What If the Safavid and Ottoman Empires Had United?
Mohammad Kawrani — 2026.10.04
The conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire was not a passing dispute; it was a deep wound in the body of the Ummah (Islamic nation). From the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 CE to the repeated peace treaties, war remained the dominant state of affairs between two neighboring Muslim powers competing for influence, while Europe watched and benefited. Energies were drained, capabilities squandered, and the door was left wide open for foreign intervention.
Indeed, competition between the two states was legitimate and commendable when focused on science, urban development, trade, and civilizational achievements. Honorable competition drives innovation and progress. However, armed conflict and the exploitation of sectarianism to serve political agendas transformed jurisprudential differences into a destructive fratricidal war—something we must reject and denounce.
Had the Safavid and Ottoman empires united—combining their vast human resources and their territory extending from the Balkans to Khorasan—they would have formed a formidable deterrent against Western colonial expansion. The West would have confronted a united front that could not be easily breached. Resources would have been directed toward science and industry instead of war. Most importantly, all sects and peoples in the region would have lived in peace, freedom, and independence, for Sunnis and Shias are two wings of Islam—not adversaries—within a single state protecting everyone.
Today, the tragedy repeats itself in an even more brutal fashion. The aggressive Zionist onslaught does not stop at Gaza and the West Bank; it extends to Sudan, Somaliland, and Eritrea. It is an offensive aimed at weakening the region, fragmenting its states, displacing its peoples, and seizing its resources. The danger is real and existential to the independence of the region and its inhabitants.
In the face of this threat, sympathy alone is insufficient. There is the Axis of Resistance led by Iran, and the Turkish axis alongside Qatar and Syria. Despite differing approaches and roles, Turkey and Iran remain the only two countries in the region with genuinely independent decision-making. Therefore, coordination between them and the building of a broad regional alliance is not an intellectual luxury; it is an existential necessity.
What is required is not full integration, but a strategic alliance in confronting the common enemy. Just as the conflict between the Safavids and Ottomans weakened Muslims, the conflict between Iran and Turkey today serves only their adversaries. Unity is strength, and division is ruin. History shows no mercy to peoples who abandon their unity.
What If the Safavid and Ottoman Empires Had United? (Part II)
Mohammad Kawrani — 2026.10.04
The struggle between the Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire was one of the most prominent conflicts that drained the Islamic world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The competition between them began as political and geopolitical, later acquiring explicit sectarian dimensions. Among its major milestones was the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, followed by a series of wars that eventually led to the Peace of Amasya in 1555.
Yet history poses a significant question: What if the competition between the Safavids and Ottomans had turned into cooperation and union?
Competition in science, economy, governance, urban development, and military strength is not inherently blameworthy; rather, it can be a catalyst for the renaissance of nations. What is blameworthy is when competition mutates into a conflict that drains Muslims and consumes their strength against one another. An Islamic world combining Ottoman military power and Safavid capabilities could have formed an immense civilizational, political, and economic bloc, managing Sunni-Shia diversity alongside all other regional components through coexistence rather than converting it into fuel for conflict.
It is impossible to assert definitively that such a union would have prevented subsequent European dominance—history is not rewritten with wishful thinking. However, it is historically reasonable to argue that the unity of the major powers in the Islamic world would have fundamentally altered the balance of power and the terms of competition with Europe, significantly reducing opportunities to exploit internal divisions. The Peace of Amasya itself served as an example of the possibility for the two states to transition from war to regulated relations and political coexistence.
Herein lies the lesson for the present.
Today, the region faces grave challenges impacting the security of its peoples, the independence of its states, and its future. From this perspective, the question becomes not: Do Turkey and Iran align completely in methodology and policy? But rather: Can they cooperate despite their differences in approach?
Turkey and Iran are two major states with distinct calculations, interests, and policies, yet they also share a vast expanse of common interest in regional security and autonomous decision-making. Amid current regional escalation, the importance of seeking frameworks for dialogue and regional cooperation becomes clear, rather than leaving the region hostage to polarization and multi-front conflicts.
Therefore, rapprochement between the Axis of Resistance and Turkey does not imply the dissolution of differences, the unification of sects, or the erasure of independent political decision-making. Rather, it represents the minimum degree of coordination required to confront common threats, safeguard the independence of regional states, and prevent sectarian and political differences from turning into internal wars.
History has taught us that the strength of Muslims does not require them to become identical copies of one another, but rather to know how to compete without fighting, disagree without conspiring, and cooperate when danger threatens everyone.
Perhaps the question that the sixteenth century could not answer is the very same question of the twenty-first century:
What if those who differ could unite to protect their homelands, compete in building them, and leave the doors of conflict open only to ideas and projects—never to the blood of their peoples?
Source: https://mohammadabbaskawrani.com
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