Tahmasp I

Tahmasp took the throne at ten after his father Ismail I died in 1524, and spent his first eight years watching Qizilbash warlords tear the empire apart in civil war. At fourteen he won the Battle of Jam against Uzbek raiders using artillery; at eighteen he finally imposed absolute rule. For decades he fought a three-phase war with Suleiman the Magnificent, who tried repeatedly to install puppet shahs - it ended in 1555 with the Peace of Amasya, costing Iran Iraq and much of Kurdistan. He built a royal house for painters and poets, then later turned on the poets and exiled many to Mughal India. His religious fervor was absolute: he demanded the fugitive emperor Humayun convert to Shi'ism before offering help, elevated the clergy into legal and administrative power, and dismantled the cult around his father to install orthodox Shia kingship. To break Qizilbash dominance he imported Islamized Georgians and Armenians as a counterweight - a policy his successors would continue. His death in 1576 triggered a succession war that killed most of the royal family.