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

we regard the ‘deep current’ as a dough kneaded in the course of centuries, this dough
congealed during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century taking its shape in the
hands of the Safavid shaykhs and shahs, especially of Shaykh Junayd, Shaykh Haydar,
Shah Ismail, and Shah Tahmasb.
Under Shah Ismail, the qizilbashes reached the apex of their enthusiasm and
power. However the heyday of the qizilbash zeal did not last long. After a fierce struggle
against the Ottomans, the battle of Çaldıran marked the turn of the fortune for the
qizilbashes, both in the Ottoman Anatolia and in the Safavid realm. Upon establishing
their rule in Iran, Azerbaijan and the parts of Iraq and Central Asia, the Safavid Shahs
also immediately realized the necessity of the bureaucracy to sustain their state.
Consequently, more or less the same story in the Ottoman case, which is a general
phenomenon in the Middle East as explained in the Chapter I, was carried throughout
the sixteenth century. As were the cases in the previous experience, the nomadic-tribes
were destined to lose against the sedentary bureaucracy, now the Turkoman Qizilbashes
against the Persian men of pen. One century after the rise of Shah Ismail on the fervent
qizilbash power, when the Safavid state attained its matured bureaucratic form under
Shah Abbas the Great, the tribal qizilbashes were not only dispelled from the
administrative circles but also regarded as an astray religious group.
In the Ottoman realm, the conditions for the qizilbashes had already become
much worse on the eve of the Çaldıran campaign and turned out to be more dreadful
following the battle. Already before Selim’s victorious return from Iran, they had been
proclaimed heretics and subjected to harsh persecution. Yet the Ottoman victory of
Çaldıran marked a profound change in the situation of the Anatolian qizilbashes. Since
this bitter defeat terminated the offensive policy of Shah Ismail on the Ottoman
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