ESMĀʿĪL III ṢAFAWĪ, ABŪ TORĀB, Safavid shadow-king, (1163-87/1750-73), the third Safavid dynast of that name, even though the chroniclers generally refer to him as Esmāʿīl the second (ṯānī). His father was Mīrzā Mortażā, a former court official, and his mother was a daughter of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn. When ʿAlī-Mardān Khan Baḵtīārī and Karīm Khan Zand occupied Isfahan in the summer of 1163/1750, they raised Abū Torāb to the throne as a sop to pro-Safavid sentiment and as a front to legitimize their rule. The new Shah Esmāʿīl was then about seventeen years old; he never enjoyed actual power, and the fiction of his sovereignty was barely maintained. After Karīm Khan’s accession as wakīl (regent, viceroy), Esmāʿīl was kept a virtual prisoner in the fortress of Ābāda with a pension of one tomān per day. He died there in 1187/1773.
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(John R. Perry)
Originally Published: December 15, 1998
Last Updated: January 19, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 6, p. 636
John R. Perry, “ESMĀʿĪL III ṢAFAWĪ,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, VIII/6, p. 636, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/esmail-iii-safawi (accessed on 30 December 2012).
