Symposium on Safavid and Ottoman Conflict

The Baku symposium on the topic "Shah Khatai - Sultan Selim" was held at the Hotel Excelsior on the initiative of the social entity "Azerbaijani-Turkish House."

The main purpose of the event was to raise the question of the establishment of a joint Turkish history. In this sense, the name for the symposium was elected not by chance (the two opposing rulers in the history the Turks).

The symposium participants believe that in the future the nations should not repeat those mistakes. Turkish and Azerbaijani scientists talked about the role of the Turkic peoples in the history of the Ottoman and Safavid empires.

In the absence of a joint Turkish history, many historical events and place of the Turkic peoples are misrepresented, and there is no single view on their role in these events.

As the director of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan Yagub Mahmudov said, recently an agreement was signed between Azerbaijan and Turkey on the establishment of a shared history. Historians of both countries, he said, will take part in this issue.

Azerbaijani scientists, specifically referring to the Ottoman and Safavid empires, feel wrong that the Ottoman sources call the Safavid Empire as an "Iranian state."

A number of scientists believe that in the Ottoman sources the value of Shah Ismayil Khatai as the creator of the Safavid Turkic Empire is diminished. "The abasement of significance of Khatai began after the Chaldiran battle in 1514. It's time to fix it," said the employee of the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences, Namik Musaly, recognizing that the Chaldiran battle was a "tragedy of Turkism".

During the debate, the historians differed on the causes of the Chaldiran battle, if it took place because of the differences in the approach to Islam.

Some experts believe that the battle took place as a result of different views about Islam from two prominent and the most powerful rulers of the period in the East - Shah Ismayil Khatai and Sultan Selim.

Others believe that the war was the result of a policy of conquest, characteristic of that period.

The scientists believe that the lessons of history are necessary for future generations, "so that the interested forces could not use the contradictions between the Turkic peoples."

The next event of this kind is planned for the summer of 2013 in Turkey. -05C04-