Abstracta Iranica

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Marcinkowski, Ismail
« The Iranian Presence in the Indian Ocean Rim: A Report on a Seventeenth-Century Safavid Embassy to Siam ». Islamic Culture 77, 2 (2003), pp. 56-98.

In this lengthy article, Marcinkowski examines and contextualizes a late 17th century Iranian travel account to the kingdom of Siam, namely Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Muḥammad Rabī’s Safīna-yi Sulaymānī. Marcinkowski provides a synopsis of the four main sections (related as ‘gifts’, or tuḥfa) of this account which details an official Safavid diplomatic mission sent by Shah Sulaiman in the 1680s. In discussing this travelogue, Marcinkowski suggests that there was indeed an impressive Iranian presence in the kingdom of Siam in the late 17th century. He also takes this opportunity to take John O’Kane – the first to translate the Safīna-yi Sulaymānī into English some thirty years ago – to task for mistranslating Muḥammad Ibrāhīm’s designation of Šahr-i nāv for the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya as “New City”, when in fact it is better understood as “city of boats and canals”. Marcinkowski also reviews the history and development of the Persian community in Siam since the early 17th century, suggesting that opportunist Iranians were in fact emigrating from the shi‘ite Deccani kingdoms of the ‘Adilshahs, Nizamshahs, and Qutbshahs and not necessarily directly from Iran.

Colin Mitchell

Pour citer cette recension

Colin Mitchell. Marcinkowski, Ismail, « The Iranian Presence in the Indian Ocean Rim: A Report on a Seventeenth-Century Safavid Embassy to Siam ». Islamic Culture 77, 2 (2003), pp. 56-98., Abstracta Iranica [En ligne], Volume 26, mis en ligne le : 8 décembre 2005. URL http://abstractairanica.revues.org/document2765.html. Consulté le 25 novembre 2009.