The Safavids and “Candechar, King of the Indies”: Polish-Lithuanian Intelligence on Safavid-Mughal Relations

Abstract

The relations between the Islamic empires of the early modern period—the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals—have long been the subject of research, as have been the links between each of them and Europe. The present paper adopts a different approach, addressing the relations between them and Central and Eastern Europe as part of a single geopolitical continuum. This is done by focusing on the events of the late 1630s—the Safavid-Mughal conflict over Kandahar and the Ottoman-Safavid Treaty of Zohāb (1639)—and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s interest in them, as well as how these issues are reflected in the sources, including Polish intelligence reports and Safavid and Mughal chronicles. Such an examination shows not only the scope of interest of various state actors in global affairs, but also offers us a glimpse into the intertwined political relations of early modern Eurasia.