Safi was crowned on 28 January 1629 at the age of eighteen. He ruthlessly eliminated anyone he regarded as a threat to his power, executing almost all the Safavid royal princes as well as leading courtiers and generals. He paid little attention to the business of government and had no cultural or intellectual interests (he had never learned to read or write properly), preferring to spend his time drinking wine or indulging in his addiction to
opium. Supposedly, however, he abhorred
tobacco smoke as much as his grandfather did, going as far as to have those caught smoking tobacco in public killed by pouring molten
lead in their mouths. The dominant political figure of Safi's reign was
Saru Taqi, appointed
grand vizier in 1634. Saru Taqi was incorruptible and highly efficient at raising revenues for the state, but he could also be autocratic and arrogant. to the Mughal general
Qulij Khan Turani at the
Siege of Bost (1638). Iran's foreign enemies took the opportunity to exploit Safi's perceived weakness. Despite firm initial Safavid successes and humiliating defeats in the
Ottoman–Safavid War (1623–1639) by Safi's grandfather and predecessor
Shah Abbas the Great, the
Ottomans, having had their economy stabilized and military reorganized under the fiercely capable
Sultan Murad IV, started making incursions in the west within a year of Safi's ascension to the throne. In 1634 they briefly occupied
Yerevan and
Tabriz and in 1638 they finally succeeded in recapturing
Baghdad and other parts of
Mesopotamia (Iraq) which, despite being retaken on several occasions by the Persians, and most notably by
Nader Shah, would all remain in their hands until the aftermath of
World War I. Nevertheless, the ensuing
Treaty of Zuhab of 1639 put an end to all further wars between the Safavids and the Ottomans. Apart from its wars against the Ottomans, Iran was troubled by the
Uzbeks and
Turkmens in the east and
briefly lost Kandahar, in its easternmost territories, to the
Mughals in 1638, due to what looks like an act of revenge by its own governor in the region,
Ali Mardan Khan, after the latter was dismissed from his office. In 1636 Safi Shah received a trade delegation from
Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, which included
Adam Olearius. Olearius wrote a book about this visit in 1647, which was widely published in Europe. In 1639, Safi sent a return delegation to Holstein-Gottorp, bestowing gifts on the Duke. However, the Duke did not succeed in his ultimate aim - starting a regular trading relationship with Iran (and Russia) and making the Duke's newly founded town of
Friedrichstadt into a European trade terminus. Safi died on 12 May 1642 and was buried in
Qom. He was succeeded by his son
Abbas II. His death was related to
heavy drinking. According to one account, found in
Archangelo Lamberti's
Relation de la Colchide ou Mengrellie (1654), Safi died in a drinking contest with a certain Shedan Chiladze, a renowned Georgian drinking champion invited to Isfahan from
Mingrelia. ==Family==