prisons and prisoners in the Safavid Period

Safavid rule is considered an outstanding era in Iranian history، In pre-Safavid era none of the governments declared Shiite as official religion of Iran، Shiite, being an official religion of Iran, necessitated implementation of Islamic legal rulings in the newly established Safavid dynasty، Present study, using descriptive-analytic method and taking advantage of library resources is an endeavor to investigate prisons and prisoners’ condition in this period، According to the documents and resources of this period, legal rules used for giving sentences to the prisoners were mostly based on customary laws، Customary courts played active role in issued prison sentences، There were no public prisons in the literal meaning of the word، However the prisons were classified according to social class of the prisoner،