Qullar?

khurasan_miniatures · Post by **khurasan_miniatures** » Mon May 30, 2011 3:56 am

Just curious as to what the rationale was for not including the Qullar, ghulam cavalry using firearms, in the post 1591 variant of the Safavid Persian list?

Think they would replace between half and all of the quizilbashes starting with Abbas's reign, and all of the elite quizilbashes (from Abbas's reign the guard were drawn exclusively from the ghulam ranks). They would be the same as quizilbashes except with carbine replacing the bow. The elite Qullar would be armoured rather than heavily armoured. All quizilbashes fielded (bow) would have to be average. Not sure if quizilbashes would be required because between the Qullar, tufengchis and guard a standing army of 40,000 men could be fielded.

This is based on the article "The Persian Army of the Safavi Period" by Lockhart.

Thoughts? Thank you!

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Mon May 30, 2011 9:47 pm

The info used suggested that traditional weapons remained in the majority - also the stuff I found suggested that the article you mention was "outdated", which is probably a polite way of saying wrong

khurasan_miniatures · Post by **khurasan_miniatures** » Tue May 31, 2011 4:31 am

Ecyclopedia Iranica I think? Yes, often wondered about that as Lockhart is so heavily sourced, and the Encyclopedia isn't.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Tue May 31, 2011 6:55 am

Indeed it does say Lockhar is outdated. However, as no other info I could find supported the article ...

khurasan_miniatures · Post by **khurasan_miniatures** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 3:03 pm

Fair enough. In order to further investigate this I consulted Iran at War, 1500-1988, a very recent publication by Osprey. Farrokh describes the Qullar (which he transliterates as Ghollar) as being armed with long firearms and the traditional weapons -- shamshir swords, axes, maces etc. Probably best to reflect this as carbine swordsman.

He says as well that by Abbas's reign, some of the Qizilbash also used firearms, but the Qizilbash magnates still disfavored them, so their overall tactics remained traditional, and they needed to be removed as the primary troop types in order to bring firearms to the fore in the Persian army. When removed, they were replaced by the Ghollar, horse and foot (some of the tofengchis would be ghollar as well).

Farrokh cites his sources -- histories of the Iranian army written in 1999 by Matofi and in 2005 by Babaie.

It stands to reason that the list have a break in it to reflect the reforms of Abbas, I'd suggest. It would also make the army a bit more interesting, so that manufacturers might be a little more likely to make the models.

Completely understood that the book is published and that is that, but to the extent that there might be some addenda published to the FoGR lists at a future point, perhaps this could be included.