Safavid conquest of Shirvan
| Safavid conquest of Shirvan | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Campaigns of Ismail I | |||||||||
 The battle between the young Ismail and Shah Farrukh Yassar of Shirvan |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Safaviyya | Shirvanshahs | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Ismail I Husayn Beg Shamlu (Lala) Muhammad Beg Ustajlu |
Farrukh Yassar † Bahram Beg (Shirvanshah's son) Gazi Beg (Shirvanshah's son) |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 7,000 Qizilbash | 27,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Entire army | ||||||||
The conquest of Shirvan was the first of campaigns led by Ismail of the Safaviyya order. In late 1500, Ismail marched into Shirvan, and, despite heavily outnumbered, decisively defeated the then incumbent Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar in a pitched battle, in which the latter and his entire army were killed. The conquest resulted in the toppling of the Shirvanshahs as autonomous rulers, who had ruled large parts of the Caucasus for centuries, the incorporation of their domain, and lead to the eventual proclamation of the Safavid state shortly after.
Ismail's father Shaykh Haydar and his grandfather Shaykh Junayd had both been killed in battle by the rulers of Shirvan, in 1488 and 1460 respectively. In the summer of 1500, Ismail had rallied at Erzincan a force of 7,000 Qizilbash forces, consisting of the Ustaclu, Shamlu, Rumlu, Tekelu, Zhulkadir, Afshar, Qajar and Varsak tribes. Shortly before initiating his offensive, signalled by the weakness of the fragmented Georgian kingdoms, he looted Samtskhe. At the same time, he made the Georgian kings Constantine II and Alexander I of respectively the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti, to attack the Ottoman possessions near Tabriz, on the promise that he would cancel the tribute that Constantine was forced to pay to the Ak Koyunlu once Tabriz was captured. In December 1500, with the intention to avenge his murdered ancestors, Ismail crossed the Kura River into Shirvan with his 7,000-strong force, and decisively defeated and killed Farrukh Yassar, the then incumbent king of Shirvan and his entire 27,000-strong army in a pitched battle at Jabani, near the Shirvanshah capital of Shamakhi, or at Gulistan (present-day Gülüstan, Goranboy, Nagorno-Karabakh) and subsequently marched on to reach the Caspian coast, and took Baku.
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