In most cases, the relations between the Safavids and their Turkmen adherents in Anatolia primarily from a religious point of view, it is because this is the prevailing interpretation. However, a recently elaborated thesis, according to which social and political factors outweighed religious motives, also deserves attention. According to this argument the Turkmen tribes of Asia Minor turned to Persia because they neither would nor could be integrated into Ottoman society. For one thing their own strong racial consciousness stood in the way of any integration (though in the event the Safavids too failed to bring about such an integration). For another, their leaders would have had no chance of promotion in the Ottoman army of this period because a Turkish military aristocracy had already been formed - whereas in Persia Turkmen amirs had been offered a wide sphere of action not only in the conquest of territory but also in the political organisation and provincial administration of the empire. This argument is not implausible, although its validity remains to be tested on some points, especially the idea that tribal interests overshadowed all other ties, even the religious ones, and that these Turkmens were in fact quite indifferent to the religious issue, being still close to the shamanistic faith of their forebears. Such assertions are not adequately supported by the sources discovered to date, and for the time being we must assume that the rise of Isma'Il was inspired by strong religious motives which must have impinged on his Anatolian adherents. There, even if one attaches no great significance to the religious motives of his father and grandfather, the matter must rest, until the opposite is proved to be the case.
Policy of Mutual Understanding: Renewal of Safavid-Ottoman Ties
