IL to KHANS (Mongol)

(1256–1353), Mongol dynasty that ruled in Iran. Il-khan is Persian for “subordinate khan.”

Hülegü, a grandson of Genghis Khan, was given the task of capturing Iran by the paramount Mongol chieftain Möngke. Hülegü set out in about 1253 with a Mongol army of about 130,000. He founded the Il-Khanid dynasty in 1256, and by 1258 he had captured Baghdad and all Iran. The Il-Khans consolidated their position in Iran and reunited the region as a political and territorial entity after several centuries of fragmented rule by petty dynasties. During the reign of the Il-Khan Maḥmūd Ghāzān (reigned 1295–1304), the Il-Khans lost all contact with the remaining Mongol chieftains of China. Maḥmūd Ghāzān himself embraced Sunnite Islām, and his reign saw an Iranian cultural renaissance in which such scholars as Rashīd ad-Dīn flourished under his patronage.

Ghāzān’s brother Öljeitü (reigned 1304–16) converted to Shīʿite Islām in 1310. Öljeitü’s conversion gave rise to great unrest, and civil war was imminent when he died in 1316. His son and successor, Abū Saʿīd (reigned 1317–35), reconverted to Sunnite Islām and thus averted war. But during Abū Saʿīd’s reign factional disputes and internal disturbances continued and became rampant. Abū Saʿīd died without leaving an heir, and with his death the unity of the dynasty was fractured. Thereafter various Il-Khanid princes ruled as regional dynasts until 1353.

Hulegu Khan

From 1256 to 1265 CE

Abaqa

From 1265 to 1282 CE

Teguder

From 1282 to 1284 CE

Arghun

From 1284 to 1291 CE

Gaikhatu

From 1291 to 1295 CE

Baidu

1295 CE

Mahmud Ghazan

From 1295 to 1304 CE

Oljeitu

From 1304 to 1316 CE

Abu Sa'id

From 1316 to 1335 CE

Arpa

From 1335 to 1336 CE

Musa

From 1336 to 1337 CE

Mohammad

From 1336 to 1338 CE

Sati Beg

From 1338 to 1339 CE

Jahan Timur

From 1339 to 1340 CE

Soleiman

From 1339 to 1343 CE

TIMURID

(fl. 15th–16th century ad), Turkic dynasty descended from the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), renowned for its brilliant revival of artistic and intellectual life in Iran and Central Asia.

After Timur’s death (1405), his conquests were divided between two of his sons: Mīrānshāh (d. 1407) received Iraq, Azerbaijan, Moghān, Shīrvān, and Georgia, while Shāh Rokh was left with Khorāsān.

Between 1406 and 1417 Shāh Rokh extended his holdings to include those of Mīrānshāh as well as Māzanderān, Seistān, Transoxania, Fars, and Kermān, thus reuniting Timur’s empire, except for Syria and Khuzistan. Shāh Rokh also retained a nominal suzerainty over China and India. During Shāh Rokh’s reign (1405–47), economic prosperity was restored and much of the damage wrought by Timur’s campaigns was repaired. Trading and artistic communities were brought into the capital city of Herāt, where a library was founded, and the capital became the centre of a renewed and artistically brilliant Persian culture.

In the realm of architecture, the Timurids drew on and developed many Seljuq traditions. Turquoise and blue tiles forming intricate linear and geometric patterns decorated the facades of buildings. Sometimes the interior was decorated similarly, with painting and stucco relief further enriching the effect. The Gūr-e Amīr, Timur’s mausoleum in Samarkand, is the most notable example. The tiled dome, rising above a polygonal chamber, is fluted and slightly bulbous. Of the Ak-Saray, Timur’s palace built between 1390 and 1405 at Kesh, only the monumental gates remain, again with coloured-tile decoration.

The schools of miniature painting at Shīrāz, Tabriz, and Herāt flourished under the Timurids. Among the artists gathered at Herāt was Behzād (d. c. 1525), whose dramatic, intense style was unequaled in Persian manuscript illustration. The Baysunqur workshops practiced leatherwork, bookbinding, calligraphy, and wood and jade carving. In metalwork, however, Timurid artistry never equaled that of earlier Iraqi schools.

Internal rivalry eroded Timurid solidarity soon after Shāh Rokh’s death. The years 1449–69 were marked by a constant struggle between the Timurid Abū Saʿīd and the Uzbek confederations of the Kara Koyunlu (“Black Sheep”) and Ak Koyunlu (“White Sheep”). When Abū Saʿīd was killed in 1469, the Ak Koyunlu ruled unopposed in the west, while the Timurids receded to Khorāsān. Nevertheless the arts, particularly literature, historiography, and miniature painting, continued to flourish; the court of the last great Timurid, Ḥusayn Bayqarah (1478–1506) supported such luminaries as the poet Jāmī, the painters Behzād and Shāh Muẓaffar, and the historians Mīrkhwānd and Khwāndamīr. The vizier himself, Mīr ʿAlī Shīr, established Chagatai Turkish literature and fostered a revival in Persian.

Although the last Timurid of Herāt, Badīʿ az-Zamān, finally fell to the armies of the Uzbek Muḥammad Shaybānī in 1506, the Timurid ruler of Fergana, Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Bābur, survived the collapse of the dynasty and established the line of Mughal emperors in India in 1526.

Timur the Lame

From 1380 to 1405 CE

Djalal Ud to Din Miran Shah

From 1405 to 1409 CE

Khalil Sultan

From 1409 to 1414 CE

Ayyal

1414 CE

Ailankar

From 1414 to 1415 CE

Shah Rokh

From 1415 to 1447 CE

Olough Beg

From 1447 to 1449 CE

QARA QOYUNLU

Turkmen tribal federation that ruled Azerbaijan and Iraq from about 1375 to 1468.

The Kara Koyunlu were vassals of the Jalāyirid dynasty of Baghdad and Tabrīz from about 1375, when the head of their leading tribe, Kara Muḥammad Turmush (reigned c. 1375–90), ruled Mosul. The federation secured its independence with the seizure of Tabrīz (which became its capital) by Kara Yūsuf (reigned 1390–1400; 1406–20). Routed by the armies of Timur in 1400, Kara Yūsuf sought refuge with the Mamlūks of Egypt but by 1406 was able to regain Tabrīz. He then secured the Kara Koyunlu position against threats from the Ak Koyunlu (“White Sheep”), a rival Turkmen federation in the province of Diyār Bakr (modern Iraq), and from the Georgians and Shīrvān-Shāhs in the Caucasus and Timur’s successors in Iran. The capture of Baghdad in 1410 and the installation of a subsidiary Kara Koyunlu line there hastened the downfall of the Jalāyirids themselves.

Despite the dynastic struggles for primacy in the years following Kara Yūsuf’s death (1420) and continuing Timurid pressure, the Kara Koyunlu maintained a firm grip on their possessions. Jihān Shāh (reigned c. 1438–67) established a temporary peace with the Timurid Shāh Rokh, who had helped him gain the Kara Koyunlu throne; but after Shāh Rokh’s death in 1447, Jihān Shāh annexed portions of Iraq and the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula as well as Timurid western Iran. Jihān Shāh’s rule was repeatedly troubled, however, by his rebellious sons and by the semiautonomous Kara Koyunlu rulers of Baghdad, whom he expelled in 1464. An attempt to take Diyār Bakr from the Ak Koyunlu in 1466 ended in Jihān Shāh’s defeat and death, and within two years the Kara Koyunlu succumbed to the superior Ak Koyunlu forces.

Jahan Shah

From 1458 to 1466 CE

SAFAVID

(1502–1736), Iranian dynasty whose establishment of Shīʿite Islām as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic and linguistic elements of the country. The Ṣafavids were descended from Sheykh Ṣafī od-Dīn (1253–1334) of Ardabīl, head of the Ṣūfī order of Ṣafavīyeh (Safawiyah), but about 1399 exchanged their Sunnite affiliation for Shīʿism.

The founder of the dynasty, Ismāʿīl I, as head of the Ṣūfīs of Ardabīl, won enough support from the local Turkmens and other disaffected heterodox tribes to enable him to capture Tabrīz from the Ak Koyunlu (Turkish: “White Sheep”), an Uzbek Turkmen confederation, and in July 1501 Ismāʿīl was enthroned as shah of Azerbaijan. By May of the next year he was shah of Iran. In the next 10 years he subjugated the greater part of Iran and annexed the Iraqi provinces of Baghdad and Mosul; despite the predominantly Sunnite character of this territory, he proclaimed Shīʿism the state religion.

In August 1514, Ismāʿīl was seriously defeated at Chāldirān by his Sunnite rival, the Ottoman sultan Selim I. Thereafter, the continuing struggle against the Sunnites—the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeast—cost the Ṣafavids Kurdistan, Diyarbakır, and Baghdad; the Ṣafavid capital had to be temporarily relocated at Eṣfahān—permanently by about the early 17th century.

Iran weakened appreciably during the reign of Ismāʿīl’s eldest son, Shah Ṭahmāsp I (1524–76), and persistent and unopposed Turkmen forays into the country increased under his incompetent successors. In 1588 ʿAbbās I was brought to the throne. Realizing the limits of his military strength, ʿAbbās made peace with the Ottomans on unfavourable terms in 1590 and directed his onslaughts against the Uzbeks. Meeting with little success, ʿAbbās engaged (1599) the English Sir Robert Sherley to direct a major army reform. Three bodies of troops were formed, all trained and armed in the European manner and paid out of the royal treasury: the ghulāms (slaves), the tofangchīs (musketeers), and the topchīs (artillerymen).

With his new army, ʿAbbās defeated the Turks in 1603, forcing them to relinquish all the territory they had seized, and captured Baghdad. He also expelled (1602, 1622) the Portuguese traders who had seized the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf early in the 16th century.

Shah ʿAbbās’ remarkable reign, with its striking military successes and efficient administrative system, raised Iran to the status of a great power. Trade with the West and industry expanded, communications improved; the capital, Eṣfahān, became the centre of Ṣafavid architectural achievement, manifest in the mosques Masjid-i Shāh and the Masjid-i Sheykh Loṭfollāh; and other monuments including the ʿAlī Qāpū, the Chehel Sotūn, and the Meydān-i Shāh. Despite the Ṣafavid Shīʿite zeal, Christians were tolerated and several missions and churches were built.

After the death of Shah ʿAbbās I (1629) the Ṣafavid dynasty lasted for about a century, but, except for an interlude during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās II (1642–66), it was a period of decline. Eṣfahān fell to the Ghilzai Afghans of Qandahār in 1722; seven years later Shah Ṭahmāsp II recovered Eṣfahān and ascended the throne, only to be deposed in 1732 by his Afshārid lieutenant Nāder Qolī Beg (the future Nāder Shah).

1^st Ismail

From 1502 to 1524 CE

1^st Tahmasp

From 1524 to 1576 CE

Ismail II

From 1576 to 1578 CE

Mohammad Khodabanda

From 1578 to 1581 CE

1^st Shah Abbas

From 1581 to 1629 CE

Safi

From 1629 to 1642 CE

2^nd Abbas

From 1642 to 1667 CE

Soleiman

From 1667 to 1694 CE

Shah Sultan Husein

From 1694 to 1722 CE

2^nd Tahmasp

From 1722 to 1732 CE

2^nd Abbas

From 1732 to 1736 CE