until the beginning of the Safavid Empire. Safavid rule From its beginnings under Ismail I, the Safavid state had key frontiers in Azerbaijan, with the Ottoman Empire, and in Khorasan with the Uzbek tribes led by the Shaybanids. Because of Qazvin's central location on the road between these two regions, its strategic importance increased under the Safavids. In 1555, after temporarily losing his original capital of Tabriz to the Ottomans, Tahmasp I moved his capital to the more secure location of Qazvin. Qazvin remained capital until Abbas I moved the capital to Isfahan about half a century later. While it was the capital, Qazvin bore the title dār al-salṭana. Like many other cities in Iran, Qazvin became divided into Haydari and Ne'mati factions during the Safavid period. The Italian traveller Vicento d'Alessandri visited Qazvin during the reign of Tahmasp I and reported that 4 of Qazvin's districts belonged to one group and 5 belonged to the other, and the two had been hostile to one another for at least 30 years by that point with frequent conflicts between the two. Widespread public conversion to Twelver Shi'ism probably took place during the early Safavid period, but many people probably secretly remained Sunnis for some time. The Nuqqawi heresy spread to Qazvin during the reign of Tahmasp I. The local leader was Darvīsh Khusrāw, who came from a family of muqannis (qanat builders) and had associated with the Nuqqawis for a while before returning to Qazvin. The ulama, concerned with his growing popularity, charged him with heresy and banned him from the mosque where he had been living at. After Tahmasp's death, he returned to preaching, but he was eventually charged with heresy again and executed in 1593/4 (1002 AH). Qazvin was also a mercantile center during this period. There was an increase in European merchants coming through southern Russia, and in 1561 Anthony Jenkinson noted the presence of merchants from India as well. The English merchant Arthur Edwards made several trips to Qazvin for the Muscovy Company; he wrote in 1567 that it was a producer of velvet and other goods but not as high in quality as elsewhere, and in 1569 he wrote that there were many spices sold in its markets but again they were not as good as elsewhere, and they went for such a high price that buying them here would be unprofitable. After Tahmasp's death, Turkoman