The Guarded Domains of Iran (Persian: ممالک محروسهٔ ایران, Mamâlek-e Mahruse-ye Irân), or simply the Domains of Iran (ممالک ایران, Mamâlek-e Irân) and the Guarded Domains (ممالک محروسه, Mamâlek-e Mahruse), was the common and official name of Iran from the Safavid era, until the early 20th century.[1][2] The idea of the Guarded Domains illustrated a feeling of territorial and political uniformity in a society where the Persian language, culture, monarchy, and Shia Islam became integral elements of the developing national identity.[3]
The concept presumably started to form under the Mongol Ilkhanate in the late 13th-century, a period in which regional actions, trade, written culture, and partly Shi'ism, contributed to the establishment of the early modern Persianate world.[4] The definition of the Guarded Domains' borders was almost identical to that of Eranshahr in the Sasanian-era text Letter of Tansar, as well as the description by the 14th-century geographer Hamdallah Mustawfi in his Nuzhat al-Qulub.[1]
Safavid annals began to utilize references to the "Guarded Domains of Iran" more frequently toward the end of Shah Abbas I's rule as a substitute for the "Sublime Safavid State" (Dowlat-e ‘Alliyeh-e Safavieh). By this period, Safavid Iran had developed a sense of confidence and security as a result of driving out the Portuguese, fending off the Uzbeks, and reclaiming Safavid land from the Ottomans. The majority of European reports of Iran in the 17th-century attest to a new era of prosperity made possible by an expanded domestic and international communication network, a rising urban population, a complex understanding of relaxation, and a developing Shia intellectual identity.[5]
Mirza Fazlollah Khavari Shirazi, the vaqaye-negar (court chronicler) of Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834),[6] wrote in his Tarikh-e Zu'l-Qarneyn that ruling all of the Guarded Domains of Iran was one of the requirements to be considered the legitimate ruler of the country.[7] According to Khavari Shirazi, who flourished in the early Qajar era, the historical borders of the Guarded Domains of Iran stretched:[8]
"From the Caucasus Mountain range, Georgia (Gorjestan) and Daghestan on the Russian border, to the southern tip of Kerman bordering the Sea of Hindustan [India-Sea of Oman]. The length of this distance is three hundred and thirty farsang [each farsang is about seven kilometers]. The latitude of this country from the bank of the Jayhun River [Amu Darya/Oxus] to the bank of Dejleh [River Tigris] in Baghdad is a distance of two hundred and thirteen farsakh [Arabic for “farsang”]."
Reflecting contemporaneous views on the shah's Guarded Domains of Iran amongst the contemporaneous elite, this material from Khavari Shirazi also illustrates that "Iran" was viewed as the name of the shah's dominion, at least by the Iranian elite. The geographic territories matching these borders correspond to the historic borders of Iran not only under the Safavids at their territorial apex, but also under Nader Shah, and the pre-Islamic Sasanian Empire.[9]