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| 1467 |
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| Decisive victory of the Aq-Qoyunlu over the Qara-Qoyunlu, whose leader, Jahan Shah, was killed. This marked the end of the Qara-Qoyunlu dynasty and state. The Aq-Qoyunlu leader Uzun Hasan proceeded to occupy Iraq and much of western Iran. | 1 |
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| 1469 |
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| An attempt by the Timurids to take Azerbaijan was defeated by the Aq-Qoyunlu, who captured the Timurid ruler Abu Sa'id and had him killed. | 2 |
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| 1469–1506 |
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| HUSAYN BAYQARA, RULER OF THE TIMURID STATE. He exercised power in eastern Iran, which he made a center of art and Turkish literary culture. The great painter Bihzad began his artistic school in Herat before moving to Tabriz under the Safavids. One of Husayn Bayqara's courtiers, Mir Ali Shir Nava'i (1441–1501), translated Persian literature into Chaghatay Turkish, which he is credited with transforming into a literary language. | 3 |
| With Husayn Bayqara's death, Timurid rule in Iran effectively ended. The Uzbeks, led by Muhammad Shaybani, occupied his capital, Herat (1507), and then took all of Khurasan (1508). In 1510 the Safavids conquered those lands from the Uzbeks. | 4 |
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| 1473, Aug. 11 |
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| Battle of Bashkent in eastern Anatolia, in which the Aq-Qoyunlu suffered a decisive defeat by the Ottomans. Uzun Hasan wanted to contain the Ottoman expansion in Anatolia and made an alliance with Venice, which was engaged in a long war with the Ottomans. The defeat proved a severe blow to his prestige. | 5 |
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| 1488 |
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| Death of Haydar, the head of the Safavid order. Following in the footsteps of his father, Junayd, Haydar had continued using the religious authority of the Safavid family to build popular support. Safavid propagandists went out from the headquarters of the movement in Ardabil to spread their message of revolution. The Safavid recruits were known as Qizilbash (Redheads), after their distinctive headgear, said to have been introduced by Haydar. | 6 |
| Haydar was married to a daughter of the Aq-Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan, but had a falling out with Uzun Hasan's successor Ya'qub (1481–90), who probably saw the political danger posed by the Safavids and, in alliance with the ruler of Shirvan, had Haydar killed. There followed a crackdown on the movement by the Aq-Qoyunlu, but the factionalism and decline of the latter helped the Safavids survive politically and build momentum toward the eventual takeover of authority in Iran by Haydar's son Isma'il. | 7 |
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| 1494 |
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| Isma'il, the 7-year-old son of Haydar, became the head of the Safavid order. He fled from Ardabil to Gilan to escape the Aq-Qoyunlu assault on his movement, finding asylum with a local Shi’ite ruler. During his five years of exile, he developed his heterodox ideas regarding his divine leadership and messianic mission, and made plans for the overthrow of the Aq-Qoyunlu state. In 1499 he reemerged in public, assembled a large army in eastern Anatolia, and began his march to power. | 8 |
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| 1501 |
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| THE SAFAVID VICTORY. Isma'il defeated a large Aq-Qoyunlu army in Azerbaijan and occupied Tabriz, where he proclaimed himself shah and Shi’ism the religion of the new state. His accession ushered in a revolutionary change in the political and religious landscape of the region. The Aq-Qoyunlu were soon eliminated, and a Shi’ite empire incorporating Iran, Iraq, and parts of eastern Anatolia came into being, poised as a rival to the other leading Middle Eastern state, the Sunni Ottoman Empire. (See Iran) | 9 |
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