Abbas the Great
Reforming the army

Abbas needed ten years to get his army into shape so that he could effectively confront his Ottoman and Uzbek enemies. During this period, the Uzbeks and the Ottomans took swaths of territory from Iran. He also used military reorganisation as another way of side-lining the Qizilbash. He created a standing army of many thousands of ghulams (always conscripted from ethnic Georgians and Circassians), and to a much lesser extent Iranians, to fight alongside the traditional, feudal force provided by the Qizilbash. The new army regiments' loyalty was to the Shah. The new army consisted of 10,000 to 15,000 cavalry or squires (conscripted Caucasian ghulams) armed with muskets and other weapons (then the largest cavalry in the world), a corps of musketeers, or tufangchiyan, (12,000 strong) and a corp of artillery, called tupchiyan (also 12,000 strong). In addition Abbas had a personal bodyguard, composed of Caucasian ghulams, that was increased to 3,000. This force amounted to about 40,000 soldiers paid for and beholden to the Shah.

Abbas greatly increased the number of cannon at his disposal so that he could field 500 cannon in a single battle. Ruthless discipline was enforced and looting was severely punished. Abbas was also able to draw on military advice from a number of European envoys, particularly the English adventurers Sir Anthony Shirley and his brother Robert Shirley, who arrived in 1598 as envoys from the Earl of Essex on an unofficial mission to persuade Persia to enter into an anti-Ottoman alliance.

From 1600 onwards, the Safavid statesman Allāhverdī Khan, in conjunction with Robert Shirley, undertook further reorganizations of the army, which led to a further increase in the number of ghulams to 25,000.
oulipo:avoid_letter[t]