Armenians, Diplomats, and Commercial Agents of Shah ʿAbbās: The European Journey of Khvāja Safar (c. 1609–14)

In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, Safavid–Spanish relations took a substantial leap forward when Shah ʿAbbās I, together with a plan of alliance against the Ottomans, proposed a trade agreement that would reroute the silk market from Ottoman territory. This scheme and other factors highlighted the need to send to Iran, for the first time, a Spanish ambassador who was not linked to a religious order. Recent studies of the circumstances of this embassy have appeared; however, there has been little discussion of the people involved in the events, save for the Spanish ambassador Don García de Silva y Figueroa. This paper reconstructs and analyzes the journey of the Armenian Kh^vāja Safar through Europe and the problems he faced in his mission as a commercial agent and emissary for Shah ʿAbbās. It tries to explain why there was such an unexpected change in Shah ʿAbbās’ attitude towards Spain.