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

Şamlu 5100 400
Dulkadirlü 6300 500
Arapkirlü 1000
Garipler 350
Kaçar 3300 300
Karadağlı (neferan+kurçiyan) 1000
Varsak 500
TOTAL 52770 5100 924
Şahnāme, without specifying time and space, says that Shah Ismail had in total
54.000 soldiers. 925 His army was composed of two essentially different kinds of
troops. 926 One consisted of the Shah’s immediate retinue (kapıkulu) receiving their
salary directly from the Shah. They were called Kurçi or Korucu. The other part of the
army was composed of the (tribal) retinues or oymaq soldiers of Qizilbash khans (tribal
leaders). Şahnāme states that at the head of each oymaqs was a han and some three or
four sultans. These khans were governing provinces and possessed tax revenues; and
they had their fellow tribal troops under their command, which constituted the main
924 An archival document dated July 21, 1516 (TSA, document E 11996) says, “During the battle of
Caldiran the shah had three thousand kurçis. Later the number of kurçis reduced to one thousand and
seven hundred. Now [in June 1516] he there left one thousand kurçis.” This document gives a list of the
qizilbash army, indicating each amir with the number of soldiers they commanded. According to this
document the overal total was approximately eighteen thousand soldiers. It is not clear in the document
whether this was the inventory of the whole qizilbash army or of one bunch of it. When compared to other
contemporary sources, however, it clearly appears that this must have been the inventory of only one
bunch of the Safavid army.
925 According to the list above, the size of Safavid army appears 57870 soldiers in total. This number
seems compatible with the other Ottoman sources describing the Safavid army during the Battle of
Caldiran. However, it should be noted here that this was not the whole of Safavid army for “large
qizilbash forces were tied down on the eastern marches of the the Safawid empire, where some of the
leading qizilbash amīrs remained at their posts to guard against a sudden Uzbeg incursion into Khurāsan: -
these included Dīw Sultān at Balkh, Zaynal Khān Shāmlū at Harāt, and Amīr Sultan Mawsillū at Qāyin.”
See Roger Savory, “The Consolidation of Safawid Power in Persia”, Der Islam, 41, 1965, p. 87.
926 As one would immediately note, the immediate retinue of the Shah, the Kurçi, was also composed of
tribal soldiers. Furthermore, the Kurçi troops of each tribe were most probably had their own tribal
commander directly responsible towards the Shah.
285