00:00Did you know a man could build an empire so perfectly that he destroyed it himself?
00:04Shah Abbas, I took the Safavid Persian Empire and made it extraordinary.
00:08He rebuilt the military from scratch.
00:10He crushed every rival who stood against him.
00:12He turned Izfahan into one of the most breathtaking cities on earth,
00:16full of grand mosques, wide boulevards, and royal gardens that stunned foreign visitors.
00:21But Abbas had a problem.
00:23He trusted no one.
00:24Every son he looked at, he saw a threat.
00:27He had one executed.
00:28He had two others blinded, which under Persian tradition meant they could never rule.
00:33He did this to protect his throne.
00:34It worked perfectly.
00:36By the time Abbas was dying in 1629, no one could challenge him.
00:40Every threat had been removed.
00:42Every rival neutralized.
00:43And there was no one left capable of leading the empire he had spent his life building.
00:47The same mind that made him great made him the man who ended his own golden age.
00:52Control was his greatest strength, and his only real enemy.
00:54Lincoln was aenzie forme of didn't saw a father, but the orphan had internet built.
00:57When he said confession to come, when he died in 1739, no one could challenge him.
