Islam arrived in Iran in the seventh century CE with the armies of Caliph Umar, and over the subsequent centuries be- came deeply embedded in Iranian society and culture. Later, when Christian Europe was in the depths of the Dark Ages, Muslim Iran carried the torch of intellectual advancement, making crucial scientific contributions to mathematics, as- tronomy, engineering, and architecture, as well as philosophy, poetry, and the arts.2 Starting in the early sixteenth century, the Safavid Dynasty made Shi’a Islam the official religion of the state, gradually displacing the then-dominant Sunni tradition and ushering in a period of power and influence. Yet by the late 1700s, the country was in political decline, as the military and cultural significance of the country led to en tanglement in the affairs of expanding European powers and extended periods of domestic strife.