Beginnings headdress. Dastan-i Jamal u Jalal'', commissioned under
Shah Ismail in 1502–1505,
Tabriz. (aka
Haji Ali Qizilbash Mazandarani), Governor of
Khorassan in 1576 and chief of the armies under Shah Abbas I in 1588. Painted in 1584. The main followers of the Safavids were the Qizilbash from Azerbaijan and Anatolia. In 1501, 7,000 Qizilbash defeated the 30,000-strong army of Sultan Alvand Aq Qoyunlu, and after the coronation in
Tabriz, the young Sheikh Ismail became the first Shahanshah of
Azerbaijan from the Safavid dynasty. Ismail received the main support for his accession to the throne from the Qizilbash, but did not enjoy the same support in Iran and even faced resentment and hatred from the majority of Sunni Iranians. He had to ensure the speedy arrival of the Qizilbash from Asia Minor, since in the eyes of the Persians of Iran he and his supporters were strangers whom they hated. Ismail's success was greatly influenced by his detachment of seven close Qizilbash advisers., The rise of the Ottomans put a great strain on the Turkmen tribes living in the area, which eventually led them to join the Safavids, who transformed them into a militant organisation, called the Qizilbash (meaning "red heads" in
Turkish), initially a pejorative label given to them by the Ottomans, but later adopted as a mark of pride. The religion of the Qizilbash resembled much more the heterodox beliefs of northwestern Iran and eastern Anatolia, rather than the traditional
Twelver Shia Islam. The beliefs of the Qizilbash consisted of non-Islamic aspects, varying from crypto-
Zoroastrian beliefs to
shamanistic practises, the latter which had been practised by their
Central Asian ancestors. However, a common aspect that all these heterodox beliefs shared was a form of
messianism, devoid of the restrictions of the Islam practiced in
urban areas. Concepts of
divine inspiration and
reincarnation were common, with the Qizilbash viewing their Safavid leader (whom they called
morshed-e kamel, "the Perfect Guide") as the reincarnation of
Ali and a manifestation of the
divine in human form. There were a total of seven major Qizilbash "tribes", each named after an area they identified themselves with; the Rumlu presumably came from
Rum (Anatolia); the
Shamlu from Sham (
Syria); the Takkalu from the Takkeh in southeastern Anatolia; the Ostajlu from Ostaj in the southern
Caucasus. It is uncertain if the
Afshar and
Qajar were named after an area in Azerbaijan, or after their ancestors. All these tribes shared a common lifestyle, language, faith, and animosity towards the Ottomans. In the 15th century,
Ardabil was the center of an organization designed to keep the Safavi leadership in close touch with its murids in Azerbaijan, Iraq, Eastern Anatolia, and elsewhere. The organization was controlled through the office of ''khalīfāt al-khulafā'ī
who appointed representatives (khalīfa
) in regions where Safavi propaganda was active. The khalīfa
, in turn, had subordinates termed pira''. The Safavi presence in eastern Anatolia posed a serious threat to the
Ottoman Empire because they encouraged the Shi'i population of Asia Minor to revolt against the sultan. In 1499, Ismail, the young leader of the Safavi order, left Lahijan for Ardabil to make a bid for power. By the summer of 1500, about 7,000 supporters from the local Turcoman tribes of
Asia Minor (Anatolia),
Syria, and the
Caucasus – collectively called "Qizilbash" by their enemies – rallied to his support in
Erzincan. Leading his troops on a punitive campaign against the Shīrvanshāh (ruler of
Shirvan), he sought revenge for the death of his father and his grandfather in Shīrvan. After defeating the Shīrvanshāh
Farrukh Yassar and incorporating his kingdom, he moved south into Azarbaijan, where his 7,000 Qizilbash warriors defeated a force of 30,000
Aq Qoyunlu under Alwand Mirzā and conquered
Tabriz. This was the beginning of the Safavid state. By 1510, Ismail and his Qizilbash had conquered the whole of Iran and the
Republic of Azerbaijan, southern
Dagestan (with its important city of
Derbent),
Mesopotamia,
Armenia,
Khorasan,
Eastern Anatolia, and had made the
Georgian kingdoms of
Kartli and
Kakheti his vassals. Many of these areas were priorly under the control of the
Ak Koyunlu. The rivalry between the Turkic clans and the Persian nobles was a major problem in the Safavid kingdom. As
V. Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Turcomans
"were no party to the national Persian tradition". Shah Ismail tried to solve the problem by appointing Persian
wakils as commanders of Qizilbash tribes. The Turcomans considered this an insult and brought about the death of 3 of the 5 Persians appointed to this office – an act that later inspired the deprivation of the Turcomans by Shah Abbas I. In 1510, Shah Ismail sent a large force of the Qizilbash to
Transoxiania to fight the
Uzbeks. The Qizilbash defeated the Uzbeks and secured
Samarkand at the
Battle of Marv. However, in 1512, an entire Qizilbash army was annihilated by the Uzbeks after Turcoman Qizilbash had mutinied against their Persian
wakil and commander
Najm-e Thani at the
Battle of Ghazdewan. This defeat put an end to Safavid expansion and influence in Transoxania and left the northeastern frontiers of the kingdom vulnerable to nomad invasions, until some decades later.
Battle of Chaldiran Meanwhile, the Safavid
dawah continued in Ottoman areas — with great success. Even more alarming for the Ottomans was the successful conversion of Turcoman tribes in Eastern Anatolia, and the recruitment of these well-experienced and feared fighters into the growing Safavid army. To stop Safavid propaganda,
Sultan Bayezid II deported large numbers of the Shi'i population of
Asia Minor to
Morea. However, in 1507, Shah Ismail and the Qizilbash overran large areas of
Kurdistan, defeating regional Ottoman forces. Two years later, the Qizilbash defeated the
Uzbeks at
Merv in Central Asia, killing their leader
Muhammad Shaybani and destroying his dynasty. His head was sent to the Ottoman sultan as a warning. . ''
Şeca'atname'' (1598) In 1511, a pro-Safavid revolt known as the
Şahkulu rebellion broke out in
Teke. An imperial army that was sent to suppress it was defeated. Ismail sought to turn the chaos within the Ottoman Empire to his advantage and moved the border westwards in Asia Minor. The Qizilbash defeated a large Ottoman army under
Koca Sinan Pasha. Shocked by this heavy defeat,
Sultan Selim I, the new ruler, decided to invade with a force of 200,000 Ottomans. In addition, he ordered the persecution of
Alevis and massacred its adherents in the Ottoman Empire. On 20 August 1514 (1st
Rajab 920 A.H.), the two armies met at Chaldiran in northwestern Iran. The Ottomans, who were equipped with both firearms and cannon, were reported to outnumber the Qizilbash as much as three to one. The Qizilbash were badly defeated; casualties included many high-ranking Qizilbash
amirs as well as three influential
ulamā. This defeat destroyed Shah Ismail's belief in his own invincibility and divine status. It also fundamentally altered the relationship between the
murshid-e kāmil and his
murids (followers).
The deprivation of the Turcomans Ismail I tried to reduce the power of the
Turcomans by appointing
Iranians to the vakil office. However, the Turcomans did not like having an Iranian to the most powerful office of the
Safavid Empire and kept murdering many Iranians who were appointed to that office. After the death of Ismail, the Turkomans managed to seize power from the Iranians, they were however, defeated by
Tahmasp I, the son of Ismail who got rid of the Turcomans. For almost ten years after the Battle of Chaldiran, rival Qizilbash factions fought for control of the kingdom. In 1524, 10-year-old Shah
Tahmasp I, the governor of
Herat, succeeded his father Ismail. He was the
ward of the powerful Qizilbash
amir Ali Beg Rūmlū (titled "
Div Soltān) who was the
de facto ruler of the Safavid kingdom. However, Tahmasp managed to reassert his authority over the state and over the Qizilbash. against rebellious Qizilbash emirs.
Ḫulāṣat at-tawārīḫ, circa 1595 During the reign of Shah Tahmasp, the Qizilbash fought a series of wars on two fronts and — with the poor resources available to them — successfully defended their kingdom against the
Uzbeks in the east, and against the arch-rivals of the Safavids — the
Ottomans — in the west. With the
Peace of Amasya (1555), peace between Safavids and Ottomans remained for the rest of Tahmasp's reign. During Tahmasp' reign, he carried out multiple invasions in the
Caucasus which had been incorporated in the
Safavid empire since Shah Ismail I and for many centuries afterward, and started with the trend of deporting and moving hundreds of thousands of
Circassians,
Georgians, and
Armenians to Iran's heartlands. Initially only solely put in the royal harems, royal guards, and several other specific posts of the Empire, Tahmasp believed he could eventually reduce the power of the Qizilbash, by creating and fully integrating a new layer in Iranian society with these Caucasian elements and who would question the power and hegemony of the tribal Qizilbash. This included the formation of a military slave system, similar to that of the neighboring
Ottoman Empire – the
Janissaries. Tahmasp's successors, and most importantly Shah
Abbas I (r. 1588–1629), would significantly expand this policy when during the reign of Abbas I alone some 200,000 Georgians, 300,000 Armenians and many tens of thousands of Circassians were relocated to Iran's heartlands. By this creation of a so-called "third layer" or "third force" in Iranian society composed of ethnic Caucasians, and the complete systematic disorganisation of the Qizilbash by his personal orders, Abbas I eventually fully succeeded in replacing the power of the Qizilbash, with that of the Caucasian ghulams. These new Caucasian elements (the so-called
ghilman / غِلْمَان /
"servants"), almost always after conversion to Shi'ism depending on given function would be, unlike the Qizilbash, fully loyal only to the Shah. This system of mass usage of Caucasian subjects continued to exist until the fall of the
Qajar dynasty. The inter-tribal rivalry of the Turcomans, the attempt of Persian nobles to end the Turcoman dominance, and constant succession conflicts went on for another 10 years after Tahmasp's death. This heavily weakened the Safavid state and made the kingdom vulnerable to external enemies: the Ottomans
attacked in the west, whereas the Uzbeks attacked the east. created by
Mo'en Mosavver, depicting Shah Ismail I at an audience receiving the Qizilbash after they defeated the
Shirvanshah Farrukh Yasar. Album leaf from a copy of Bijan’s
Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran (A History of Shah Ismail I), produced in
Isfahan, end of the 1680s In 1588,
Shah Abbas I came to power. He appointed the Governor of
Herat and his former guardian and tutor, Alī Quli Khān Shāmlū (also known as
Hājī Alī Qizilbāsh Mazandarānī) the chief of all the armed forces. Later on, events of the past, including the role of the Turcomans in the succession struggles after the death of his father, and the counterbalancing influence of traditional
Ithnāʻashari Shia Sayeds, made him determined to end the dominance of the untrustworthy Turcoman chiefs in Persia which Tahmasp had already started decades before him. In order to weaken the Turcomans – the important militant elite of the Safavid kingdom – Shah Abbas further raised a standing army, personal guard, Queen-Mothers,
Harems and full civil administration from the ranks of these
ghilman who were usually ethnic
Circassians,
Georgians, and
Armenians, both men and women, whom he and his predecessors had taken captive en masse during their wars in the Caucasus, and would systematically replace the Qizilbash from their functions with converted Circassians and Georgians. The new army and civil administration would be fully loyal to the king personally and not to the clan-chiefs anymore. The reorganisation of the army also ended the independent rule of Turcoman chiefs in the Safavid provinces, and instead centralized the administration of those provinces.
Ghulams were appointed to high positions within the royal household, and by the end of Shah Abbas' reign, one-fifth of the high-ranking
amirs were ghulams. By 1598 already an ethnic
Georgian from Safavid-ruled Georgia, well known by his adopted Muslim name after conversion,
Allahverdi Khan, had risen to the position of commander-in-chief of all Safavid armed forces. and by that became one of the most powerful men in the empire. The offices of
wakil and
amir al-umarā fell in disuse and were replaced by the office of a
Sipahsālār (), commander-in-chief of all armed forces – Turcoman and Non-Turcoman – and usually held by a Persian (
Tādjik) noble. The Turcoman Qizilbash nevertheless remained an important part of the Safavid executive apparatus, even though ethnic Caucasians came to largely replace them. For example, even in the 1690s, when ethnic
Georgians formed the mainstay of the Safavid military, the Qizilbash still played a significant role in the army. The
Afshār and
Qājār rulers of Iran who succeeded the Safavids, stemmed from a Qizilbash background. Many other Qizilbash – Turcoman and Non-Turcoman – were settled in far eastern cities such as
Kabul and
Kandahar during the conquests of
Nader Shah, and remained there as consultants to the new
Afghan crown after the Shah's death. Others joined the
Mughal emperors of India and became one of the most influential groups of the Mughal court until the
British conquest of India. ==Legacy==