Suleiman was the first Safavid Shah that did not patrol his kingdom and never led an army, thus giving away the government affairs to the influential court eunuchs, harem women and the Shi‘i high clergy.

[3] Relations with the Ottoman Empire were likewise peaceful, despite tensions during Abbas' reign in Transcaucasia, where the risk of war was so acute that the governor of the Turkish border provinces had evacuated the civilian population in expectation of an Iranian attack, and in Basra, where the shah's aid had been sought to settle a struggle for the succession.

[22] At this point, Agha Mubarak, Hamza's lala (guardian), made an argument in favour of Sam Mirza, against his own interests and those of his eunuch colleagues.

[23] The Tofangchi-aghasi,[b] Khosrow Soltan Armani, by reputation the least trustworthy among the eunuchs, was chosen to go to Isfahan to announce the new heir before word of the death of Abbas II could spread.

[21] He was seized with panic when asked to appear before the throne room for the coronation, and reluctantly accepted the invitation because he assumed that he was being lured there simply to be murdered or blinded.

Two barren harvests left the central parts of the realm under famine and an earthquake in November 1667 in Shirvan led to the death of more than 30,000 in the villages and around 20,000 in its capital city, Shamakhi.

[27] In the following year, the Northern provinces of the realm endured raids by Stenka Razin's Cossacks, whom the Safavid army was unable to subdue.

[30] Razin went to Isfahan to ask Safi for land in his realm in exchange for loyalty to the shah, but departed to the Caspian Sea for more pillaging before they could reach an agreement.

Safi caught an unspecified illness, which by August 1667, had convinced everyone that he might die, causing the grandees of the court to arrange a public prayer for his well-being while giving out 1,000 tomans to the poor.

[38] Contemporary observers often considered Suleiman's reign after his second coronation to be devoid of any notable events, and who refrained from recording the period in chronicle form.

[40] Shaykh Ali Khan was the Amir of the Zanganeh tribe and succeeded Mirza Mohammad Karaki (who had maintained his position after Suleiman's ascension) as the grand vizier in 1669.

[40] Faced with an empty treasury after a series of misfortunes, Shaykh Ali immediately commenced a financial policy that combined cutting expenses with increasing revenue.

[43] Having resumed his position, Shaykh Ali started to curb the military outlay and sent tax-collectors to the provinces, demanding taxes and imposing fines for unpaid obligations.

[41] Shaykh Ali decided to no longer inform the shah about state affairs, and he started shunning his own responsibilities, handing requests to Suleiman and urging him to ratify them without first reading them.

However, Vahid Qazvini proved to be a venal and ineffective grand vizier: He was extremely old, being seventy years old at the time, and lacked the energy to administrate.

He did not appear in the hall of the Ali Qapu palace for the Nowruz festivities on 20 March 1694, and even declined to accept the customary gifts from governors and other grandees.

[13] His erratic behaviour makes it difficult to speculate how zealous he was towards the Shi'ia tradition: he only once gave up drinking, in 1667: not for any religious reasons, but for his health and in particular an inflammation of the throat.

[63] In the struggle between the three main spiritual communities in this era (advocates of popular Sufism, philosophically-minded scholars, and sharia-minded ulama) the last group gained the upper hand in Suleiman's court.

[66] Even when it was possible to wage war against the Ottomans (who were themselves fighting against nations during this era), he steadfastly refused to violate the peace treaty which his grandfather, Shah Safi, had made with the Sublime Porte in 1639, despite repeated offers from Mesopotamia (in 1684 and 1685) and from Basra (in 1690) that invited him to re-establish Iranian suzerainty there.

[66] On the same premise of keeping the peace with the Ottomans, Suleiman avoided relations with Europe except for a letter in 1668 or 1669 sent via the British East India Company to Charles II of England, asking him for skilled craftsmen.

[13] He was an outstanding connoisseur[59] and, as the patron of arts, influenced directly or indirectly some of the most impressive works of the three greatest painters of the late 17th century Iran: Aliquli Jabbadar, Mohammad Zaman and Mo'en Mosavver.

He built the Hasht Behesht palace in Isfahan and ordered the repair of a number of buildings in Mashhad, including the shrine of Imam Reza, damaged during an earlier earthquake, and several schools.

[69] Moreover, many of courtiers during his reign began sponsoring buildings: Shaykh Ali Khan personally funded a caravanserai in the northwest of Isfahan (built in 1678) and in 1679 patronised a mosque in Khaju quarter of the city.

[70] Suleiman lacked the best qualities his father was known for: energy, courage, decisiveness, discipline, initiative and an eye for the national interest, and after his second enthronement, it became clear that he neither desired nor was able to acquire them.

[13] Throughout his life, Suleiman increasingly cherished wine and women, to such a degree that foreign observers asserted that no Persian ruler had ever indulged so greatly in both.

[72] Regarding appearances, Jean Chardin described him as “tall and graceful, with blue eyes and blond hair dyed black and white skin.”[13] This description seems to concur with that of Nicolas Sanson, who called Suleiman “tall, strong and active; a fine prince, a little too effeminate for a monarch who should be a warrior, with an aquiline nose, large blue eyes, a beard dyed black”.

[36] He was a king who never reached “political adulthood”[75] and was considered a weak and cruel ruler whose indifference and debauchery influenced the decline of the state of his realm.

Jonas Hanway, who visited Iran decades after the Siege of Isfahan, calls Suleiman's reign "remarkable for nothing but a slavish indolence, a savage and inhuman cruelty.

[59] Suleiman gave up on the concept of siyast or the ruler’s punitive capacity, an indispensable ingredient of statecraft, and instead led his grand vizier rule for him.

[75] Suleiman was the first Safavid king who did not patrol his kingdom and never led an army; in these circumstances, power became concentrated in the hands of court eunuchs, harem women and the Shia high clergy, precluding a forward-looking policy based on a realistic assessment of challenges and opportunities.