The Safavid dynasty was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires. The Safavid Shāh Ismā'īl I established the Twelver denomination of Shīʿa Islam as the official religion of the Persian Empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safavid order of Sufism, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Iranian Azerbaijan region. It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin, but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman, Georgian, Circassian, and Pontic Greek dignitaries, nevertheless, for practical purposes, they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified. 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 national state officially known as Iran.
The Qara Qoyunlu or Kara Koyunlu, also known as the Black Sheep Turkomans, were a culturally Persianate, Muslim Turkoman monarchy that ruled over the territory comprising present-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, northwestern Iran, eastern Turkey, and northeastern Iraq from about 1374 to 1468.
The Muzaffarid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty that came to power in Iran following the breakup of the Ilkhanate in the 14th century. At their zenith, they ruled a kingdom comprising Iranian Azerbaijan, Central Persia, and Persian Iraq. The Muzaffarids were known for their support of Arabic literature. Shah Shoja was a poet and wrote in both Arabic and Persian and was said to be capable of memorizing eight verses of Arabic poetry after hearing them read once. While the Muzaffarid ruler of Kirman, Shah Yahya, commissioned the scholar Junyad bin Mahmud Al-Umari to compile an anthology of Arabic poetry and prose for him
The Kakuyids were a Shia Muslim dynasty of Daylamite origin that held power in western Persia, Jibal and Kurdistan. They later became atabegs (governors) of Yazd, Isfahan and Abarkuh from c. 1051 to 1141. They were related to the Buyids.
Khwarazmshah was an ancient title used regularly by the rulers of the Central Asian region of Khwarazm starting from the Late Antiquity until the advent of the Mongols in the early 13th-century, after which it was used infrequently. There were a total of four families who ruled as Khwarazmshahs—the Afrighids (305–995), Ma'munids (995–1017), the line of Altuntash (1017–1041), and the most prominent ones, the Anushteginids (1097–1231). Like other contemporary Central Asian titles, such as Afshin and Ikhshid, the title of Khwarazmshah is of Iranian origin.
Ala al-Din wa-l-Dawla Abu'l-Muzaffar Atsiz ibn Muhammad ibn Anushtegin, better known as Atsiz (اتسز) was the second Khwarazmshah from 1127 to 1156. He was the son and successor of Muhammad I.
Ekinchi ibn Qochar was the Seljuk governor of Khwarazm briefly in 1097, bearing the traditional title of Khwarazmshah. Unlike the Khwarazmshahs that succeeded him, he was not a descendant of Anushtegin Gharchai.
Anushtegin Gharchai was a Turkic slave commander (ghulam) of the Seljuks and the governor of Khwarazm from approximately 1077 until 1097. He was the first member of his family to play a role in the history of Khwarazm, and the namesake for the dynasty that would rule the province in the 12th and early 13th centuries.
Altuntash was a Turkic Khwarazmshah from 1017 until his death in 1032.
Sistān, also known as Sakastān and Sijistan, is a historical region in present-day south-western Afghanistan, south-eastern Iran and extending across the borders of south-western Pakistan. Mostly corresponding to the then Achaemenid region of Drangiana and extending southwards of the Helmand River not far off from the city of Alexandria in Arachosia. Largely desert, the region is bisected by the Helmand River, the largest river in Afghanistan, which empties into the Hamun Lake that forms part of the border between Iran and Afghanistan.
The Shah-Armens, also known as Ahlatshahs or Begtimurids, was a Turkoman Sunni Muslim Anatolian beylik of the Seljuk Empire, founded after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) and centred in Ahlat on the northwestern shore of the Lake Van. This region comprised most of modern-day Bitlis and Van, and parts of Muş provinces.
The Hazaraspids or Atābakān-e Lor-e Bozorg were a Kurdish dynasty that ruled the Zagros Mountains region of southwestern Iran, essentially in Lorestan and which flourished in the later Saljuq, Ilkhanid, Muzaffarid, and Timurid periods.
The Afrighids were a native Khwarezmian Iranian dynasty who ruled over the ancient kingdom of Khwarazm. Over time, they were under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Göktürk Khaganate, the Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate and the Samanid Empire.
The Maʾmunids were an independent dynasty of Iranian rulers in Khwarazm. Their reign was short-lived (995–1017), and they were in turn replaced by the expansionist Ghaznavids.
The Cambridge History of Iran is a multi-volume survey of Iranian history published in the United Kingdom by Cambridge University Press. The seven volumes cover "the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as well as other territories inhabited by peoples of Iranian descent, from prehistoric times up to the present.
The Ahmadilis, also known as the Atabegs of Maragheh, Romanized as Atābakān-e Marāghe, were Atabegs of the Seljuk Empire and a local Turcoman dynasty who ruled from the early 12th century until 1208–09 in Maragheh itself and in Ru'in Dez for some years after the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire. They ruled approximately from 1122 to 1225.
The Baduspanids or Badusbanids, were a local Iranian dynasty of Tabaristan which ruled over Ruyan/Rustamdar. The dynasty was established in 665, and with 933 years of rule as the longest dynasty in Iran, it ended in 1598 when the Safavids invaded and conquered their domains.
Garshasp II, was the last Persian Kakuyid Emir of Yazd and Abarkuh. He was the son of Ali ibn Faramurz.
Mubariz al-Din Muhammad, was the founder of the Muzaffarid dynasty, ruling from 1314 to 1358. He was born to a family of Persians with distant Arab origin, which settled in Khurasan during the Islamic conquest. He was the son of Sharaf al-Din Muzaffar, a servant of the Ilkhanids and on his father's death in 1314 Mubariz inherited his father's offices.
