Shah Abbas the Great Dies

1629

The Safavid ruler who had rebuilt Persia into a first-rank power, pushed back the Ottomans and Uzbeks, and turned Isfahan into a jewel of Islamic urbanism died at Mazandaran. His grandson inherited a dazzling empire that would begin its slow, ornate decline almost immediately. Abbas had raised Persia higher than any ruler since the Sasanians, but left no successor equal to holding it.