Azerbaijan Province (Safavid Iran)

The province of Azerbaijan was a province in the northwestern part of Safavid Iran, serving as one of its principal administrative areas. The city of Tabriz was the provincial capital, as well as the capital of the Safavids until 1555. The Ottoman Empire occupied Tabriz and a large portion of Azerbaijan from 1588 to 1603; as a result, the authority of the governor-general of Azerbaijan was mainly restricted to Ardabil.

History
The Azerbaijan province was created in the first half of the 16th century. It included such regions as Maragheh, Urmia, Mahabad, Khoy, Salmas, Marand, Talish (between 1592 and 1610), Arasbar, Sultaniya, Zanjan, etc. Agriculture, cattle breeding, and handicrafts were developed in the Azerbaijan. Despite the transfer of the capital of Safavid Iran to Qazvin (1555), and later to Isfahan (1598), Azerbaijan, being from a strategic and socio-economic point of view one of the richest and most important regions of Iran, played a large role in the political and economic life of the country. One fifth of the personnel of the Safavid army (about 11 to 12 thousand people out of 60 000) accounted for Azerbaijan. The most influential Qizilbash emirs (mainly the heads of the Tekkelu and Turkman tribes) were appointed governors of Azerbaijan.

In 1531, Ulameh Soltan Tekkelu was the governor. The Tekkelu tribe, whose head was Ulameh Soltan Tekkelu, was a branch of the Turkoman Tekkelu tribe and moved to Azerbaijan from Asia Minor. Later, the management of Azerbaijan passed to the emirs from other Turkman dynasties. In 1583/84, at the insistence of the emirs from the Shamlu and Ustajlu clan, the head of the Turkman tribe, Emir Khan, was removed from running the province. This became the cause of bloody clashes between the Qizilbash. The Emir Khan was also supported by the Tekkelu. These events put Iran in a difficult position, which was at war with the Ottoman Empire. As a result, the control of Azerbaijan again passed to the Turkmans. In 1590–1605, the territory of Azerbaijan was under the control of the Ottoman Empire (with the exception of Talish, Karadagh and Ardabil). During the reign of Shah Abbas I (1587–1629 years of rule), after the reconquest of Azerbaijan, in 1605, the control again passed to the Turkman emir, Pir Budaq Khan Pornak.

List of governors
This is a list of the known figures who governed Azerbaijan or parts of it. Beglerbegi, hakem and vali were all administrative titles designating the governor.