1 Shahi - Isma'il I Safavi Herāt mint

Isma'il I founded the Safavid dynasty in 1501 and immediately imposed Twelver Shi'a Islam as the state religion — a rupture with the Sunni Ottoman and Uzbek neighbors that would define Persian geopolitics for centuries. Herat presented a specific problem: the city was a major Timurid cultural and commercial center with deep Sunni roots, and its mint only came under Safavid control after Isma'il's eastern campaigns pushed the Uzbek Shaybanids back across the Oxus around 1510.

Coinage from the Herat mint during this window is consequently scarcer than output from Tabriz or other early Safavid centers. The city changed hands more than once before the mint stabilized under Safavid administration.