The Security and Policing Role of Sanctuary in the Safavid Period

Sanctuary confinement of oneself in some religious and sacred places is considered by the people as one of the ways to maintain personal security that people have resorted to. Safavid sources do not provide the necessary information on the common practice of packing and how or where to fast; But according to the same little news and reports of European travel writers, it is received that in this period, although not as widespread as the Qajar period, places were known as stalls and some people sat in them. In this article, in a descriptive-analytical method, the phenomenon of packing in the Safavid period has been studied and the places and facilities that have been closed and examples of packing in them have been described. The findings of the study indicate that some religious buildings and institutions and some political and administrative facilities in this period were closed that played the security role of protecting the lives of the oppressed against the oppression of the government; however, this phenomenon did not spread as much in the Qajar period.