Vakhushti Khan (d. 1667/69) was a

Safavid 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 ...

official and royal ''

gholam Ghulam (, ) is an Arabic word meaning ''servant'', ''assistant'', ''boy'', or ''youth''. It is used to describe young servants in Jannah. It is also used to refer to slave-soldiers in the Abbasid, Ottoman, Safavid and to a lesser extent, Mughal e ...

'' from the Georgian Orbeliani clan, who served as the governor (''hakem'') of

Shushtar Shushtar () is a city in the Central District of Shushtar County, Khuzestan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. Shushtar is an ancient fortress city, approximately from Ahvaz, the centre of the province ...

from September 1632 up to his death in 1667 or 1669. His descendants continued to flourish in Shushtar well into

Nader Shah Nader Shah Afshar (; 6 August 1698 or 22 October 1688 – 20 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as shah of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was a ...

's era (r. 1736–1747). Vakhushti was a son of the Georgian nobleman Aslamaz and had at least two other brothers named Otar (Zu al-Faqār) and Gorjasbi (Mansur), who held prominent positions as well. According to Alexander Orbeliani (1802–1869), he had one more brother named Kaykhosrow. He was a close relative of Rodam, the wife of Shah Navaz Khan (Vakhtang V). His name Vakhushti derives from

Old Iranian The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...

''vahišta-'' ("paradise", superlative of ''veh'' "good", i.e., "superb, excellent"). Its equivalent in

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

is ''wahišt'' and in

New Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th ...

''behešt''. Vakhusti's second son, Aslamas (also known as Aslan), served as commander of the élite gholam corps (''

qollar-aghasi The Qollar-aghasi, also spelled Qullar-aqasi, was the commander of the Safavid Empire's élite '' gholam'' (also spelled ''ghulam'') corps. The word means ''lord of slaves'' in Azeri (''qullar'' means 'slaves' and ''ağası'' means 'lord of'). ...

'') in 1693–1695, and as governor (''beglarbeg'') of

Qandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...

in 1694–95, or 1696–1697.

References

Sources

* * * * {{s-end 1660s deaths Iranian people of Georgian descent History of Khuzestan province Safavid governors Shia Muslims from Georgia (country) Nobility of Georgia (country) 17th-century people from Safavid Iran Safavid ghilman