BĀYBŪRTLŪ (also Bāybūrdlū), a Turkic tribe of northwestern Iran whose only vestiges seem to be the names of a few historical personalities. Its name implies that it came from Bāybūrt, or Bāybord, 100 miles northwest of Erzurum, in eastern Anatolia. It was one of the tribes which formed the mainstay of the early Safavids (G. Le Strange, ed, and tr., Don Juan of Persia, London, 1926, pp. 45-46). A leader of this tribe, Qarāja Elyās Bāybūrtlū, was one of Shah Esmāʿīl I Ṣafawī’s field commanders at the battle of Šarūr near Naḵčevān (beginning of 907/mid-1501), in which Esmāʿīl decisively defeated the Āq Qoyunlū Alvand Mīrzā, the ruler of Azerbaijan (British Museum MS, Or. 3248, fol. 69b, apud G. Sarwar, History of Shāh Ismaʿīl Ṣafawī, Aligarh, 1939, p. 38). The tribe also produced two eminent personalities during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās I: 1. Šāhverdī Bīg Bāybordlū, who was very close (yasāvol-e ṣoḥbat) to the Shah (Eskandar Beg, II, pp. 853, 871, tr. Savory, pp. 1084-85); 2. Morād Khan Sultan Bāybūrdlū, who was an amir and governor of Arasbār (ibid., p. 1086, tr. Savory, p. 1312).
Bibliography: Given in the text.
Search terms:
| بایبورتلو | bayburtlu | بایبوردلو | bayburdlu |
(P. Oberling)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: December 15, 1988
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 8, p. 887
