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

Muhammad Hudabende; the post of lala to the Safavid princes had hitherto been
considered a qizilbash prerogative. 1992
The introduction of the Caucasian elements into the Safavid state apparatus as a
‘third force’ 1993 goes back to the four expeditions of Shah Tahmasb I between 1540-41
and 1553-54, after which he brought a large number of captives, mostly women and
children, back to Iran. 1994 The offspring of these slaves would constitute the third
element of the Safavid polity which turned into an officially recognized institution under
the name ghulāmān-i khāssa-yi sharīfah, slaves of the royal household, under Shah
Abbas I. 1995 These Georgian and Circassian boys were given a special education and
training, on completion of which they were either enrolled in the newly established
ghulām troops, or assigned to special services in the royal household or employed in
some other branch of the khāssa administration. The initiation and development of this
third force was indeed an intended project of the shahs who felt uncomfortable with the
excessive power and the tribal loyalty of the Qizilbash. The principal feature of the
ghulām force was its unquestioned loyalty to the shah. It was because of two reasons:
first, they were devoid of social roots and second, they were subjected to a special
education, which surely was not simply aiming to teach necessary knowledge but
including some sort of ‘brain washing’ as well. 1996
1992 See Savory, “The Principal Offices of the Safawid State during the Reign of Tahmāsp I”, p. 84.
1993 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. 195.
1994 From the last of these alone, 30.000 captives were brought back to Iran. See Roger M. Savory, “A
Curious Episode of Safavid History”, Iran and Islam, in Memory of the Vladimir Minorsky, ed. C. E.
Bosworth, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1971, p. 461.
1995 Savory, “The Safavid State and Polity”, p. 196.
1996 Although having certain differences, the Safavid ghulām system is surely comparable with the
Ottoman kapı-kulu system, especially in their function of providing a core military force with absolute
loyalty to the monarch.
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