1760: “Uxorius” [pseudonym], Hymen: An accurate Deſcription of the Ceremonies uſed in Marriage, by every Nation in the known World, page 137
Drunkenness was ever held in the utmoſt deteſtation by the Perſians; inſomuch, that the Sophies themſelves were not allowed to carouſe and drink to acceſs above once in a twelvemonth.
Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive Sophy, Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild, And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee To sooth his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!
1895, A. Wallace, Popular saying dissected, New York: F. A. Stokes, →OCLC, page 149:
Sir Robert Shirley sent a chiaus to this country from the Grand Signor and the Sophy to transact some preparatory business.
1899, Richard Whiteing, No. 5 John street, New York: Century, →OCLC, page 281:
The great tent on the lawn, wherein presently we are to sup,—blue and yellow without, and within all braveries of tapestry and of table service,—suggests a state pavilion of the Sophy camped for glittering war.
A designation corrupted into 'the Grand Sophy' of Persia by the European Orientalists of the seventeenth century.
1961, Amin Banani, The modernization of Iran, 1921-1941, Stanford: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 6:
In Spain they followed the adventures of the Don Juan of Persia; in England Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were writing about the "Grande Sophy."
1970, Roger Savory, “Safavid Persia”, in Peter M. Holt, editor, The Cambridge history of Islam, volume 1A, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, published 1985, →ISBN, page 395:
The derivation of Safavid from Ṣūfī, a theory derived from contemporary Western accounts, which refer to the Safavid shah as 'the Great Sophy', is erroneous.
1980, Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavids, Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press, published 2007, →ISBN, page 259:
The Safavid shahs were commonly termed by Western writers "Sophie", "Sophy", "Sophi" or "Soffi". All these terms were probably corruptions of Ṣafī, the name of the founder of the Safavid Order, rather than of Ṣūfī, as the Safavid supporters called themselves.
2014, Jane Grogan, The Persian Empire in English Renaissance writing, 1549-1622, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 26:
That so much of early modern English interest in and knowledge of Persia is mediated through the figure of the shah or 'Sophy' has caused some scholars to place English knowledge of Persia squarely in the Orientalist schema. […] Unlike terms such as 'Moor' or 'Turk', then, 'Sophy' is a very precise, historically sensitive term for the Persian ruler, rich in promising intertexts and cognizant of a sense of the distinctness of Persian history and identity.
§ XXXIII on Wikisource.Wikisource :