Schools and Learning in Safavid Iran

Teachers and students in Safavid Iran worked in madrasas, religious households and institutions supported by endowments. Instruction included religious law and learned texts, while particular scholars also pursued philosophy, mathematics or medicine. Armenian schools and book workshops in New Julfa formed another important setting for education.

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Teachers and endowed institutions

A madrasa provided an institutional setting for teaching and, in many cases, accommodation for students. Endowed property could supply income for its maintenance and personnel. The relationship between a donor’s foundation and its revenues helped sustain study beyond an individual lesson or patron’s visit.

Safavid royal building included institutions associated with named teachers. Sheikh Lotfollah taught religious law in Isfahan, where Abbas I supported his mosque and teaching establishment. Near the end of the dynasty, the Chahar Bagh madrasa formed part of Shah Sultan Husayn’s programme of religious patronage.

Teaching also depended on a scholar’s reputation and connections. Students could seek particular masters and move between towns. Their intellectual formation was consequently shaped by the people available to them as well as by the buildings in which lessons took place.

A scholar’s route through learning

Qazi Said Qomi’s career gives a concrete example. Born in 1640, he learned medicine from his father and studied philosophy in Qom with Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji. In 1658 he moved to Isfahan, where his teachers included Rajab Ali Tabrizi and Fayz Kashani.

His medical service at the court of Abbas II coexisted with philosophical writing and religious study. This combination shows how knowledge could pass through family instruction, named masters and court employment. It does not imply that every student followed the same course or studied all these subjects.

Books, copying and commentary

Manuscripts gave teachers and students texts to read, explain and debate. Copying reproduced a work, while marginal notes and commentaries supplied further interpretation. A scholar’s response could become another text for later readers, extending a discussion beyond the original teacher’s circle.

The philosophers associated with Safavid Isfahan used this practice to examine difficult questions about existence, creation and knowledge. Their connections extended to Qom and Shiraz. The modern description School of Isfahan therefore refers to related intellectual activity, rather than a single school with an identical curriculum.

Armenian schools and printing

At New Julfa, Khachatur Kesaratsi established schools attached to Armenian churches and developed higher study at All Savior’s Monastery. Simeon Julayetsi led its school, which taught subjects including grammar, philosophy, geometry, theology and biblical studies. Manuscript production brought scribes and painters into the same institutional setting.

Kesaratsi set up a printing press in 1636, and a printed Psalter appeared in 1638. Producing books required technical work on letters, paper and ink as well as the selection of texts. Printing developed alongside continuing manuscript copying and could provoke resistance from people whose livelihoods depended on the older practice.

Merchant education addressed other practical needs. The seventeenth-century teacher Kostand compiled information on currencies, weights, measures and trading routes for Armenian commercial learners. His work connected written instruction to the calculations required by long-distance trade.

For the wider setting, see Safavid Culture and Arts.