Between 1514 and 1639, the Ottomans and Safavid Empires engaged in a series of wars, clashes, skirmishes and destabilisation attempts. After the Treaty of Zuhab on 17 May 1639, the hostilities between the two powers largely came to an end and, for many historians, the story ends there as there seems little to tell afterwards. It is like the two Empires went their separate ways and had little to do with each other, but this view is mistaken and Selim Gungorurler’s new book, The Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, 1639–1682 Diplomacy and Borderlands in the Early Modern Middle East, demonstrates there was life between the two after 1639. The year 1639 ushered in a new era of unbroken peace, diplomatic […]
