Mehdi Qoli Khan Shamlu

Mehdi Qoli Khan Shamlu, also Mahdiquli Khan (Persian: مهدی قلی خان شاملو) was a Turkoman military officer from the Shamlu tribe.
Following the Treaty of Constantinople (1590) putting an end to the Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590), he was a Safavid ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, who escorted the child-hostage and Safavid Prince Haydar Mirza to Istanbul.[1] An illustrated Ottoman manuscript, the Book of Treasury of the Conquest of Ganja, records the details of a reception in Erzurum for the Safavid party, in which Mehdi Qoli Khan appears as a guest of honor at the head of the table, to the left of Ottoman Commander Ferhad Pasha, and near the young Prince Haydar Mirza.[1]
He briefly served as the Safavid governor of Bia-pish (eastern Gilan) from 1592 to 1593.
After the fall of the Kia'i dynasty, shah Abbas I appointed Mehdi Qoli Khan as the governor of Bia-pish, while Ali Beg Sultan was appointed as the governor of Bia-pas (western Gilan). One year later, however, Mehdi Qoli Khan was dismissed by the shah due to his bad management of the province. He is thereafter no longer mentioned.
Sources
- Casale, Sinem Arcak (2023). Gifts in the Age of Empire. Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639. The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226820422.
- Kasheff, Manouchehr (2001). "GĪLĀN v. History under the Safavids". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. X, Fasc. 6. pp. 635–642.
- Mitchell, Colin P. (2009). The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran: Power, Religion and Rhetoric. I.B.Tauris. pp. 1–304. ISBN 978-0857715883.
- ^ a b c Casale 2023, p. 152.