My first encounter with Safavid architecture was in the Persia court of the Ibn Battuta mall in Dubai, where I had nursed a coffee under an ersatz dome modelled on the Shaykh Lutfallah Mosque in Isfahan. Here at the Shah 'Abbas exhibition, I would re-encounter that famous dome in a small gallery flanked by high screens, onto which images of the Shah's architectural legacy were projected: not just the Shaykh Lutfallah Mosque, but also the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, the Shrine of Shaykh Safi in Ardabil, and the Shrine of Imam Riza in Mashhad.
Magnificent monuments apart, the other enduring legacy of Shah 'Abbas was the establishment of Shi'a Islam as the state religion of Iran, although this wasn't without its difficulties. As Karen Armstrong, comparative religion specialist and trustee of the British Museum, explains over the audioguide: 'Politics is a religious matter for Muslims far more than it is for Christians. Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." The Qu'ran says, "You must create a just society." So, therefore, the state of society reflects the state of Islam.' Yet, 'how do we accommodate Sufis in a burgeoning, developing, evolving Shi'i state? Even though Shi'ism began as a mystical movement, once it becomes Establishment, you can't have people making extreme claims about total justice, total love and total goodness, or else you are not even going to associate with them in government – this is not viable. And so there are clashes….'
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