Riyadh Al- Ohama's Report of the Financial Resources of the Safavid’s Clergies

The economic system of every government has got a determining role in the progress or failure of the system. Unfortunately, we do not have enough accurate information on the details of the structure of the economic system in the Safavid era. This weakness is even more evident for payment of wages, since there are fewer documents available than sales or devotion documents, and there is little reference in literature for this issue. Moreover, such few remaining documents have received little attention from the clergies. Based on the importance and the position of clergies in Safavid era, identifying and quantifying their income and financial resources can be extremely important, and may even answer some ambiguous questions in this regard. Some questions include: What was the main source of income for clergies? What were the factors affecting the clergies' income? How the political and social conditions had changed the income of clergies? Who were the main sources of funding for the clergies? There is no specific book or independent source related to this issue. Moreover, financial documents of Safavid era have not yet been fully analyzed. Furthermore, the notes which have described the state of clergies either have not found it necessary to give reports in this regard or they had no sufficient information about this. One of the resources of this period which has mentioned the clergies' income, along with the description of the clergies’ status, is Riyadh Al-Olamn and Hiyaz al-Fozala, by Abdallah Afandi Isfahani. Due to the author's accuracy and the credibility of this book, it can answer some of the questions in this regard, albeit to some extent. Here, we have tried to analyze the data of Riyadh Al-Olama and to indicate that we can obtain valuable information on the types of income and the way it was paid even in a manuscript whose purpose has not been to present financial reports. In fact, this is itself a part of economic history of this period. Finally, we hope this paper can motivate more researches in regard for revealing the economic history of Safavid era, which we still a long way to go.