The safavid employed to modernize their military.

Englishmen

Explanation:

The Safavid Empire or Safawi dynasty is considered to be the largest Iranian empire since the Muslim conquest of Persia. The safávidas are original of Ardabil, a city of the Iranian Azerbaijan, in that then a region in the north of Iran. They were predominantly an Azeri Turkic-speaking dynasty, whose classical language was Persian. The Safavids created a unified and independent Iranian state for the first time since the Muslim conquest of Persia, reaffirmed the Iranian political identity and established Shiite Islam as the official religion of Iran. The Safavids ruled Iran between 1502 and 1722, the year when the Pashtun forces of Mir Mahmud Hotaki invaded their domains. Later, in 1736, the Afsarid dynasty seized the territory, although some Safavid lords lasted until 1760.

byzantine empire is the answer i think you are looking for.

hope this : )

"they had a large area of land that they owned."