Ardabil Ardabil Iran

Maslama’s attention had been diverted by Khazar attacks In 727–728 that reached deep into Azerbaijan.

Although Maslama had been able to drive them back and recover control of the Darial Pass, his 728 campaign across the Caucasus was difficult, bloody and indecisive.

Maslama's troops were reportedly engaged in up to thirty or forty days of constant fighting in miserable weather, and although he claimed victory in a battle over the Khazar khagan himself, the expedition had not achieved any results, and had come close to being defeated.

Certainly it had done little to stop Khazar attacks south of the Caucasus, which had resumed in 729.

Maslama was removed from office in the same year, and replaced by al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah.

He is then recorded by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor as having been responsible for the sack of the fortress of Charsianon in late 730, but Arab sources credit Mu'awiya ibn Hisham for this act.

The situation in the Caucasus quickly deteriorated after Maslama's departure.

A Khazar expedition into northern Iran (and later into Kurdistan and northern Mesopotamia) led by Barjik, the son of the Khazar khagan, in 730, may be an attempt to establish Khazar rule south of the Caucasus Mountains.

While al-Jarrah campaigns north of the Caucasus, the Khazars swing behind him and attack his main base, Ardabil.

Hastening to relieve the city, an outnumbered force led by al-Jarrah al-Hakami engages the Khazars for three days on the plains surrounding the city of Ardabil in northwestern Iran.

Ultimately, abandoned by many of their mawali auxiliaries, the Caliph's forces are overwhelmed and defeated on December 9, 730.

During the course of the battle, al-Jarrah is killed.

The victorious Barjik mounts his head on top of the throne from which he will command the battles of his Middle Eastern campaign.

According to the historian Agapius, the Arabs suffered twenty thousand dead and twice that number captured, a figure which probably includes the population of Ardabil and the surrounding territories.

Following their victory, the Khazars occupy Ardabil.

Yusuf ibn Abi'l Saj had come to power in Azerbaijan 901 by overthrowing his nephew, Devdad Ibn Muhammad.

He had razed the walls of Maragha and moved the capital of the Sajid dynasty to Ardabil.

Shortly afterwards, the Bagratid king of Armenia, Smbat I, had offered to become a direct vassal of the caliph al-Muktafi.

As this threatened the Sajids' interests in Armenia, Yusuf had demanded that Smbat appear before him.

When the Bagratid refused, Yusuf had invaded Armenia.

An agreement was eventually reached between the two sides in 903; Smbat received a crown from Yusuf, acknowledging him as his overlord.

Yusuf had never formalized his relations with the caliph, and they had became hostile toward each other.

In 908 a caliphal army had been sent against Yusuf, but al-Muktafi had died and his successor al-Muqtadir had made peace with the Sajid.

Al-Muqtadir's vizier Ibn al-Furat had been instrumental in the establishment of the peace; from this point forward, Yusuf will consider him to be his protector in Baghdad and often name him on his coinage.

The peace allows Yusuf to be invested with the governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia in 909 by the caliph.

Yusuf ibn Abi'l Saj, amir of Azerbaijan, had begun to withhold some of the annual tribute due to the caliph after the dismissal of the vizier Ibn al-Furat.

Yusuf had imprisoned a caliphal envoy in 915 or 916, although he had later released him and sent him back with presents and money.

After Ibn al-Furat regains the vizierate in 917, Yusuf conquers Zanjan, Abhar, Qazvin and Ray from the Samanids and hopes that Ibn al-Furat will smooth things over with al-Muqtadir.

The caliph, however, angrily sends an army against Yusuf, who defeats it.

The arrival of a second Abbasid army under Mu'nis al-Khadim causes Yusuf to retreat to Ardabil.

Although Ibn al-Furat attempts to persuade al-Muqtadir to recognize Yusuf as governor, the caliph refuses.

The Abbasid army had been defeated by Yusuf near Ardabil in 918, but the Sajid ruler is defeated in 919.

Yusuf is captured and brought back to Baghdad, where he will be imprisoned for the next three years.

Islamic mystic Al-Hallaj was born around 858 in Fars province of Persia to a cotton-carder (Hallaj means "cotton-carder" in Arabic).

His grandfather was a Zoroastrian.

His father lived a simple life, and this form of lifestyle had greatly interested the young Al-Hallaj.

As a youngster he memorized the Qur'an and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study.

Al-Hallaj was originally a Hanbali Sufi Muslim and later turned to be a Qarmatian Batiniyya.

Al-Hallaj had eventually married and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he stayed for one year, facing the mosque, in fasting and total silence.

After his stay at the city, he had traveled extensively, writing and teaching along the way.

He had traveled as far as India and Central Asia, gaining many followers, many of whom had accompanied him on his second and third trips to Mecca.

After this period of travel, he had settled down in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad.

Among other Sufis, Al-Hallaj is an anomaly.

Many Sufi masters feel that it is inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Al-Hallaj openly does so in his writings and through his teachings.

He had thus began to make enemies.

This had been exacerbated by occasions when he would fall into trances which he attributed to being in the presence of God.

During one of these trances, he would utter "I am The Truth, " which is taken to mean that he was claiming to be God, since al-Ḥaqq "the Truth" is one of the Ninety Nine Names of Allah.

In another controversial statement, al-Hallaj had claimed "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God, " and similarly he would point to his cloak and say, "There is nothing in my cloak but God."

This type of mystical utterance is known as shath.

Statements like these had led to a long trial, and his subsequent imprisonment for eleven years in a Baghdad prison.

Accused of heterodoxy and charlatanism, he is publicly dismembered and burned to death on March 26, 922.

Legends will soon develop around al-Hallaj’s supposed Christlike resurrection.

Timur's regime is characterized by its inclusion of Iranians in administrative roles and its promotion of architecture and poetry.

His empire disintegrates rapidly after his death in 1405, however, and Mongol tribes, Uzbeks, and Turkmens rule an area roughly coterminus with present-day Iran until the rise of the Safavi dynasty, the first native Iranian dynasty in almost a thousand years.

The Safavis, who come to power in 1501, are leaders of a militant Sufi order of Islamic mystics.

The Safavis trace their ancestry to Sheikh Safi ad Din (died circa 1334), the founder of the Sufis, who claimed descent from Shia Islam's Seventh Imam, Musa al Kazim.

From their home base in Ardabil, the Safavis recruit followers among the Turkmen tribesmen of Anatolia and forge them into an effective fighting force and an instrument for territorial expansion.

The Safavis adopt Shia Islam in the mid-fifteenth century, and their movement becomes highly millenarian in character.

Ismail, the last in line of hereditary Grand Masters of the Safaviyah Sufi order, prior to his ascent to a ruling dynasty, was born on July 17, 1487 in Ardabil.

His father, Haydar, is the sheikh of the Safaviyya Sufi order and a direct descendant of its Kurdish founder, Safi-ad-din Ardabili.

His mother, Martha, better known as Halima Begum, i the daughter of Uzun Hasan by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora Megale Komnene, better known as Despina Khatun, the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond.

(She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect the Greek Empire of Trebizond from the Ottomans.)

Ismail is a great-great grandson of Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and King Alexander I of Georgia.

In 1488, Ismail’s father had been killed in a battle at Derbent against the forces of the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar and his overlord, the Aq Qoyunlu, a Turkmen tribal federation that controls most of Iran.

In 1494, the Aq Qoyunlu capture Ardabil, killing Ali Mirza Safavi (the eldest son of Haydar), and forcing the seven-year old Ismail to go into hiding in Gilan, where he received education under the guidance of renowned scholars.

Before he died, Ali Mirza had designated his younger brother as leader of the Safaviyya.

The young Safaviyya leader Ismail has grown up bilingual, speaking Persian and Azerbaijani.

Not only does Ismail have Kurdish ancestors, but he also has ancestors from various other ethnic groups; the majority of scholars will agree that the empire he founds is an Iranian one.

In hiding from the Ak Koyunlu, a Turkic tribal federation that has controlled most of Iran for the past six years, Ismail reappears in 1499 at twelve years of age and returns to Iranian Azerbaijan along with his followers.

Ismail's advent to power is due to Turkmen tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan, who form the most important part of the Qizilbash movement.

Husayn Beg Shamlu of the Shamlu tribe, one of the seven Turkmen tribes of the Qizilbash that support Ismail.

During Ismail's stay in Gilan, Husayn Beg has served as his guardian and mentor.

Safi al-Din had in 1301 assumed the leadership of the Zahediyeh, a significant Sufi order in Gilan, from his spiritual master and father-in-law Zahed Gilani.

The order was later known as the Safaviyya.

Like his father and grandfather, Ismail heads the Safaviyya Sufi order.

An invented genealogy claims that Sheikh Saf had been a lineal descendant of Ali.

Ismail also proclaims himself the Mahdi and a reincarnation of Ali.

Under Sheikh Haydar, the Safaviyya had become crystallized as a political movement with an increasingly extremist heterodox Twelver Shi'i coloring and Haydar had been viewed as a divine figure by his followers.

Shaykh Haydar was responsible for instructing his followers to adopt the scarlet headgear of twelve gores commemorating the Twelve Imams, which has led to them being designated by the Turkish term Qizilbash, "Red Head".

An enormous Persian carpet, more than thirty-four feet (ten meters) long and seventeen feet (five meters) wide, is woven in 1539 by Maqsud Kashan for the shrine of Safavid ancestor Sheikh Safi al-Din at Ardabil.

...western Persia.

The third of his attempts against Persia, the campaign of 1554-1555 serves rather as a warning to the Ottomans of the difficulty of subduing the Safavid state.

Supply problems invariably compel Suleiman to retire to Anatolia during the winter months, allowing the Persians to regain Azerbaijan with little difficulty.