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Qizilbash are neither a nation nor a religious group. They were set up at the end of the 15th c. to serve for the defense of an esoteric order, the Safawiyah (’Sufi’). As a secret military order, the Qizilbash were organized by Sheikh Haydar (1460-1488) as a shield of the esoteric order of which he was the leader. The Qizilbash remained always a military order that acted secretively using an enormous underground intelligence network between China and the Balkans. The doctrines of the Safawiyah (’Sufi’) Order were accepted by the Qizilbash. Ethnically, the Qizilbash were Turkmen – basically from the tribes of Afshar, Shahsevan and Qashqai. There were Qizilbash fighters who originated from other ethnic groups as well. Sheikh Haydar’s son, Ismail, was a Qizilbash and he became the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. In the first decade of the 16th c., the Qizilbash managed to penetrate in Ottoman Anatolia but the victory of Sultan Selim I at Chaldiran was a terrible setback for them.
