of constant shifts in political power accompanied by changing frontiers. Only in the second half did Persia obtain some measure of security under a single political authority. The story opens with the architectural style associated with the Īl-Khāns and its development in western and southern Persia under the successor dynasties. It was this style which was transferred to Transoxiana in the last quarter of the 8th/14th century. The part played by Timur and his house is crucial to the story in as much as theirs was the principal building effort, first in Transoxiana and then in eastern Persia – centres of Timurid power. With the political decline of the Timurids in the middle of the 9th/15 th century, the initiative in architecture returned to western Persia under the patronage of the Türkmen dynasties. Thanks to Shah Ismā'īl and his successors, the strands were drawn together and a homogeneous style was created and disseminated throughout the Safavid kingdom.

Initiative in public works was with members of the royal house and the high officers of state: many civic undertakings were due to the enterprise of local dignitaries. The religious was the most powerful of motives: for at least in the first half of our period it is only the religious foundations which survive. Apart from the public and private mosque, the madrasa and kbāngāh, the principal effort was concentrated on the embellishment of the great shrines – above all, those of the Imām Ridā at Mashhad and of Shaikh Safī at Ardabīl.