In Lieu of Conclusion

John R. Walsh once posited that “historiography is as much the result as it is the record of events, and should therefore be expected to react variously to the circumstances in which it is produced, in accordance with the temper of its time.” 1 While the Ottoman–Safavid conflict may seem too specific or too distant to be relevant to the contemporary Middle East, in reality the rhetoric of Sunni Ottomans versus Shiʿi Safavids has profoundly shaped nationalist and sectarian history writing in the region well into today. Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in the early twentieth century, a number of prominent historians, many of whom also served as high-ranking politicians, helped to create and disseminate a new nationalist identity for this nascent republic that was closely linked to a confessional uniformity signifying strength and volition. In these historians’ methodological and analytical nationalism, the “sudden conversion” of the Safavids to Shiʿism was a sign of Iranian inferiority. Historians-cum-politicians such as Fuad Köprülü (d. 1966) and M. Ş. Günaltay (d. 1961) unequivocally denied the pervasiveness and strength of the Qizilbash in the early modern period of the Ottoman Empire.