The Safavid Empire had a large and affluent middle class. Their greatest area of productivity was in textiles. They made beautiful silk weavings. These weavings often portrayed birds, animals and flowers (1). Below is an example of a silk carpet made in the Safavid Empire.
The export most in demand from the Safavid Dynasty was their carpets. These carpets are still highly valued today under the name of Persian Carpets (2). There is a gallery of Persian carpets on this site. Even though the road system was poor, the Safavids conducted their trade by travelling by horse or camel caravans.
The Safavids were not as prosperous as their neighbors, the Ottomans and the Mughals (1). The Mughals lived to the East and the Ottomans to the West. Not only were they hemmed in by these two military powers, but they were also hemmed in by the European sea power to the South. Therefore, to conduct trade, the people of the Safavid Empire had to divert trade through Russia. This made trade more time consuming and therefore put the Safavids at a disadvantage. While the Ottomans and the Mughals hemmed in the Safavids, the Safavids were still able to equal the scientific, medicinal, and mathematic advancements of the Ottomans and Mughals.
1. Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History : The Human Odyssey
2. http://tehran.stanford.edu/Images/Persian_Carpet/old_jpg1.html
