TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

within the Ottoman borders. 642 Secondly, the raiding infidels provided somewhat of a
legitimate ground for the political desires of the shaykhs, while accumulating further
military power in their hands.
Like his father, Shaykh Haydar also does not occupy much space in later Safavid
chronicles, starting by HS. Especially the extremist beliefs of his adherents regarding the
shaykh himself are completely ignored by Safavid chroniclers. This is not, however,
something astonishing. We know that all the Safavid historians, 643 except Khwandamir,
wrote their histories during or after the reign of Shah Tahmasb, when the ‘orthodox’
Twelver Shi’ism, which vehemently denies extremist assertions of ghulat shi’a, had
already been established in the official sphere of the Safavid state. 644 Khwandamir, for
instance, was born into an old-rooted bureaucrat family of Persia and grew up in a
highly educated milieu, which was alien and antagonist towards rough and simple
beliefs of illiterate-nomadic Turkomans. It is evident in these chronicles that they aim to
642 As already delineated, the intensification of the spirit of gazā within the order was chiefly caused by the
influence of large-scale Turkoman disciples on Ardabil.
643 For a through description of Safavid sources see Sarwar, pp. 3-16; Youssef-Jamāli, pp. XV-XLV;
Masashi Haneda, Le Châh et les Qizilbâs. Le système militaire safavide, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag,
1987, pp. 10-28.
644 The venture of Safavid ideology from extremism to the orthodox shi’ism arguably began as early as
1508, when Shah Ismail dismissed Husayn Beg Lala, one of ‘the Seven Sufis of Lahijan’ and of the
foremost representatives of late ‘Safavid Movement’, from the post of wakīl and in his place appointed a
Persian, Amīr Najm al-Dīn Mas’ūd Gīlānī. (See Jean Aubin, ‘Revolution chiite et conservatisme. Les
soufis de Lahejan, 1500-1514 (Etudes Safavides II), Moyen Orient &Océan Indien 1, 1984, pp. 9-15;
Roger M. Savory, “The Principal Offices of the Safavid State during the Reign of Isma’īl I (907-30/1501-
24)”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXIII, London, 1960, p. 94.) But on the
ideological plane the main transformation took place under Shah Tahmasb, when prominent Arab
theologians of Twelver Shi’ism from Jabal ‘Āmil or somewhere else were imported to the Safavid capital.
On the role of Amili Scholars in transforming the officially approved religious perception of the Safavids
see Devin J. Stewart, “Notes on the Migration of Amili Scholars to Safavid Iran”, Journal of Near Eastern
Studies, vol. 55, no. 2, 1996, 81-103; “An Episode in the ‘Amili Migration to Safavid Iran: Husayn b.
‘Abd al-samad al-‘Amili’s Travel Account”, Iranian Studies, v. 39, no. 4, December 2006, 481-508; Said
Amir Arjomand, “Shi’ism as the State Religion under the Safavids”, in his The Shadow of God and the
Hidden Imam, Chicago, London: University of Chocago Press, 1984, 105-212; Albert Hourani, “From
Jabal ‘Āmil to Persia”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 49, 1986, 133-40; Andrew
Newman, “The Myth of Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite Opposition to ‘Ali al-Karakī and
Safawid Shiism”, Die Welt des Islams, 33, 1993, 66-112.
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