Etymology The name Aq Qoyunlu, literally meaning "those with white sheep", is first mentioned in late 14th century sources. They were likely so named because of the white sheep that was painted on their flags. It has been suggested that this name refers to old totemic symbols, but according to
Rashid al-Din Hamadani, the Turks were forbidden to eat the flesh of their totem-animals, and so this is unlikely given the importance of mutton in the diet of pastoral nomads. Another hypothesis is that the name refers to the predominant color of their flocks. In these chronicles, Tur Ali Beg was mentioned as lord of the "Turks of
Amid", who had already attained the rank of
amir under the
Ilkhan Ghazan. Under his leadership, they besieged
Trebizond, but failed to take the town. A number of their leaders, including the
dynasty's founder,
Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg, married Byzantine
princesses. By the end of the
Ilkhanid period in the mid-14th century, the
Oghuz tribes that comprised the Aq Qoyunlu confederation roamed the summer pastures in
Armenia, in particular, the upper reaches of the
Tigris river and winter pastures between the towns of
Diyarbakır and
Sivas. Since the end of the 14th century, Aq Qoyunlu waged constant wars with another tribal confederation of the Oghuz tribes, the
Qara Qoyunlu. The leading Aq Qoyunlu tribe was the
Bayandur tribe. According to Professor
G. L. Lewis: According to the
Kitab-i Diyarbakriyya, the ancestors of
Uzun Hasan back to the prophet
Adam in the 68th generation are listed by name and information is given about them. Among them is
Tur Ali Bey, the grandfather of Uzun Hasan's grandfather, who is also mentioned in other sources. But it is difficult to say whether Pehlivan Bey, Ezdi Bey and Idris Bey, who are listed in earlier periods, really existed. Most of the people who are listed as the ancestors of Uzun Hasan are names related to the Oghuz legend and to Oghuz rulers.
Uzun Hasan (ruled 1452–1478) The Aq Qoyunlu Turkomans first acquired land in 1402, when
Timur granted them all of
Diyar Bakr in present-day Turkey. For a long time, the Aq Qoyunlu were unable to expand their territory, as the rival
Qara Qoyunlu or "Black Sheep Turkomans" kept them at bay. However, this changed with the rule of Uzun Hasan, who defeated the Black Sheep Turkoman leader
Jahān Shāh in 1467 at the
Battle of Chapakchur. After the death of
Jahan Shah, his son
Hasan Ali, with the help of the Timurid ruler
Abu Sa'id Mirza, marched on
Azerbaijan to meet Uzun Hasan. Deciding to spend the winter in
Karabakh, Abu Sa'id was defeated by the Aq Qoyunlu at the
Battle of Qarabagh in 1469. Uzun Hasan supported a new Timurid ruler in
Yadgar Muhammad Mirza, and gave him military assistance in occupying
Khorasan, and temporarily capture
Herat in July 1470 from
Sultan Husayn Bayqara. Uzun Hasan was also able to take
Baghdad along with territories around the
Persian Gulf. However, around this time, the
Ottoman Empire sought to expand eastwards, a serious threat that forced the Aq Qoyunlu into an
alliance with the
Karamanids of central Anatolia. As early as 1464, Uzun Hasan had requested military aid from one of the Ottoman Empire's strongest enemies,
Venice. Despite Venetian promises, and the visit of Venetian ambassadors at the court of Uzun Hasan, this aid never arrived and, as a result, Uzun Hasan was defeated by the Ottomans at the
Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473, though this did not destroy the Aq Qoyunlu. In 1469, Uzun Hasan sent the head of the Timurid Sultan,
Sultan Abu Sa'id, with an embassy to the court of the newly ascended
al-Ashraf Qaytbay in Cairo. With these presents came a
fathnama, in Persian, explaining to the Mamluk sultan the events leading up to the Aq Quyunlu—Timurid conflict approximately five months earlier, emphasizing in particular Sultan-Abu Sa'id's plans of aggression toward the Mamluk and Aq Quyunlu dominions—plans that were thwarted by Qaitbay's loyal peer Uzun Hasan. Despite the negative response from Qaitbay, Uzun Hasan's continued correspondence to the Mamluk Sultanate were in Persian. , in a miniature from the manuscript of
Divan of Hidayat (1478). Chester Beatty Library (MS 401). In 1470, Uzun selected
Abu Bakr Tihrani to compile a history of the Aq Qoyunlu confederation. The
Kitab-i Diyarbakriyya, written in Persian, referred to Uzun Hasan as
sahib-qiran and was the first historical work to assign this title to a non-Timurid ruler. Uzun Hasan preserved relationships with the members of the popular dervish order whose main inclinations were towards
Shi'ism, while promoting the urban religious establishment with donations and confirmations of tax concessions or endowments, and ordering the pursuit of extremist Shiite and
antinomist sects. He married his daughter
Alamshah Halime Begum to his nephew
Haydar, the new head of the
Safavid sect in
Ardabil.
Sultan Khalil (ruled 1478) When Uzun Hasan died early in 1478, he was succeeded by his son
Khalil Mirza for a few months, but the latter was defeated by a confederation under his younger brother
Ya'qub at the battle of
Khoy in July. Khalil appears in an exquisite illustrated manuscript of the
Diwān of
Hidayat, written in Azarbayjani Turkish. , as prisoner of the
Safavids. Baysungur was dethroned in 1491 and expelled from
Tabriz. He made several unsuccessful attempts to return before he was killed in 1493. Desiring to reconcile both his religious establishment and the famous Sufi order, Rustam (1478–1490) immediately allowed Sheikh Haydar Safavi's sons to return to Ardabil in 1492. Two years later, Ayba Sultan ordered their re-arrest, as their rise threatened the Ak Koyunlu again, but their youngest son,
Ismail, then seven years old, fled and was hidden by supporters in
Lahijan. According to Hasan Rumlu's
Ahsan al-tavarikh, in 1496–97, Hasan Ali Tarkhani went to the Ottoman Empire to tell Sultan
Bayezid II that Azerbaijan and Persian Iraq were defenceless and suggested that Ahmed Bey, heir to that kingdom, should be sent there with Ottoman troops. Bayezid agreed to this idea, and by May 1497 Ahmad Bey faced Rustam near
Araxes and defeated him. After Ahmad's death, the Aq Qoyunlu became even more fragmented. The state was ruled by three sultans:
Alvand Mirza in the west, Uzun Hasan's nephew
Qasim in an enclave in
Diyarbakir, and Alvand's brother Mohammad in Fars and
Iraq-Ajam (killed by violence in the summer of 1500 and replaced by Morad Mirza). The collapse of the Aq Qoyunlu state in Iran began in the autumn of 1501 with the defeat at the hands of Ismail Safavi, who had left Lahijan two years earlier and gathered a large audience of Turkmen warriors. He conquered Iraq-Ajami,
Fars and
Kerman in the summer of 1503, Diyarbakir in 1507–1508 and
Mesopotamia in the autumn of 1508.
Sultan Murad (ruled 1497-1508) The last Aq Qoyunlu sultan,
Sultan Murad, who hoped to regain the throne with the help of Ottoman troops, was defeated and killed by Ismail's
Qizilbash warriors in the last fortress of Rohada, ending the political rule of the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty. ==Governance==