User:HistoryofIran/Shirvan

Shirvan is a historical region in the eastern part of the South Caucasus

History
The territory that made up Shirvan proper included the easternmost peaks of the Caucasus mountain range and the terrain that descended from them to the banks of the Kur River and its confluent the Araxes River. Shirvan proper thus bordered Muqan to the south, Shakki to the northwest, Arran to the west, and Layzan to the north. The Shirvanshahs, throughout their history, made persistent efforts to also control Layzan, Quba, Maskat and Bab al-Abwab (Darband) to the north, and Baku to the south.

The title Shirvanshah most likely dates back to the period before the rise of Islam. The early Muslim geographer Ibn Khordadbeh (died 913) mentions that the first Sasanian ruler, Ardashir I ((r. 224 – 242)), granted the title to a local ruler of Shirvan. Al-Baladhuri also mentions that a Shirvanshah, together with the neighbouring Layzanshah, were encountered by the Arabs during their first incursion into the eastern Caucasus, and submitted to the Arab commander Salman ibn Rab'ia al-Bahili (died 650).

Shirvanshah era
Although the Safavids and Shirvanshahs had a hostile relationship, Ismail I allowed them to continue their rule in Shirvan, albeit as vassals of Safavid Iran. This ended in 1538 when Shah Tahmasp I ((r. 1524 – 1576)) dismissed Shahrukh due to the latter's continuous disloyalty. Shirvan was subsequently made a province of the Safavid realm, thus marking the end of Shirvanshah rule. A reconquest of Shirvan was attempted multiple times by members of the Shirvanshah family, including Burhan Ali and his son Abu Bakr Mirza, who enlisted the help of the Ottoman Empire. However, none of these attempts had long-term success; the Ottomans managed to briefly occupy Shirvan between 1578 and 1607, until it was retaken by the Safavids.

Safavid, Afsharid, Zand and Qajar rule
Under Safavid rule, Shirvan was a leading silk manufacturer and its principal city, Shamakhi, became an important place for trade. In 1724, most of Shirvan was annexed to the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Constantinople. In 1734, the Iranian military leader Nader recovered Shirvan and installed Mohammad Mehdi Khan as its beglarbegi (governor-general).

Russian rule
Under the Russian Empire, Shamakhi and Shirvan were located inside different administrative regions. The 1859 Shamakhi earthquake severely damaged several of the city's earlier Islamic structures. However, at this point in time, Shamakhi still had a higher population (21,550) than Baku (10,000). Over the course of the following two or three decades, this changed due to Baku's rapid economic and demographic growth as a hub for extraction of oil. These areas became part of Soviet Azerbaijan after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1923, with Shamakhi serving as the administrative district center. Despite this, Shamakhi's estimated population of 17,900 in 1970 was still significantly lower than even 19th century centres.

Culture
Shirvan was originally part of Caucasian Albania, which during the Sasanian era was linguistically dominated by Middle Persian, which served as its official language. One of the successor languages of Middle Persian is Tati Persian, which was commonly spoken in the Shirvanshah realm. It was not only spoken by Muslims, but also by Christians and Jews. The Iranians that settled in Southern Caucasus must have been mainly from southern Caspian areas like Gilan, as indicated by names such as Shirvan, Layzan, and Baylaqan. By the 10th century, the Shirvanshahs were speaking Iranian languages that had developed from Middle Persian dialects, such as Tati. Like the other regional dynasties of the Shaddadids and Rawadids, their court also started using Dari Persian.

Tati was amongst the Iranian languages that survived the Turkification of the eastern part of the South Caucasus which began in the 11th–14th centuries, remaining the primary language of the Absheron peninsula and the Baku region until the mid-19th century. The 13th-century Persian anthology Nozhat al-Majales, written by Jamal al-Din Khalil Shirvani and dedicated to Shirvanshah Fariburz III ((r. c. 1225 – 1255)) demonstrates the broad distribution of the Persian language and Iranian culture in the northwestern Iranian regions of Arran, Azerbaijan and Shirvan. The anthology also displays the influence of Pahlavi, a northwestern Iranian language. A substantial amount of the poets mentioned in the book were from a working-class background, something also reflected in the colloquial expressions in their poetry. This was the opposite of other places in Iran, where most poets were from a high-class background.

During the 12th century, Shirvan served as the focal point for Persian literature, attracting distinguished poets such as Khaqani, Nizami Ganjavi, Falaki Shirvani and so on. The spread of the writings and popularity of Khaqani and Nizami Ganjavi is a testimony to the expansion of the Persianate sphere. The Caucasus had a rare amalgamation of ethnic cultures, as demonstrated by Khaqani's mother being a Nestorian Christian, Nizami Ganjavi's mother a Kurd, and Mujir al-Din Baylaqani's mother an Armenian. The cultural and linguistic variety of the region is shown in their works. The Shirvanshahs adopted the names and regalia of pre-Islamic Persian kings. In his Layla and Majnun, Nizami Ganjavi praises the Shirvanshah Akhsitan I as the "king of Iran."

The Shirvanshahs and portions of Shirvan may have followed the Hanafi (school of law) in Islam, as indicated by Nizami Ganjavi, who says that wine was legal for the Shirvanshah.

Russia more or less openly pursued a policy to free their newly conquered land from Iran's influence. By doing this, the Russian government helped to create and spread a new Turkic identity that, in contrast to the previous one, was founded on secular principles, particularly the shared language. As a result, many Iranian-speaking residents of the future Azerbaijan Republic at the time either started hiding their Iranian ancestry or underwent progressive assimilation. The Tats and Kurds underwent these integration processes particularly quickly.