145

The Qara Qoyunlu

752–874/1351–1469

Eastern Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Iraq and western Persia

The confederation of the Qara Qoyunlu ‘[those with] black sheep’ arose out of Türkmen elements pushed westwards by the Mongol invasions. Their ruling family seems to have come from the Yïwa or Iwa clan of the Oghuz, and the seats of their power in the fourteenth century lay to the north of Lake Van and in the Mosul region of northern Iraq.

The confederation was in many ways similar to that of the Jalāyirids (see above, no. 142), and came to think of itself as the successor to the Jalāyirids, with their traditions and connections going back to Chingizid times. The first Qara Qoyunlu leaders were vassals of the older Türkmen line, until in 784/1382 Qara Muḥammad made himself independent of the Jalāyirids, basing his power on Tabriz in Azerbaijan and on eastern Anatolia. The greatest ruler of the dynasty, Qara Yūsuf, opposed Tīmūr, and had to flee first to the Ottomans and then to Mamlūk Syria, only returning in 809/1406 and then ending the power of the Jalāyirids in Azerbaijan and Iraq. Qara Yūsuf now undertook warfare against his Aq Qoyunlu rivals (see below, no. 146) in Diyār Bakr, against the Georgians and the later Shīrwān Shāhs (see above, no. 67, 2) in the Caucasus, and against the Tīmūrid suzerains in western Persia. Once the forceful Shāh Rukh was dead, Jahān Shāh extended his rule to Fars, Kirman and even Oman, and made the Qara Qoyunlu an imperial power, adopting for himself such titles as khān and sulṭān. Finally, he attacked the redoubtable Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Ḥasan, but was defeated and lost his life. His son Ḥasan ‘Alī was unable to secure his position as leader of the Qara Qoyunlu, and killed himself in 873/1469, so that all the Qara Qoyunlu territories passed into the hands of the Aq Qoyunlu.

The constituting of the Qara Qoyunlu confederation was part of the interlude of Türkmen domination over the central part of the northern tier of the Middle East, from Anatolia to Khurasan, during the period between the decay of the Il Khānids and the rise of the Ottomans, Ṣafawids and Özbegs. Ethnically, the rule of Türkmens accelerated the process, already well advanced, whereby Azerbaijan and parts of Fars became strongly Turkish in race and speech. As to the religious affiliations of the Qara Qoyunlu, although some of the later members of the family had Shī‘ī-type names and there were occasional Shī‘ī coin legends, there seems no strong evidence for definite Shī‘ī sympathies beyond possible influences from a general climate of such sympathies among many Türkmen elements of the time.

Lane-Poole, 253; Zambaur, 257; Album, 53.

İA ‘Kara-Koyunlular’ (Faruk Sümer), with a detailed genealogical table; EI² ‘Ḳarā-Ḳoyunlu’ (F. Sümer), with a detailed genealogical table.

R. M. Savory, ‘The struggle for supremacy in Persia after the death of Tīmūr’, 35–50.

Faruk Sümer, Kara-Koyunlular (başlangıştan Cihan-Şah’a kadar), I, Ankara 1967.

H. R. Roemer, ‘The Türkmen dynasties’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, 150–74.