A Brief view on Iraqi Turkmans

zagros, people like him dont want to understand.

i will add on to your post anyway.

after the revolution, the mullahs started executing a large number of the airforce service men, who were still loyal to the shah.

when iraq invaded, these prisoners yelled and shouted from their sells for the mullahs to let them go and fight for their country. eventually, the mullahs let the go and fight, and the ones that survived the war, were executed anyway.

now did the shah supporters defend iran because they were shia, or because they loved their country?

i think you can answer that one for yourself.

I am not here to diverge from the topic, but one of you asked whether the Shah's supporters defended Iran due to religion (Shia) or love for country. I do not know the answer. I think love of country is one of the reasons. The question I have is: How much of a forceful influence were the Shah's secret services towards Iranian dissenters?

Thanks for the info Zagros. One of my Iranian friends told me about difficulty he felt leaving the country. He did so to evade any penalties from the Shah's regime. After years of then fearing the mullahs, he went back last year. Quite an emotional experience for him.

The same for my father. He hasn't been in Iran for more than 25 years now. After spending 2 years in prison there, he hasn't deared to return. I hope I can go in like 2 years or so.

Originally posted by Bashibozuk I don't, actually Anatolian Alevis have a great respect for Shah Ismael and Sheikh Haydar. They were never close to the caliphate either.

I said the origin of this thought.But you still believed that Iran is just a shii country, didn't you?and that mean that you are living in a region that influenced by this thought.(and this is very prevelant, not specific to you, and the reason was that in Turkey and Arabic countries Iran was never a very important issue to think or study about it , except becasue of political issues)

 

I am not a Pan-Turkist

I didn't say that and not every body that has that belief is a panturk.

I don't agree on Anatolian Turks (Kizilbash) themselves alone creating a Safavid state. Safavid state was found by Safaviyah of Ardebil, by the help of Kizilbash (which is a wrong term in fact) of Anatolia. And of course all population couldn't be forced to accept Shia sect when they were mainly Sunnites, it has to have some socio-economical reasons and happen in a long time period just like the Islamicizing procedure of Anatolia.

well lets now elaborte this picture and describing the mythes:

1)Iranian people were manily sunni until emergence of safavids.

Thats wrong, shiism has a long history in Iran,and actually It dates back to early days of Islam, literally shiism derived from Alaviun that believed khalifate belongs to Ali and his sons not ummayids and Abbasides .There have been many many sects of Shiis that were active in Iran, Zeydieh, Ismaeliyeh and Imamieh(twelver shii) were the most famous of these sects, Shiism was always was an under ground religion and was very popular between lower classes, and sometimes higher classes, for example Ibn Sina probabaly was an Ismaeli.

Shiies in ghaznavid and Saljuqid times were persecuted, but after Mongol invasion , Shiism became so widespread that actually majority of uprsings of Iranian people agaisnt rulers were performed under doctorine of one of the shii sects.

Horufiun against Teymurids, mosha'sha'ian in Khuzestan, Sadat Kia in Mazandaran,.....and most notably sarbedaran of Khorasan and Kerman.

What Safavid did actually was that they for the first time officialized Shiism in all of Iran and introduced an official version from it for the first time in Iran.

2)Safavieh was at first an Alavi sect.

Safavieh origianally were not alavi, they were not Shii too, Actually founders of this order Sheykh Zahed Gilani and Sheykh Saffieddin Ardabili in 1300 were Shafe'i Sunni.Sheykh Zahed was from Gilan and Sheykh Safieddin was maybe a Talish or Tat.Safavieh order was a peaceful order and avoid entering the politic games of that time. So What happened to this peaceful sufistic suni order that 150 years later in time of Sheykh Jonaid it became Shiized, militarized and Turkicized? I couldn't find any convincing source which clearly describe this process, the reason is that after Sheykh Sadreddin (son of Sheykh Safieddin ) There is little knowledge about internal structure of Safavieh order(except their political and religous influence) until the time of Sheykh Jonaid.

The most probable Scenario was that They were first became Shii, and then because of threat of Sunni rulers became militrized and then by growing the power of Turkic Elements in this order (who were the main military defenders of this order) They became Turkified.

Sheykh jonaid was a Twelver Shii, (according to Fazlollah Ruzbahan) but again Ruzbahan clearly pointed that Those followers of this Sheykh jonaid that came from Rum(anatolia) were heretics and not Muslim. " The Rum stupids by imitating the christians founded a Trinity and made Jonaid the God and his son Heydar as son of God".Ofcourse there is exaggeration in this quote, And Ruzbahan was a zelious sunni,but it clearly shows that Anatolian followers of Jonaid were not orthodox Shiis unlike Azarbaijani followers of Safavieh order.

At first Safavi leaders supported them, for many reasons first becasue at that time any shii movement attracted every shii with any belief systam, second because that they were one of their best branch of Army and third because they were very powerfull in Anatolia and had great influence in Aqquynlu state and then in othman state.

But when Shah Ismael officialized Twelver shii in Iran , and after that it became clear that Othmans were winner of Anatolia, Safavid kings from Shah Ismael to later kings greatly persecuted them.

 

3)Qizilbashes were Anatolian people.

As you pointed out the center of Safavieh was basically Azarbaijan and southern part of Aran, but later they gained a huge influence specially in Anatolia,Marino Sanuto Venitian ambassador (1514) stated that from every five person in Anatolia , four was shii.

In 1447 after death of Shah Ibrahim , The rivalary between Jonaid son of Shah Ibrahim and Ja'far his uncle grows.JahahnShah of Qaraquyunlu supported Sheykh J'afar and so Jonaid fleed from Ardabil and went to Anatolia and Near Uzun Hasan Enemy of JahanShah.

Jonaid In Anatolia gained military support of many Turkmen tribes and with the help of Them attacked Tabozan empire. When with the help of Uzun Hasan Jonaid came back to Ardabil and Took place of Sheykh Ja'far, many of these Anatolian nomads followed him and came to Iran.

They were one of the main supporters of Safavids, After Jonaid in times of his son Sheykh Heydar and also Shah Ismael these migrations continued (specially when Othmans defeated the Qizilbashes in Anatolia and started a great massacare of them in time of Salim).

The role of these Anatolian immigrants were very important and many of them later played a leading role in Safavid State .Names like Istajlu, Shamlu, Rumlu ,....Are very well known names in Iranian history.

But....

Again this is exaggeration to take just a pieace of a painting and try to judge of the painting just by looking at that piece.

Even when jonaid came back to Ardabil, still majority of his supporters were local people.Iranian Turkic tribes like Qajars, Zolqadrs, Bayats, Kermanlu, Takehlu,....and specially local Trurkic tribes of Qara Dagh who were the oldest and most zelious supporters of Safavi orders, and also Talish people (an Iranic people) had very important roles in early days of Safivieh.

When sheykh Heydar ordered his followers to wear famous red Hats instead of traditional skin Turkman Hat to distinguish its followers from others , they were called Qizilbashes, and later this name was applied to all of the Safavi supporters, and specilly in Anatolia , Alavies (I think even up to 50 years ago) were called Qizilbashes.That is why it created this dillusion that Qizilbashes were Anatolian people.

 

Actually they celebrated Sultan Suleyman Khan's conquest of Tabriz, and that's why the Safavids punished them after they recaptured the city.

What Zagros referred to was in early of 20th century when Othmans occupied northwestern Iran, and drove away russians from Tabriz, At first there was a great joy that at last russian authority which was very brutal was ended, and othmans were looked as savours but when othmans pulished newspapares or articles that preached about union of Islamic people or Turkic people, this greatly annoyed local people, there were many protests and some of its leaders becamed prisoned,(better than russian methods that preferred hanging poles).When Othmans again were defeated by russians and lost Tabriz this story ended.

 

About celebration of Tabriz people I think you are referring to Sultan Salim time.Tabriz in 500 years ago was not an Azeri speaking city, religion of its people was mainly sunni and Shah Ismael after taking that city greatly persecuted sunni people,(he killed his mother because she ramarried with a sunni person).When Shah Ismael has been defeated in chaldran and Othmans entered the city sunni peoples welcomed him, and when Sultan Salim returned, and Shah Ismael came back this time Shiis punished Sunnies and from that time Tabriz became of the centers of Shiism in Iran.

There was another uprising in Tabriz in 1571-1573 in the time of Sultan Salim II son of Soleyman, and it has nothing to do with othmans,It was just a local uprising.

If there is another incident may you show source and time of this incident.?