The reason why I said you can kind of call them slaves is that although they were forced to become janissaries and taken from their families, they were given many privileges, and over time, many of these janissaries became some of the most notable figures in the Ottoman Empire, some of them even becoming the Grand Vizier, effectively ruling over the empire. Now, the Ottomans are also known for one of the earliest empires to very successfully to use gunpowder in battle. The Safavids, as you can see here, were really founded in the very early 16th century, officially 1501, by their founder Shah Ismail, sometimes known as Ismail I, and he is the heir to a religious dynasty, the Safavids. Safavids, it is a Muslim dynasty like the Ottoman Empire, but unlike the Ottoman Empire, it is based on 12-er Shia Islam. 12-er Shia is the major group of Shias today, and it is based on the belief of 12 imams following Muhammad, starting with Ali, and we have videos on the Sunni-Shia split. Now, even though Ismail spoke Turkish and was raised in a Turkic society, this dynasty brought back much of the culture of ancient Persia. In fact, it's viewed as the first dynasty since the Sassanids that actually had native Persian rule and brought back that Persian culture, part of which is using the word Shah.