Until the year 1500, almost all Persians were Sunni Muslims. Then, Shah Ismail – the first Shah and the founder of the Safavid Dynasty – began a brutal policy of forcing Persian Muslims to become Shia, in order to distinguish his iteration of Persia’s empire from the more powerful Constantinople-based and fervently Sunni Ottoman caliphate.
直到1500年，几乎所有波斯人都是逊尼派穆斯林。接着，伊斯迈尔沙阿（Shah Ismail）——第一任沙阿兼萨非王朝创始人——开始了迫使波斯穆斯林改宗什叶派的残酷政策，以使他这一脉的波斯帝国与实力更强的、以君士坦丁堡为首都的、往往信奉逊尼派的奥斯曼哈里发帝国区别开来。