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

Two reasons might be suggested in interpreting this situation. First of all, as it is
delineated in chapter IV and chapter V, the effective militant tribes had already left the
Ottoman lands to join the Shah’s suite either during his advent or in the course of
uprisings during the interregnum in the Ottoman administration in the period between
the years 1510 and 1513. Furthermore, many qizilbashes also must have left Anatolia in
order to escape Selim I’s persecution on the eve of the Çaldıran campaign. At the turn of
the second quarter of the sixteenth century, the tribal, thus political and militant, content
of the qizilbash identity in Anatolia was recognizably siphoned off.
Secondly, the remaining tribal-nomadic qizilbashes were subjected to a
systematic sedentarization policy of the Ottoman administration. 2017 Now being devoid
of their military power which had already gone to carry Ismail to the throne of Persia,
these tribal units could no longer resist against the pressure of the Ottoman imperial
regime, and dissolved gradually. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the qizilbash
identity in the Ottoman Anatolia lost its tribal characteristics to a greater extent and
transformed into a religion of villagers.
Records in the Mühimme Defterleri clearly show that the Ottoman persecution of
the qizilbashes continued throughout the sixteenth century. 2018 Nevertheless, parallel to
2017 It should be noted here that the Ottoman policy of sedentarizing nomadic-tribes was not restricted to
the qizilbash tribes. It was a rather comprehensive policy which derived from mainly economic, fiscal, and
administrative concerns of the Ottoman government. For a through evaluation of the issue in the
seventeenth century Ottoman Empire, see Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanlı Đmparatorluğunda Aşiretlerin Đskanı,
Đstanbul, 1987.
2018 Some of the related records in the Mühimme registers spanning from the mid-sixteenth century to the
early seventeenth century, were first published by Ahmed Refik. See Ahmed Refik, On Altıncı Asırda
Rafizilik ve Bektaşilik, Đstanbul: Ahmed Halit Kitaphanesi, 1932. Later on, two scholars published two
articles dealing with the qizilbash persecution in the sixteenth century based of Mühimme records. See
Colin H. Imber, “The Persecution of Ottoman Shi’ites according to the Mühimme Defterleri, 1565-1585”,
Der Islam, 56, 1979, 245-73; Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Qizilbash ‘Heresy’ and Rebellion in Ottoman
Anatolia during the Sixteenth Century”, Anatolia Moderna, fall, 1997, 1-14. Recently Saim Savaş
published a more inclusive list of these records including whole texts. See Saim Savaş, XVI. Asırda
Anadolu’da Alevilik, Ankara: Vadi Yayınları, 2002. A selection of documents from Mühimme registers
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