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

tried to drown his sorrows by drunken debauches.” 1952 A Safavid chronicle describes his
years after this defeat as follows: “He spent most of his time in hunting, or in the
company of rosy-cheeked youths, quaffing goblets of purple wine, and listening to the
strains of music and song.” 1953 A Venetian merchant records witnessing that in 1520,
“on his second arrival in Tauris [Tabriz], Ismael committed a most disgraceful act, as he
caused twelve of the most beautiful youths in the town to be taken to his place of
Astibisti [Heşt Behişt] for him to work his wicked will upon them, and he gave them
away one by one to his lords for the same purpose; a short time previously he had caused
ten children of respectable men to be seized in like manner.” 1954
On the other hand, this defeat equally damaged the relationship between the Shah
and his disciples, and consequently influenced the ground of the Safavids’ claims of
legitimacy for the power. The autocratic power of the Safavid Shahs is alleged to have
three foundations: the first was derived from the ancient Persian theory of suzerainty
which attributed divine rights to the king regarding him as a ‘shadow of God upon
earth’. The second foundation stemmed from the Shi’ite belief of Mahdi; the Safavid
shahs, by the help of the newly migrated shi’ite scholars (especially from Jabal ‘Amil),
declared themselves as the representatives of the Hidden Imam, Mahdi. And last but not
least, they were the ‘perfect guide’, mürşid-i kāmil, of the qizilbash disciples. 1955 During
the preparation and formation period of the state, the most influential and functional
instrument among these three foundations was, without doubt, the last one. Until the
1952 Savory, Iran under the Safavids, pp. 46-7.
1953 Khwurshāh b. Qubād al-Husaynī, Tārikh-i Īlchī-yi Nizāmshāh, Manuscript, British Museum, Add. 23,
513, fol. 445a, recited in Roger Savory, “The Consolidation of Safawid Power in Persia”, Der Islam, 41,
1965, p. 93.
1954 “The Travels of a Merchant in Persia”, in NIT, p. 207.
1955 See Roger M. Savory, “The Safavid State and Polity”, in Studies on Isfahan, Proceedings of the
Isfahan Colloquium, 1974, Part I, ed. R. Holod=Iranian Studies, VII, Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1974, p. 184.
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