Summary

The Safavid state (1501–1722) spent considerable portions of its early history in conflict with its neighbor, the Ottoman Empire. The transformation of the Safavid order into a temporal state and the declaration of Shiʿism as the state religion by its first ruler, Shah Ismaʿil, posed significant challenges to the Ottomans. Faced with the threat of losing eastern Anatolia and adjacent territories to the rapidly expanding Safavids, the Ottoman establishment swiftly took action. As the self-proclaimed champions of Sunni Islam and the protectors of the abode of Islam, the Ottoman religious and scholarly circles initiated a theological debate in response to the emerging Shia threat from the East. They issued fatwas to excommunicate the Safavids and their followers, the Qezelbash. Empowered by these fatwas, the Ottoman sultans Selim I and his son Suleiman the Magnificent carried out four campaigns aimed at eliminating the new state, which posed challenges to their religious and temporal claims. The campaigns of 1514, 1533–1534, 1548–1549, and 1553–1554 were motivated more by religious concerns than political ones. However, unable to eliminate the Safavids, who remained on the defensive and did not issue anti-Sunni fatwas to reciprocate the Ottoman attacks, the Ottomans agreed to the 1555 Amasya Treaty, recognizing the Safavids as a legitimate political entity.

The Amasya Treaty halted but did not end the conflict. However, by the end of the 16th century, the nature of the Ottoman–Safavid confrontations had changed. Protracted wars driven by geopolitical and strategic concerns replaced seasonal campaigns. The first cycle of wars extended from 1578 to 1590, and the second cycle began in 1603 and ended with the Treaty of Zohab in 1639. Imperial and expansionist ambitions, such as the rivalry over the Caucasus and Baghdad and the Ottoman strategy of capturing the rich Caspian provinces, played a more significant role than the sectarian differences in these conflicts. Nonetheless, the rivalry was often framed in religio-ideological terms, and sectarian contention remained an important component of the Ottoman–Iranian rivalry until the end of the Safavids in 1722.