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

accompanied in every stage with a religious discourse. Thus the Qizilbash identity
emerged on two principal bases: politico-militant movement and religio-mystical
interpretation of Islam. The last chapter aims to highlight the main lines of post-Çaldıran
events. Following the defeat of Çaldıran, the Qizilbash identity followed different
trajectories in the Safavid and Ottoman realms, though maintaining significant
similarities. In the Safavid Empire, the same story as in the case of the early Ottomans
occurred. Parallel to the consolidation of its power, the Safavid state evolved towards a
bureaucratic empire, equally pushing the qizilbash tribal aristocracy out of the scene.
Within the Ottoman borders, on the other hand, upon gradually losing its first
component, i.e. political, in the aftermath of Çaldıran, the Qizilbash identity developed
in its peculiar way within the framework of Islamic Sufism.
1.1. LITERATURE
The focus of this study, namely the history of the Anatolian qizilbashes, lays at the
intersection point of Ottoman History and Safavid History. Therefore both Ottoman and
Safavid historians occasionally touched upon several aspects of the qizilbash history.
Nevertheless, none of them except for Sohrweide’s long article focused on the adventure
of the qizilbashes themselves, but are interested only indirectly in qizilbash affairs
because of their interaction with either the Ottoman or the Safavid state.
The only monographic work on the qizilbash movement in Anatolia has been
undertaken by Hanna Sohrweide. 8 Sohrweide’s article starts with the emergence of the
Safavid Order under Shaykh Safī and ends with the situations of qizilbashes in Anatolia
8 Hanna Sohrweide, “Der Sieg der Safaviden in Persien und scine Rückwirkungen auf die Schiiten
Anatoliens im 16. Jahrhundert”, Der Islam, 41, 1965, 95-221.
9