Ak Koyunlu

Ak Koyunlu was a Sunni Azerbaijani Oghuz Turkic tribal federation that ruled present-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, Eastern Turkey, part of Iran, and northern Iraq from 1378 to 1501. The Ak Koyunlu Turkomans first acquired land in 1402, when Timur granted them all of Diyar Bakr in present-day Turkey. For a long time, the Ak Koyunlu were unable to expand their territory, as the rival Kara Koyunlu or "Black Sheep Turkomans" kept them at bay. However, this changed with the rule of Uzun Hassan, who defeated the Black Sheep Turkoman leader Jahan Shah in 1467. After the defeat of a Timurid leader, Abu Sa'id, Uzun Hassan was able to take Baghdad along with territories around the Persian Gulf. He expanded into Iran as far east as Khorasan. However, around this time, the Ottoman Empire sought to expand eastwards, a serious threat that forced the Ak Koyunlu into an alliance with the Karamanids of central Anatolia. As early as 1464, Uzun Hassan had requested military aid from one of the Ottoman Empire's strongest enemies, Venice, however, despite Venetian promises, this aid never arrived, and as a result, Uzun Hassan was defeated by the Ottomans at the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473, though this did not destroy the Ak Koyunlu. When Uzun Hassan died early in 1478, he was succeeded by his son Khalil Mirza (Sultan Khalil), but the latter was defeated by a confederation under his younger brother Ya'qub at the Battle of Khoy in July. Ya'qub, who reigned from 1478 to 1490, sustained the dynasty for a while longer. However, during the first four years of his reign there were seven pretenders to the throne who had to be put down. Following Ya'qub's death, civil war again erupted, the Ak Koyunlus destroyed themselves from within, and they ceased to be a threat to their neighbors.

The Safavid Dynasty

The Safavid Dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Persia (modern Iran) after the fall of the Sasanian Empire - following the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century A.D., and "is often considered the beginning of modern Persian history". The Safavid shahs ruled over one of the so-called gunpowder empires, and they ruled one of the greatest Persian empires after the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history. The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Azerbaijan region. It was of mixed ancestry (Kurdish and Azerbaijani, which included intermarriages with Georgian, Circassian, and Pontic Greek dignitaries). From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a unified Iranian state. The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736) and, at their height, they controlled all of modern Iran, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Armenia, most of Georgia, the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Persia as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon "checks and balances", their architectural innovations and their patronage for fine arts. The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by spreading Shi'a Islam in Iran, as well as major parts of the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.

The Afsharid Dynasty

The Afsharid Dynasty were members of a native Iranian dynasty of Turkic origin, specifically the Afshar tribe, from Khorasan, who ruled Persia in the 18th century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the brilliant military commander Nader Shah, who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself Shah of Iran. During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire, and at its height it controlled modern day Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, most of the North Caucasus (Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and parts of modern-day Chechnya), Afghanistan, Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan, and parts of Iraq, Turkey, North India, and Oman. After his death, most of his empire was divided between the Zands, Durranis, Georgians, and the Caucasian khanates, while Afsharid rule was confined to a small local state in Khorasan. Finally, the Afsharid dynasty was overthrown by Mohammad Khan Qajar in 1796, who would establish a new native Iranian empire and restore Iranian suzerainty over several of the aforementioned regions. The dynasty was named after the Turkic Afshar tribe from Khorasan in north-east Iran to which Nader belonged. The Afshars had originally migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century. In the early 17th century, Shah Abbas the Great moved many Afshars from Azerbaijan to Khorasan to defend the north-eastern borders of his state against the Uzbeks, after which the Afshars became native to those regions. Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars.

The Zand Dynasty

The Zand Dynasty was an Iranian dynasty of Lurish or Kurdish origin founded by Karim Khan Zand that initially ruled southern and central Iran in the 18th century. It later quickly came to expand to include much of the rest of contemporary Iran, as well as Azerbaijan, and parts of Iraq and Armenia.

The Qajar Dynasty

The Qajar Dynasty was a Persianized royal family of Turkic origin, which ruled Persia (Iran) from 1785 to 1925. The state ruled by the dynasty was officially known as the Sublime State of Persia . The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1796, Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty, and Mohammad Khan was formally crowned as shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects. In the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty eventually permanently lost many of Iran's integral areas which had made part of the concept of Iran for three centuries to the Russians in the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.