Contrary to what happens with the Ottomans and the Mughals, the military history of Safavid Persia is still a field to be explored today, and with few honorable exceptions it has not received the attention it deserves. Debates over whether or not the concept of Military Revolution established by Michael Roberts can be applied to Asian Islamic empires have gone from including to rejecting the Safavid experience, although the question remains open pending further investigation.
Between Tribal and Messianic Leadership
Unlike other empires, Safavid Persia did not undergo a process of gradual expansion. On the other hand, it reached its maximum extension a few years after its foundation and then struggled to maintain those limits for two hundred years. Its origin must be sought in two components. One would be the tariqa Safaviyya, a militant religious order of the most mystical side of Islam, attached to Imani or Twelver Shiism. Another would be provided by the adherence of the nomadic tribes of Azerbaijan and Eastern Anatolia to the activation of messianic claims in the person of Shah Ismail I (r. 1501-1524). His ideology was mixed ghuluww of the Turkish-Mongolian conceptions of royalty and the popular Sufism of the Caucasus area. This energized these tribes by uniting them around a common cause (Streusand, 2011, 135).
Ismail would endow himself with an almost theocratic authority as a descendant of the holy-ascetic Safi al-Din Ardabili (1252-1334), while claiming to be related to Muhammad through Ali’s branch. He would also be openly proclaimed as the divine incarnation of the imam mahdi or Messiah. As a consequence, he would be less constrained by the dictates of the religious than the Ottoman sultan, as well as being the object of worship and veneration. In reality, his lineage was the product of quite a mixed mix, being that on his father’s side he was Azeri (his birth language) and on his mother’s side he was the grandson of Uzún Hassan (r. 1453-1478), an early Turkmen leader, and of the Byzantine princess Theodora Megale Comnena, daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond.
The Greek historian Theodore Spandounes would say of the new shah:
He is worshiped as a prophet and the rug on which he knelt for Easter was torn to pieces for his followers to use as Christian relics...It is said that Ismail was sent by God to announce that his sect was the only true sect whose members would be admitted to Paradise. Zuan Moresini, a contemporary Venetian observer, tells in 1507 that: These, in their own way, adore the Sufi, and he is not called king or prince, but saint or prophet...He is the holy of holies, full of divinatory power, because he does not take advice from anyone, nor did he do it as a child, and because of this everyone believes that the Shia, in each of his acts, is divinely inspired (Yildirim , 2008, 593).
The new Safavid power would incorporate the remnants of the Timurid empire and the Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu (Black and White Sheep Turkmen) confederations. Their rulers had traditionally been the leaders of a tribe or family clan. The most innovative feature of the policy of the shah, who did not belong to a specific tribe, would be precisely to take the religious link as a substitute element. For the rest, it was characterized more by continuity than by change in these early years. With the exception, of course, of the imposition of the Shiite ulema in the annexed territories. It must be said that when one speaks of “tribe” in this context, one is actually starting from a rather loose translation of the Turkish-Mongolian term “oymaq”. This is frequently used by specialists.
On the other hand, the hosts with whom Ismail established his authority throughout Persia were not Persians, strictly speaking. In fact, there were Iranian and Kurdish elements among the warriors devoted to the Safavid cause. But his main followers came from the great Turkmen oymaq (Babaie et al., 2004, 24). For generations, these fighters were led by a sheikh (shaykh either seij). In the time of Ismail’s father, they adopted a crimson headdress (taj either tark) with twelve peaks (indicating his adherence to the Twelve Shia Imams). They also grew long mustaches, receiving the name of Qizilbash or “Red Heads”. In the face of an external threat or in the moments before a campaign, the monarch could invoke his support. Not only for reasons of feudal or tribal allegiance, but also because of the principle of shuhi sevan or “devotion to the shah” (Lockhart, 1959, 89).
A two-pronged sword: the Qizilbash and the Turkmen “oymaq”
The Qizilbash first materialized into an army in the 1500s. Ismail was barely 12 years old. He had spent part of his childhood hidden in Guilán (coast of the Caspian Sea) with a small retinue. At this time, he summoned 7,000 of his supporters in Erzincan to avenge the death of his father and grandfather at the hands of the Shirvanshahs of Baku, the ancient local dynasty. This was defeated and reduced to vassal status (Yildirim, 2008, 304).
These events deeply shattered the social tranquility of Ottoman rule. They caused riots among the sultan’s subjects, as many of the devotees gāzis (combatants) of the shah came from Anatolia, Turkey and Caramania. An example of this great commotion is a rumor that spread in early 1502. According to this rumor, there were five hundred qizilbashes within Constantinople itself. All city gates were closed for five days to prevent their escape (Yildirim, 2008, 304).
Already then the division between Turkmens and Tajik-Persians was beginning to manifest itself. The dual character of the population would profoundly affect the civil and military administration of the new empire.. The Tajik bureaucrats and ulema held political power. They rivaled the military leadership of the Turkomans in a dispute that ended with the assassination of three of the five Persian wakīles or vakiles that Ismail appointed during his reign. When the shah chose the Tajik Najm-i Sani for this position and put him in command of the troops he sent against the Uzbek Khanate in 1512, the emirs of the Quizilbash, considering it a dishonor, abandoned him before the enemies on the battlefield. . The defeat of Ghazdewan exposed the fragile unity of the order created by the Shia (Streusand, 2011, 140).
However, despite the natural insubordination in the Qizilbash and the support given by the Ottomans to the Uzbek nomads, the next campaigns were favorable to the Persians. Victory at Merv would allow for the capture and execution of Muhammad Shaybani, a descendant of Genghis Khan. His skull was to be made into a jeweled cup with which he toasted the shah and the skin of his head, stuffed with straw and sent to his ally Bayezid II. These events would set a precedent for the long rivalry between Safavids and Ottomans. The cautious sultan was in favor of avoiding a direct confrontation. But his death, and the victory of Selim I over his brother Ahmed (supported by the Persians), led to a bloody war between the two empires.
In 1514, after a painful advance into the Armenian mountains, where the Safavids had pursued a scorched earth policy, the Ottomans won a great victory at the Battle of Chaldiran. The victors used an unsophisticated but effective tactic known as tabur jangi (in Turkish) or wagenburg (in German). This consisted of arranging a barrier of cars linked by chains and equipped with mortars from which the infantry could protect themselves and fire against the enemy cavalry (Savory, 1967, 73).
A method borrowed from the Hungarians, who in turn learned it from the ancient Hussites. The sultan’s troops would occupy the city of Tabriz, although they were unable to hold it. Geographically, the Safavid Persians lost only the province of Diyar Bakr (Upper Mesopotamia). But the momentum of its initial expansion disappeared. Ismail, who had been a charismatic and aggressive leader, never again led his troops into battle.
These first defeats would cause a loss of prestige that altered the balance of power within the empire. In addition, he gradually strengthened the position of the tribes enough to allow them to manipulate those weaker and more easily influenced monarchs. This ended up causing several civil wars. Beyond the warriors who served as the shah’s guard, there was as yet no permanent force under his direct control. Qizilbash soldiers had no direct ties to the ruler and their loyalty was to the emir of the oymaq to which they belonged. Except for the two military reviews that used to be held annually, the central administration, if one can speak of such a thing, had little or no control over the size, equipment, or composition of these contingents.
Regarding its dimensions, for the reign of Ismail the famous review of 1530 is usually cited, at which time the Qizilbash provided 84,900 men out of a total of 105,800. Most of these soldiers rode good horses or camels and were expert horsemen, like the Persians and Parthians of antiquity, endowed with mail and light armor, but of good quality. They went to battle armed with spears, bows, maces and tomahawks, although there were also some squads that already had matchlock and smooth-bore muskets (Roy, 2012, 105).
The historian Laurence Lockhart, one of the few authors who has written about the Safavid army, also speaks of the existence of a different cavalry, who wore heavy armor and were armed with broad swords (ghadara). In appearance, these men should have been similar to the cataphracts, but it does not provide much more information (Lockhart, 1959, 89).
Most of the Qizilbash emirs were also provincial governors and very few resided at court. In some cases they could place one of their chiefs or dignitaries in it. Marriages between these and members of the royal family, whose offspring enjoyed a prominent position, were also not unusual. To the three titles of honor for the military aristocracy that were in descending order: Khan, Sultan and Beg; sons of Safavid mothers used to add that of Mirza or “royal prince” (Szuppe, 1996, 79).
An empire of gunpowder and nomads: the question of the first Persian artillery
Ever since Marshal Hodgson introduced the concept of “gunpowder empires” for the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, there has been a consensus that these states, like their European counterparts, would have held a certain monopoly on the production and endowment of firearms and artillery. If not in its origins, at least at the height of its power. On the other hand, the discussion around the idea of the Military Revolution has led to the question of whether the Asian empires experienced this process and in what terms. The few works dedicated to the Safavid military structure have questioned the validity of this theoretical model for the case of Persia. But it should be noted that most suffer from a…