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

depersonalization of political authority” 1971 gradually established Safavid ideological
and religious sphere, which might be called ‘Safavid Shi’ism’. Without doubt, the lack
of influential qizilbash khans accelerated this process.
The second consequence arose in the administrative system of the Safavid state.
It is an established fact in scholarship that the administrative structure of the state was
divided along ethnic lines between Turkomans and Persian, the former constituting the
military aristocracy (men of sword) while the latter filling the ranks of the civil and
religious bureaucracy (men of pen). 1972 There was an intrinsic friction between these two
elements for, as Minorsky has put it, “like oil and water, the Turkomans and Persians did
not mix freely, and the dual character of the population profoundly affected both the
military and civil administration of Persia.” 1973 Both sides had a clear idea of what the
function of the other and had pejorative attitude. Persians regarded the qizilbashes as
vulgar men which were simply for fighting and devoid of any capacity to participate in
the ‘civilized’ circles and in the bureaucratic affairs. For the qizilbashes, on the other
hand, Persians, or Tājiks, were only fit for “looking after the accounts and divan
business” 1974 , but had no right in military affairs and could not command the troops on
the field.
The death of the most prominent Qizilbash āmirs on the battlefield of Çaldıran
deeply affected the advance of the struggle between the qizilbash tribal-military
elements and the Persian bureaucracy; the balance considerably shifted towards the
supremacy of the Persian bureaucracy. As Savory truly underlines, it was during the
1971
Woods, p. 172.
1972
See, for example, Roger M. Savory, “The Qizilbāsh, Education and the Arts”, Turcica, VI, 1975, p.
168.
1973
TM, p. 188.
1974
Roger M. Savory, “The Significance of the Political Murder of Mirzā Salmān”, Islamic Studies,
Journal of the Central Institute of Islamic Research, vol. III, no. 2, Karachi, 1964, p. 184.
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