User:Shah Abbas Safawi/sandbox

= Capture of Shirvan = The attack on Shirvan was an invasion that took place in 1579. This conflict was the part of the wider conflict Ottoman Safavid War 1578-1590 but the immediate cause was killing of Tatar Prince Adil Giray Khan who was captured after the Battle of Mollahasanli and executed in Qazvin for having an alleged affair with the Shah's wife Khayr al-Nisa Begum. The Tatars in order to avenge the murder of Adil Giray entered Shervan that year and took the region out of the control of the Iranian ruler of Shervan. Mirza Salman Jaberi, the minister of Shah Mohammad Khodabanda, who had gone to Azerbaijan to repel the attack, could not do anything.

Background
After the death of Khayr al-Nisa Begum in late 1579, Shah Mohammad Khodabanda, in order to prevent the advance of the Ottoman forces and retake the lost provinces, went to Azerbaijan and made Tabriz the center of his military operations. At this time, the western part of Azerbaijan such as the areas of Salmas, Khoy and Urmia up to Maragheh had been captured by the Ottoman army, and Mustafa Pasha after capturing Georgia and the fortresses of Tbilisi and Gori, left Caucasus to spend the winter in Erzurum. Next year, Mustafa Pasha return to Caucasus. From there, he sent Bahram Pasha, an Ottoman general with 3,000 Georgian troops and sent Hassan Pasha another general with 40,000 cavalry to Yerevan, and he himself planned to move to conquer Azerbaijan and Shirvan in the beginning of spring of 1579. Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha, another Ottoman commander, also captured the fortress of Derbent and incited the rulers of Dagestan and the Lezgi tribes to attack Shirvan and Karabagh.

The Arrival of Tatars in Shirvan
After the arrival of Shah Mohammad Khodabanda in Tabriz, when it was reported that Mehmed II Giray, the Tatar Khan, had sent several of his other brothers to Shirvan to avenge the murder of his brother Adil Giray Khan, it was decided that Mirza Salman Jaberi, Amir Khan Moslavi The Turkmen Emir of Azerbaijan and a group of Qizilbash commanders and cavalrymen would go to Shirvan to prevent the Tatar army from moving, but before the Iranian army reached Karabagh, the Tatar commanders entered Shirvan. Mehmed Giray led 100000 men against Persia and defeated the Iranian ruler there due to more numbers. The Tatars looted Shirvan and took a number of women and children captive. Mirza Salman Jaberi and Qizilbash commanders reached Shirvan, but due to various differences, divisions and enmities that existed among the Qizilbash rulers, they did not do anything and returned to Tabriz. The Tatars met Osman Pasha at Derbent, Gazi Giray defeated the Iranians at Baku and the Tatars occupied all of Shirvan. They spread out taking loot and captives. Iranian troops were defeated and their commander, Mukhammed-Khalif, was killed. Mehmed claimed that he was avenging his murdered brother Adil. In fall of 1579 the Tatars returned to Crimea taking a huge amount of loot and thousands of captives to sell into slavery.

Famine
Due to the extensive damage to the villages, farms and farmers of Azerbaijan from the successive campaigns of Tatar, Ottoman and Safavid armies, a severe famine broke out that year in all the provinces of Shirvan, Karabakh, the lands west of the Caspian Sea and parts of Iraq, which caused many deaths.