The Safavid's Religious and Political Relations; a case study of the way in which the budget is drawn up for the educational centers and religious schools (seminaries)

The spread and promotion of ShiÝism can be taken as the greatest achievement of the Safavids as they proclaimed ShiÝism as their official religion. This important change has had its impacts on the political thoughts of the Safavids during their reign over two centuries (907-1135 AH), thereby establishing ties between religion and politics. It was such that the Safavids began to support the ShiÝa clerics and establish religious governmental offices which had not already existed. It goes without saying that this tie between politics and scholars’ religious approaches was not possible without taking into consideration the influence of the educational institutions and centers in establishing and promoting ShiÝa doctrines. In this period, the construction of mosques and religious schools was taken into serious consideration and endowments and charities were received to construct them. Drawing upon a historical-analytical method, the article at hand which provides a case study of the relations between politics and religion in Safavids’ time seeks to collect necessary data from various historical sources around the budget allocated for centers for religious sciences and schools. The obtained results show that these institutions would provide their budget from sources like endowments, charities, legal alms (religious taxes), pensions, government budgets, money gifts from benefactors, and personal incomes. However, in addition to endowments, charities and other budgets, a large amount of budget allocated for the expenditure for these educational institutions by the Safavid government is considered to be something new and worth noticing.