The province of Karabakh (also spelled Qarabagh; ) was a north-western province of the

Safavid Iran The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the begi ...

, centered on the geographic region of

Karabakh Karabakh ( ; ) is a geographic region in southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It is divided into three regions: Highland Kara ...

. The governorship of Karabakh was generally held by a member of the

Qajars The Qajar family (; 1789–1925) was an Iranian royal family founded by Mohammad Khan (), a member of the Qoyunlu clan of the Turkoman-descended Qajar tribe. The dynasty's effective rule in Iran ended in 1925 when Iran's ''Majlis'', conveni ...

, one of the

Qizilbash Qizilbash or Kizilbash (Latin script: ) ; ; (modern Iranian reading: ); were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman "The Qizilbash, composed mainly of Turkman tribesmen, were the military force introduced by the conquering Safavis to the Irani ...

tribes. Its highlands were controlled by the five Armenian melikdoms.

History

These provinces were headed by the shah's governors-general, who were called '' beglarbegs'', or at other times ''hakems''. The main urban center of the province of Karabakh was the city of Ganja. The first Safavid governor of Karabakh (''hakem'') was

Piri Beg Qajar Piri Beg Qajar was an early 16th-century Safavid Iran, Iranian military officer and official from the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman Qajars (tribe), Qajar tribe, who served under Safavid Shah ("King") Ismail I (1501-1524). He fought at the decisive ...

, and was appointed as such in 1501. Shahverdi-Sultan, from the Ziyadoglu clan of the

Qajar The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic origin,Cyrus Ghani. ''Iran an ...

tribe, was appointed by Shah

Tahmasp I Tahmasp I ( or ; 22 February 1514 – 14 May 1576) was the second shah of Safavid Iran from 1524 until his death in 1576. He was the eldest son of Shah Ismail I and his principal consort, Tajlu Khanum. Tahmasp ascended the throne after the ...

(r. 1524-1576) in 1554.

Administration

Under the Safavids, Karabakh was part of the ''mamalek'' ("state lands"), a form of the ''

iqta' An iqta () and occasionally iqtaʿa () was an Islamic practice of farming out tax revenues yielded by land granted temporarily to army officials in place of a regular wage; it became common in the Muslim empire of the Caliphate. Iqta has been defi ...

'' that had been used by the

Buyid dynasty The Buyid dynasty or Buyid Empire was a Zaydi and later Twelver Shi'a dynasty of Daylamite origin. Founded by Imad al-Dawla, they mainly ruled over central and southern Iran and Iraq from 934 to 1062. Coupled with the rise of other Iranian dyn ...

(934–1062). It was a type of

prebendalism Prebendalism refers to political systems in which elected officials and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and they use them to benefit supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group. Origi ...

in which lands were given away as fiefs to tribal military forces, thus demonstrating the Safavids' reliance on them to protect the country. Due to its more exposed position as a frontier province, Qarabagh continued to remain ''mamalek'' land to maintain more security, in contrast to some other provinces which were transformed into ''khassa'' ("crown lands"). The

chieftains were rewarded with ''mamalek'' land in exchange for their military alertness and for paying limited defined sum every year. The governorship of Karabakh was generally held by a member of the Qizilbash

tribe. The plains of Karabakh were dominated by nomadic Turkic tribes, who moved to the hillsides in search of suitable pastures throughout the summer. The highlands of Karabakh were dominated by

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

meliks Мelik (, from ) was a hereditary Armenian nobility, Armenian noble title used in Eastern Armenia from the Late Middle Ages until the nineteenth century. The meliks represented some of the last remnants of the old Armenian nobility, as well as ...

(princes), who had established five melikdoms (

Dizak Dizak (), also known as Ktish after its main stronghold, was a medieval Armenian principality in the historical province of Artsakh and later one of the five melikdoms of Karabakh, which included the southern third of Khachen (present-day N ...

, Gulistan, Jraberd,

Khachen The Principality of Khachen ( Modern Armenian: ) was a medieval Armenian principality on the territory of historical Artsakh (present-day Karabakh).''Abū-Dulaf Misʻar Ibn Muhalhil's Travels in Iran (circa A.D. 950)'', ed. and trans. Vladim ...

and Varanda) that ruled in Karabakh from the 16th-century to the 18th-century. These Armenian-ruled principalities, which upheld the notion of Armenian statehood, were used by the Safavids to fight the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. In the end of the Safavid era, the Karabakh Province consisted of the districts of Zagam, Barda, Akhtabad,

Javanshir Juansher was the Mihranid prince of Caucasian Albania, ruling the principality from 637 to 669. He was the son and successor of Varaz Grigor (). During his reign, Juansher changed his allegiance thrice. He started out as a subject to the Sasan ...

Bargushat Bargushat () is a village in the Kapan Municipality of the Syunik Province in Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bo ...

, Qara-Aghach (Q'araghaji in Signagi municipality), Lori-Pambak, Arasbar-Bayazidlu and Somay- Tergever.

List of governors

This is a list of the known figures who governed Karabakh or parts of it. ''

Beglerbegi ''Beylerbey'' (, meaning the 'commander of commanders' or 'lord of lords’, sometimes rendered governor-general) was a high rank in the western Islamic world in the late Middle Ages and early modern period, from the Anatolian Seljuks and the I ...

'' and ''hakem'' were administrative titles designating the governor.

References

Sources

* * * * * * {{Safavid Provinces Provinces of the Safavid dynasty History of Karabakh