Allahverdi Khan

Allahverdi Khan
Bust of Allahverdi Khan in Isfahan
Born	ca. 1560 Georgia
Died	3 June 1613 Isfahan
Allegiance	Safavid dynasty
Years of service	1570s(?)–1613
Relations	Daud Khan Undiladze (son) Imam-Quli Khan (son) Safiqoli Khan Undiladze (grandson)

Allahverdi Khan (Persian: اللّه وردی خان‎‎, Georgian: ალავერდი-ხანი) (ca. 1560 – June 3, 1613) was an Iranian general and statesman of Georgian origin who, initially a ghulām ("military slave"), rose to high office in the Safavid state.

Iskandar Beg Munshi, the Safavid court historian at the time, describes him as "one of the most powerful statesman to hold office under this dynasty", and a "man of great forbearance, modest and chaste.” King Abbas I demonstrated his genuine respect and affection for him by personally supervising the funeral arrangements, and by going to his house the day after his death to offer his personal condolences to his family.

Allahverdi was born a Christian Georgian, surnamed Undiladze. Like many of his compatriots and fellow Christian Georgians, Armenians and Circassians, he was taken prisoner in the course of one of the Caucasian campaigns of shah Tahmasp I of Persia and converted to Islam to be trained for service in the ghulam army, a special military structure consisting of Christian captives that was created later by Abbas I to counterpoise the power of the Qizilbash, which constituted the nucleus of the Safavid military aristocracy.

In 1589, he took part in the assassination of the powerful minister (wakil) and kingmaker Morshed-Kholi Khan Ostaglu, who was secretly condemned to death by shah Abbas I. As a result, he was made sultan and a governor of Jorpadagan near Isfahan, the Safavid capital. He then rapidly rose to higher offices and was appointed commander of the ghulam army, thus becoming one of the five principal officers in the Safavid administration by 1595/6. In the same year, shah Abbas I appointed him the governor of Fars, a move that made him the fist ghulam to attain equal status with the Qizilbash emirs. This act also meant that the large provinces would no longer be administered by semi-autonomous and frequently self-minded Qizilbash emirs, but by officers appointed directly by the shah.