The name Aq Qoyunlu, literally meaning "those with white sheep",[23] is first mentioned in late 14th century sources. It has been suggested that this name refers to old totemic symbols, but according toRashid 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.[3]
According to chronicles from theByzantine Empire, the Aq Qoyunlu are first attested in the district ofBayburt south of thePontic Mountains from at least the 1340s.[24] In these chronicles, Tur Ali Beg was mentioned as lord of the "Turks of Amid [Diyarbakir]", who had already attained the rank ofamir under theIlkhanGhazan. Under his leadership, they besiegedTrebizond, but failed to take the town.[25] A number of their leaders, including thedynasty's founder,Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg,[26] married Byzantineprincesses.[27]
By the end of theIlkhanid period in the mid-14th century, theOghuz tribes that comprised the Aq Qoyunlu confederation roamed the summer pastures inArmenia, in particular, the upper reaches of theTigris river and winter pastures between the towns ofDiyarbakır andSivas. Since the end of the 14th century, Aq Qoyunlu waged constant wars with another tribal confederation of the Oghuz tribes, theQara Qoyunlu. The leading Aq Qoyunlu tribe was theBayandur tribe.[23]
Uzun Hasan used to assert the claim that he was an "honorable descendant ofOghuz Khan and his grandson, Bayandur Khan". In a letter dating to the year 1470, which was sent toŞehzade Bayezid, the then-governor ofAmasya, Uzun Hasan wrote that those from the Bayandur andBayat tribes, as well as other tribes that belonged to the "Oghuz il", and formerly inhabitedMangyshlak,Khwarazm andTurkestan, came and served in his court. He also made thetamga (seal) of the Bayandur tribe the symbol of his state. For this reason, the Bayandur tamga is found in Aq Qoyunlu coins, their official documents, inscriptions and flags.[11]
Myth
The Aq Qoyunlu Sultans claimed descent from Bayindir Khan, who was a grandson of Oghuz Khan, the legendary ancestor ofOghuz Turks.[28]
The Ak-koyunlu Sultans claimed descent from Bayindir Khan and it is likely, on the face of it, that theBook of Dede Korkut was composed under their patronage. The snag about this is that in the Ak-koyunlu genealogy Bayindir's father is named as Gok ('Sky') Khan, son of the eponymous Oghuz Khan, whereas in our book he is named as Kam Ghan, a name otherwise unknown. In default of any better explanation, I therefore incline to the belief that the book was composed before Ak-koyunlu rulers had decided who their ancestors were. It was in 1403 that they ceased to be tribal chiefs and became Sultans, so we may assume that their official genealogy was formulated round about that date.
According to theKitab-i Diyarbakriyya, the ancestors ofUzun Hasan back to the prophetAdam 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.[30]
The Aq Qoyunlu Turkomans first acquired land in 1402, whenTimur granted them all ofDiyar 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 leaderJahān Shāh in 1467. After the death ofJahan Shah, his sonHasan Ali, with the help of TimuridAbu Sa'id Mirza, marched onAzerbaijan to meet Uzun Hasan. Deciding to spend the winter inKarabakh, Abu Sa'id was captured and repulsed by Uzun Hasan as the former advanced towards theAras River.[31][page needed][32]
After the defeat of the Timurid leader,Abu Sa'id Mirza, Uzun Hasan was able to takeBaghdad along with territories around thePersian Gulf. He expanded intoIran as far east asKhorasan. However, around this time, theOttoman Empire sought to expand eastwards, a serious threat that forced the Aq Qoyunlu into analliance with theKaramanids 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, this aid never arrived and, as a result, Uzun Hasan was defeated by the Ottomans at theBattle of Otlukbeli in 1473,[33] though this did not destroy the Aq Qoyunlu.
In 1470, Uzun selectedAbu Bakr Tihrani to compile a history of the Aq Qoyunlu confederation.[34] TheKitab-i Diyarbakriyya, written in Persian, referred to Uzun Hasan assahib-qiran and was the first historical work to assign this title to a non-Timurid ruler.[34]
Uzun Hasan preserved relationships with the members of the popular dervish order whose main inclinations were towardsShi'ism, while promoting the urban religious establishment with donations and confirmations of tax concessions or endowments, and ordering the pursuit of extremist Shiite andantinomist sects. He married his daughterAlamshah Halime Begum to his nephewHaydar, the new head of theSafavid sect inArdabil.[35]
Miniature of Sultan Ya'qub and his courtiers, Mehmed the Conqueror's album
When Uzun Hasan died early in 1478, he was succeeded by his sonKhalil Mirza, but the latter was defeated by a confederation under his younger brotherYa'qub at the battle ofKhoy in July.[14]: 128
Ya'qub, who reigned from 1478 to 1490, sustained the dynasty for a while longer. However, during the first four years of his reign there were seven pretenders to the throne who had to be put down.[14]: 125 Unlike his father, Ya'qub Beg was not interested in popular religious rites and alienated a large part of the people, especially the Turks. Therefore, the vast majority of Turks became involved in the Safawiya order, which became a militant organization with an extreme Shiite ideology led bySheikh Haydar. Ya'qub initially sent Sheikh Haydar and his followers to a holy war against theCircassians, but soon decided to break the alliance because he feared the military power of Sheikh Haydar and his order. During his march toGeorgia, Sheikh Haydar attacked one of Ya'qub's vassals, theShirvanshahs, in revenge for his father,Sheikh Junayd (assassinated in 1460), and Ya'qub sent troops to theShirvanshahs, who defeated and killed Haydar and captured his three sons. This event further strengthened the pro-Safavid feeling among Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkmen.[3][36]
Following Ya'qub's death, civil war again erupted, the Aq Qoyunlus destroyed themselves from within, and they ceased to be a threat to their neighbors.Theearly Safavids, who were followers of theSafaviyya religious order, began to undermine the allegiance of the Aq Qoyunlu. The Safavids and the Aq Qoyunlu met in battle in the city ofNakhchivan in 1501 and the Safavid leaderIsmail I forced the Aq Qoyunlu to withdraw.[37]
In his retreat from the Safavids, the Aq Qoyunlu leaderAlwand destroyed an autonomous state of the Aq Qoyunlu inMardin. The last Aq Qoyunlu leader,Sultan Murad, brother of Alwand, was also defeated by the same Safavid leader. Though Murād briefly established himself in Baghdad in 1501, he soon withdrew back to Diyar Bakr, signaling the end of the Aq Qoyunlu rule.
Amidst the struggle for power between Uzun Hasan's grandsons Baysungur (son of Yaqub) and Rustam (son of Maqsud), their cousin Ahmed Bey appeared on the stage. Ahmed Bey was the son of Uzun Hasan's eldest sonUghurlu Muhammad, who, in 1475, escaped to the Ottoman Empire, where the sultan,Mehmed the Conqueror, received Uğurlu Muhammad with kindness and gave him his daughter in marriage, of whom Ahmed Bey was born.[38]
Baysungur was dethroned in 1491 and expelled fromTabriz. 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 inLahijan.[3][39]
According to Hasan Rumlu'sAhsan al-tavarikh, in 1496–97, Hasan Ali Tarkhani went to the Ottoman Empire to tell SultanBayezid 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 nearAraxes and defeated him.[38]
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 inDiyarbakir, and Alvand's brother Mohammad in Fars andIraq-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 andKerman in the summer of 1503, Diyarbakir in 1507–1508 andMesopotamia in the autumn of 1508. The last Aq Qoyunlu sultan, Morad, who hoped to regain the throne with the help of Ottoman troops, was defeated and killed by Ismail'sQizilbash warriors in the last fortress of Rohada, ending the political rule of the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty.[32][3]
Governance
The leaders of Aq Qoyunlu were from the Begundur or Bayandur clan of theOghuz Turks[40] and were considered descendants of the semi-mythical founding father of the Oghuz,Oghuz Khagan.[41] The Bayandurs behaved like statesmen rather than warlords and gained the support of the merchant and feudal classes ofTranscaucasia (present-dayArmenia,Azerbaijan, andGeorgia).[41] The Aq Qoyunlu, along with the Qara Qoyunlu, were the last Iranian regimes that used their Chinggisid background to establish their legitimacy. Under Ya'qub Beg, the Chinggisidyasa (traditional nomadic laws of the medievalTurco-Mongols of the Eurasian steppe lands) was dissolved.[42]
Uzun Hasan's conquest of most of mainland Iran shifted the seat of power to the east, where the Aq Qoyunlu adopted Iranian customs for administration and culture. In the Iranian areas, Uzun Hasan preserved the previous bureaucratic structure along with its secretaries, who belonged to families that had in a number of instances served under different dynasties for several generations.[3] The four top civil posts of the Aq Qoyunlu were all occupied by Iranians, which under Uzun Hasan included; the vizier, who led the great council (divan); themostawfi al-mamalek, high-ranking financial accountants; themohrdar, who affixed the state seal; and themarakur "stable master", who supervised the royal court.[3]
Culture flourished under the Aq Qoyunlu, who, although of coming from a Turkic background, sponsored Iranian culture. Uzun Hasan himself adopted it and ruled in the style of an Iranian king. Despite his Turkoman background, he was proud of being an Iranian.[43] At his new capital, Tabriz, he managed a refined Persian court. There he utilized the trappings of pre-Islamic Persian royalty and bureaucrats taken from several earlier Iranian regimes. Through the use of his increasing revenue, Uzun Hasan was able to buy the approval of theulama (clergy) and the mainly Iranian urban elite, while also taking care of the impoverished rural inhabitants.[42]
In letters from the Ottoman Sultans, when addressing the kings of Aq Qoyunlu, such titles asArabic:ملك الملوك الأيرانية "King of Iranian Kings",Arabic:سلطان السلاطين الإيرانية "Sultan of Iranian Sultans",Persian:شاهنشاه ایران خدیو عجمShāhanshāh-e Irān Khadiv-e Ajam "Shahanshah of Iran and Ruler of Persia",Jamshid shawkat va Fereydun rāyat va Dārā derāyat "Powerful likeJamshid, flag ofFereydun and wise likeDarius" have been used.[44] Uzun Hassan also held the titlePadishah-i Irān "Padishah of Iran", which was re-adopted by hisdistaff grandson Ismail I, founder of the Safavid Empire.[45]
The Aq Qoyunlu realm was notable for being inhabited by many prominent figures, such as the poetsAli Qushji (died 1474),Baba Fighani Shirazi (died 1519),Ahli Shirazi (died 1535), the poet, scholar andSufiJami (died 1492) and the philosopher and theologian,Jalal al-Din Davani (died 1503).[43]
Culture
The Aq Qoyunlu patronized Persianbelles-lettres which included poets likeAhli Shirazi, Kamāl al-Dīn Banāʾī Haravī, Bābā Fighānī, Shahīdī Qumī.[46] By the reign of Yaʿqūb, the Aq Qoyunlu court held a fondness for Persian poetry.[47] 16th-centuryAzerbaijani poetFuzuli was also born and raised under Aq Qoyunlu rule, writing his first known poem forShah Alvand Mirza.[48]
Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami dedicated his poem,Salāmān va Absāl, which was written in Persian, to Yaʿqūb.[49][50] Yaʿqūb rewarded Jami with a generous gift.[49] Jami also wrote a eulogy,Silsilat al-zahab, which indirectly criticised Yaʿqūb immoral behavior.[46] Yaʿqūb had Persian poems dedicated to him, including Ahli Shirazi's allegorical masnavi on love,Sham' va parvana and Bana'i's 5,000 verse narrative poem,Bahram va Bihruz.[46]
Yaʿqūb's maternal nephew, 'Abd Allah Hatifi, wrote poetry for the five years he spent at the Aq Qoyunlu court.[51]
Uzun Hasan and his son, Khalil,[52] patronized, along with other prominent Sufis, members of the Kobrāvi and Neʿmatallāhi tariqats.[53] According to theTarikh-e lam-r-ye amini by Fazlallh b. Ruzbehn Khonji Esfahni, the court-commissioned history of Yaqub's reign, Uzun Hasan built close to 400 structures in the Aq Qoyunlu region for the purpose of Sufi communal retreat.[53]
In 1469, Uzun Hasan sent the head of the Timurid Sultan, Shāhrukh II bin Abu Sa'id, with an embassy to the court of the newly ascendedal-Ashraf Qaytbay in Cairo.[54] With these presents came afathnama, 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.[55] Despite the negative response from Qaitbay,[54] Uzun Hasan's continued correspondence to the Mamluk Sultanate were in Persian.[54]
Administration
The Aq Qoyunlu administration encompassed of two sections; the military caste, which mostly consisted ofTurkomans, but also had Iranian tribesmen in it. The other section was the civil staff, which consisted of officials from established Persian families.[56]
Military structure
The organization of the Aq Qoyunlu army was based on the fusion of military traditions from both nomadic and settled cultures. The ethnic background of Aq-Qoyunlu troops were quite heterogeneous as it consisted of 'sarvars' of Azerbaijan, people of Persia and Iraq, Iranzamin askers, dilavers of Kurdistan, Turkmen mekhtars and others.[57][58]
^However some Aq Qoyunlu rump states continued to rule until 1508, before they were absorbed into the Safavid Empire byIsmail I.[1]
^...Persian was primarily the language of poetry in the Aq Qoyunlu court.[5]
^ • Also referred to as theAq Qoyunlu confederacy, theAq Qoyunlu sultanate, theAq Qoyunlu empire,[3] theWhite Sheep confederacy. • Other spellings includesAg Qoyunlu,Agh Qoyunlu orAk Koyunlu. • Also mentioned asBayanduriyye (Bayandurids) in Iranian[12][11] and Ottoman sources.[13] • Also known asTur-'Alids in Mamluk sources.[14]: 34
References
^Charles Melville (2021).Safavid Persia in the Age of Empires: The Idea of Iran. Vol. 10. p. 33.Only after five more years did Esma'il and the Qezelbash finally defeat the rump Aq Qoyunlu regimes. In Diyarbakr, the Mowsillu overthrew Zeynal b. Ahmad and then later gave their allegiance to the Safavids when the Safavids invaded in 913/1507. The following year the Safavids conquered Iraq and drove out Soltan-Morad, who fled to Anatolia and was never again able to assert his claim to Aq Qoyunlu rule. It was therefore only in 1508 that the last regions of Aq Qoyunlu power finally fell to Esma'il.
^Daniel T. Potts (2014).Nomadism in Iran: From Antiquity to the Modern Era. p. 7.Indeed, the Bayundur clan to which the Aq-qoyunlu rulers belonged, bore the same name and tamgha (symbol) as that of an Oghuz clan.
^Arjomand, Saïd Amir (2016). "Unity of the Persianate World under Turko-Mongolian Domination and Divergent Development of Imperial Autocracies in the Sixteenth Century".Journal of Persianate Studies.9 (1): 11.doi:10.1163/18747167-12341292.The disintegration of Timur's empire into a growing number of Timurid principalities ruled by his sons and grandsons allowed the remarkable rebound of the Ottomans and their westward conquest of Byzantium as well as the rise of rival Turko-Mongolian nomadic empires of the Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu in western Iran, Iraq, and eastern Anatolia. In all of these nomadic empires, however, Persian remained the official court language and the Persianate ideal of kingship prevailed.
^Lazzarini, Isabella (2015).Communication and Conflict: Italian Diplomacy in the Early Renaissance, 1350–1520. Oxford University Press. p. 244.ISBN978-0-19-872741-5.
^Seyfettin Erşahin (2002).Akkoyunlular: siyasal, kültürel, ekonomik ve sosyal tarih (in Turkish). p. 317.
^International Journal of Turkish Studies. Vol. 4–5. University of Wisconsin. 1987. p. 272.
^abcWoods, John E. (1999).The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.ISBN0-87480-565-1.
^"Aq Qoyunlu" atEncyclopædia Iranica; "Christian sedentary inhabitants were not totally excluded from the economic, political, and social activities of the Āq Qoyunlū state and that Qara ʿOṯmān had at his command at least a rudimentary bureaucratic apparatus of the Iranian-Islamic type. [...] With the conquest of Iran, not only did the Āq Qoyunlū center of power shift eastward, but Iranian influences were soon brought to bear on their method of government and their culture."
^Kaushik Roy,Military Transition in Early Modern Asia, 1400–1750, (Bloomsbury, 2014), 38; "Post-Mongol Persia and Iraq were ruled by two tribal confederations: Akkoyunlu (White Sheep) (1378–1507) and Qaraoyunlu (Black Sheep). They were Persianate Turkoman Confederations of Anatolia (Asia Minor) and Azerbaijan."
^Mikaberidze, Alexander (2011).Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 1. Santa-Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio. p. 431.ISBN978-159884-336-1. "His Qizilbash army overcame the massed forces of the dominant Ak Koyunlu (White Sheep)Turkomans at Sharur in 1501...".
^The Book of Dede Korkut (F.Sumer, A.Uysal, W.Walker ed.). University of Texas Press. 1972. p. Introduction.ISBN0-292-70787-8. "Better known asTurkomans... the interim Ak-Koyunlu and Karakoyunlu dynasties..."
^Pines, Yuri, Michal Biran, and Jörg Rüpke, eds.the limits of universal rule: Eurasian empires compared. Cambridge University Press, 2021."the Aq Qoyunlu, like the Ottomans, began life as a collection of loosely organized band of pastoral nomadic Oghuz raiders in the Diyarbakir region of eastern Anatolia" "the dynasty controlled territory in their eastern Anatolian homelands"
^abBosworth, C. E. (1 June 2019).New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 275–276.ISBN978-1-4744-6462-8.
^Sinclair, T.A. (1989).Eastern Turkey: An Architectural & Archaeological Survey, Volume I. Pindar Press. p. 111.ISBN978-0907132325.
^Jackson, Peter; Lockhart, Lawrence, eds. (1986).The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge University Press. p. 154.
^Minorsky, Vladimir (1955). "The Aq-qoyunlu and Land Reforms (Turkmenica, 11)".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.17 (3): 449.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00112376.S2CID154166838.
^Robert MacHenry.The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1993,ISBN0-85229-571-5, p. 184.
^Cornell H. Fleischer (1986).Bureaucrat and intellectual in the Ottoman Empire. p. 287.
^H. B. Paksoy (1989).Alpamysh: Central Asian Identity Under Russian Rule. p. 84.
^İsmail Aka (2005).Makaleler (in Turkish). Vol. 2. Berikan Kitabevi. p. 291.
^abVladimir Minorsky. "The Aq-qoyunlu and Land Reforms (Turkmenica, 11)",Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 17/3 (1955): 458.
^Sarı, Arif (2019). "İran Türk Devletleri Karakoyunlular Akkoyunlular Safeviler".İnsanlığın Serüveni. İstek Yayınları.
^C.E. Bosworth and R. Bulliet,The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual, Columbia University Press, 1996,ISBN0-231-10714-5, p. 275.
^abCharles van der Leeuw.Azerbaijan: A Quest of Identity, a Short History, Palgrave Macmillan,ISBN0-312-21903-2, p. 81
^Muʾayyid S̲ābitī, ʻAlī (1967).Asnad va Namahha-yi Tarikhi (Historical documents and letters from early Islamic period towards the end of Shah Ismaʻil Safavi's reign.). Iranian culture & literature. Kitābkhānah-ʾi Ṭahūrī., pp. 193, 274, 315, 330, 332, 422 and 430. See also: Abdul Hussein Navai,Asnaad o Mokatebaat Tarikhi Iran (Historical sources and letters of Iran), Tehran, Bongaah Tarjomeh and Nashr-e-Ketab, 2536, pp. 578, 657, 701–702 and 707
^H.R. Roemer, "The Safavid Period", inCambridge History of Iran, Vol. VI, Cambridge University Press 1986, p. 339: "Further evidence of a desire to follow in the line of Turkmen rulers is Ismail's assumption of the title 'Padishah-i-Iran', previously held by Uzun Hasan."
^Mazıoğlu, Hasibe (1992).Fuzûlî ve Türkçe Divanı'ndan Seçmeler [Fuzûlî and Selections from His Turkish Divan] (in Turkish). Kültür Bakanlığı Yayımlar Dairesi Başkanlığı. p. 4.ISBN978-975-17-1108-3.
Bosworth, Clifford (1996)The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual (2nd ed.) Columbia University Press, New York,ISBN0-231-10714-5
Javadi, H.; Burrill, K. (May 24, 2012)."Azerbaijan x. Azeri Turkish Literature".Encyclopaedia Iranica.Among the Azeri poets of the 15th century mention should be made of Ḵaṭāʾi Tabrizi. He wrote a maṯnawi entitled Yusof wa Zoleyḵā, and dedicated it to the Aqqoyunlu Sultan Yaʿqub (r. 1478–90), who himself wrote poetry in Azeri Turkish.
Daʿadli, Tawfiq (2019).Esoteric Images: Decoding the Late Herat School of Painting. Brill.
Eagles, Jonathan (2014).Stephen the Great and Balkan Nationalism: Moldova and Eastern European History. I.B. Tauris.ISBN978-1780763538.
Erkinov, Aftandil (2015). "From Herat to Shiraz: the Unique Manuscript (876/1471) of 'Alī Shīr Nawā'ī's Poetry from Aq Qoyunlu Circle".Cahiers d'Asie centrale.24. Translated by Bean, Scott:47–79.
Lane, George (2016). "Turkoman confederations, the (Aqqoyunlu and Qaraqoyunlu)". In Dalziel, N.; MacKenzie, J.M. (eds.).The Encyclopedia of Empire. pp. 1–5.doi:10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe193.ISBN978-1118455074.
Lingwood, C. G. (2011). "The qebla of Jāmi is None Other than Tabriz": ʿAbd al-Rahmān Jāmi and Naqshbandi Sufism at the Aq Qoyunlu Royal Court".Journal of Persianate Studies.4 (2):233–245.doi:10.1163/187471611X600404.
Lingwood, Chad G. (2014).Politics, Poetry, and Sufism in Medieval Iran. Brill.
Markiewicz, Christopher (2019).The Crisis of Kingship in Late Medieval Islam: Persian Emigres and the Making of Ottoman Sovereignty. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1108492140.
Morby, John (2002)Dynasties of the World: A Chronological and Genealogical Handbook (2nd ed.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, England,ISBN0-19-860473-4
Thomas, David; Chesworth, John A., eds. (2015).Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History:Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Vol. 7. Brill.ISBN978-9004298484.
Woods, John E. (1999)The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (2nd ed.) University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City,ISBN0-87480-565-1
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