The historiography on the early Safavids emphasizes the political role of Turkish tribes called collectively the Qizilbash. Ismail I founded the Safavid empire in 1501 with the military support of the Qizilbash, whose loyalty was due to their devotion to him as a divine figure. According to Roger Savory and Hans Roemer, Qizilbash respect for the Safavid house diminished after the defeat at Chaldiran in 1514 such that when Ismail was succeeded by his 10-year-old son Tahmasp, the Qizilbash amirs seized power for themselves. For these scholars, the first ten years of Tahmasp’s reign (the “Qizilbash interregnum,” 1524–34) saw a near-constant conflict among the Qizilbash tribes over control of the empire. The leaders of these tribes, according to the standard narrative, competed for the office of vakil, which would allow them to act on the shah’s behalf even while they marginalized and excluded him from important decision-making. This paper offers a different view of the relationship between the shah and the Qizilbash during the interregnum. Through close reading of several sixteenth-century Safavid chronicles, a picture emerges of a strong shah and a largely loyal Qizilbash during much of the so-called interregnum. Particularly after 1527 with the advent of the Tekelu Period of the interregnum, the shah played an increasingly influential and independent role in Safavid politics, operating independently of the vakil and sometimes making decisions counter to the vakil’s best interest. The paper will focus on certain key events in the interregnum – the Battle of Jam (1528), the Tekelu Disaster (1531), and the fall of Husayn Khan Shamlu (1534) – to show that the shah always held a position of respect among the Qizilbash, and that his political authority grew gradually throughout the period. Analysis of this period sheds light on the larger patterns of tribe-state relations in sixteenth-century Iran. It contributes to a broader study that reconceptualizes tribes as an integral part of the Safavid system, rather than casting them simply as troublesome outliers that the state had to marginalize in order to govern effectively.