146

The Aq Qoyunlu

798–914/1396–1508

Diyār Bakr, Eastern Anatolia, Azerbaijan and, later, western Persia,

Fars and Kirman

The Aq Qoyunlu ‘[those with] white sheep’ were a nomadic confederation of Türkmens centred on Diyār Bakr, with their ruling stratum drawn from the ancient Oghuz clan of the Bayundur. Already in the mid-fourteenth century they were raiding the Byzantine principality of Trebizond and were able to force marriage alliances on the Greek rulers. It was from the Türkmen-Byzantine marriage of 753/1352 that there arose the real founder of the confederation’s fortunes, Qara Yoluq ‘Uthmān, and relations between the two powers remained close for a century. Unlike their rivals the Qara Qoyunlu (see above, no. 145), the Aq Qoyunlu submitted to Tīmūr, and Qara ‘Uthmān fought for him against the Ottoman Bāyazīd I at Ankara, being rewarded by the grant of Diyār Bakr. Expansion eastwards was blocked first by the Jalāyirids (see above, no. 142) and then by the Qara Qoyunlu, but Uzun Ḥasan, a military commander and statesman of genius, at last crushed Jahān Shāh in 872/1467 and incorporated many of the Qara Qoyunlu sub-tribes into his own horde, and after defeating the Tīmūrid Abū Sa‘īd was able to extend his rule as far as Khurasan and down to Iraq and the Persian Gulf shores.

Uzun Ḥasan’s prime enemy in the west was, however, the Ottomans, who were at this time mopping up the remaining beyliks of Anatolia (see above, Chapter Twelve) and pressing eastwards. Anti-Ottoman common interest made him ally with the Qaramānids (see above, no. 124), and he also tried to save Trebizond, to whose rulers he was related through his Byzantine wife Despina, from the attacks of Muḥammad the Conqueror. The Aq Qoyunlu were now a power of international significance. In 868/1464, diplomatic relations were opened up with the Ottomans’ Venetian enemies, and arms and munitions were despatched from Venice via southern Anatolia. Yet Uzun Ḥasan’s cavalrymen were no match for Ottoman firepower at Tercan (Terjān) in 878/1473, and the Aq Qoyunlu leader was crushingly defeated. His son Ya‘qūb carried on the struggle, but the dynasty went into a terminal period of division, internecine strife and succession disputes. The Qaramānids had fallen to the Ottomans, and, despite the fact that there had been a marriage link between Uzun Ḥasan and the head of the Ṣafawiyya order, Shaykh Junayd (see below, no. 148), Shī‘ī propaganda was being spread among the Sunnī Aq Qoyunlu’s Türkmen followers in eastern Anatolia. In 906/1501, Alwand was defeated by the Ṣafawid Shāh Ismā‘īl I, and the last Aq Qoyunlu, Sulṭān Murād, was forced to flee to the Ottomans. The dynasty’s rule was now finished everywhere, but had left behind in such places as Uzun Ḥasan’s capital at Tabriz a distinguished tradition of cultural and literary patronage.

Lane-Poole, 254; Zambaur, 258–9; Album, 53–4.

İA ‘Aḳ Ḳoyunlular’ (M. H. Yınanç), with a genealogical table; EI² ‘Aḳ Ḳoyunlu’ (V. Minorsky).

R. M. Savory, The struggle for supremacy in Persia after the death of Tīmūr’, 50–65.

John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu. Clan, Confederation, Empire. A Study in 15th/9th Century Turko-Iranian Politics, Minneapolis and Chicago 1976, with Appendix C of genealogical tables.

H. R. Roemer, in The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, 147–88.