Interaction with religious minorities; a comparison between Imam Ali and the Safavid rulers

Wisely governmental method of Imam Ali is a guiding source for all reformers. Part of this history is the interaction with present religious minorities in Islamic society. The style of interacting with religious minorities has been the proposed issue in Islamic societies. Quran has drawn the main principles of this interaction and Imam Ali, interpreter of Quran, has visualized its practical and objective symbol after the Holy Prophet. Powerful Safavid government, the first independent Shiite government, stepped onto the arena by the slogan of following the Imams’ behavior, and governed Iran for two centuries and 50 years. This paper firstly introduces some generalities of procedure of Imam Ali in interacting with religious minorities and then, comparatively, investigates these generalities in the history of Safavid rulers and shows their weakness in their operations. The results show that there is obvious difference between these two governments which is due to the difference in the purposes and views about government.