Aq Qoyunlu

The Aq Qoyunlu, "White Sheep", were a confederation of Turkmen tribes who ruled eastern Anatolia and then, in the late fifteenth century, most of Iran and Iraq. Their name probably came from sheep on their banners or from a totem. They were rivals of the Qara Qoyunlu, the "Black Sheep", and were finally overthrown by the Safavids.

The Turkmen were Oghuz Turkic tribes who had moved into Anatolia, Azerbaijan and Iraq after the Seljuk conquests and the Mongol invasions. In the fourteenth century, after the collapse of the Ilkhanate, Turkmen confederations became the main powers between the Ottomans and the Timurids. The Aq Qoyunlu were based around Diyarbakır, on the upper Tigris, and the Qara Qoyunlu around Lake Van and Tabriz.

The founder of Aq Qoyunlu power, Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg, who led the confederation from around 1378, sided with Timur against the Ottomans and the Qara Qoyunlu, and Timur rewarded him with lands around Diyarbakır. He spent his life fighting rivals and was killed in battle against the Qara Qoyunlu in 1435. His successors quarrelled, and for decades the Aq Qoyunlu were overshadowed by the Black Sheep, whose ruler Jahan Shah controlled Iran and Iraq.

Uzun Hasan, "Hasan the Tall", took control in 1453. In 1467 he defeated and killed Jahan Shah, taking the Qara Qoyunlu lands. In 1469 he defeated and captured the Timurid ruler Abu Said, who was then killed, and took western and central Iran. He made Tabriz his capital and called himself padishah. Uzun Hasan saw the Ottoman Empire as his main rival, and sought alliances with Venice, which sent envoys, including Caterino Zeno and Ambrogio Contarini, whose accounts describe his court. In 1473 Mehmed II defeated him at Otlukbeli, in eastern Anatolia, where Ottoman artillery and firearms proved decisive.

At Tabriz, the Aq Qoyunlu continued the Persianate culture of the Timurids. Uzun Hasan built palaces and gardens, issued law codes, the qanunnama, that later influenced Ottoman and Safavid administration, and supported scholars and poets. Painters of the Turkmen school produced illustrated manuscripts with bold colours. His son Yaqub, who ruled from 1478 to 1490, was also a patron of literature and art; the poet Jami dedicated works to him.

Uzun Hasan married Theodora Komnene, daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond, known to the Turkmen as Despina Khatun. Their daughter Halima, also known as Alamshah Begum, married Sheikh Haydar, leader of the Safavid Sufi order of Ardabil, and was the mother of Ismail, the future founder of the Safavid dynasty. The Aq Qoyunlu used the Safavids' followers as allies but later saw them as a threat; Yaqub's forces killed Haydar in 1488.

After Yaqub's death in 1490, the Aq Qoyunlu fell into civil war among princes. In 1501, the young Ismail, leading the Qizilbash, defeated the Aq Qoyunlu prince Alvand at Sharur and took Tabriz, proclaiming himself shah. The last Aq Qoyunlu rulers held out in parts of Iran and Iraq, but by 1508 Ismail had taken Baghdad and ended their power. Many Turkmen tribes joined the Safavid state, and the Aq Qoyunlu legacy passed into Safavid administration and court culture.

Our maps show the Aq Qoyunlu on the 1492 and 1500 maps. Its largest outline, about 1.8 million square kilometres on the 1492 map, is nearly 60 percent in today's Iran, with the rest in Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Syria. Baghdad, Tehran's site, Isfahan, Tbilisi and Baku lie inside it. On the 1530 map the basemap shows the region as Ottoman and Safavid.