DĪV SOLṬĀN

 

DĪVSOLṬĀN, title of ʿALĪ BEG RŪMLŪ, a qezelbāš officer first mentioned at the battle of Šarūr (907/1501), in which the Safavid Esmāʿīl I defeated the Āq Qoyūnlū prince Alvand (Jahāngošā-ye Ḵāqān, p. 138). Dīv Solṭān was present at the decisive battle of Marv (916/1510), which enabled Esmāʿīl to recover Khorasan from the hands of Moḥammad Šībānī (Šeybak) Khan Uzbek. In 919/1513, after having carried out a punitive expedition in the region of Šoborqān, Andḵūy, and Balḵ, he was appointed governor of Balḵ (Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, p. 181, ed. Seddon, I, p. 139; Ḥabīb al-sīar, Tehran, IV, p. 540). In 921/1515 Dīv Solṭān visited Esmāʿīl’s court at Tabrīz to inform the shah of the complete expulsion of the Uzbeks from Khorasan and the inefficiency of Zeynal Khan Šāmlū, the governor of Herat (Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, pp. 201-02, Seddon,p. 154). Dīv Solṭān did not return to Khorasan, but was sent on a number of expeditions to Georgia; the first two, in 922/1516 and 923/1517, were to the Samtzkhe district in support of Malek Qorqora against his rival Manūčehr; the third, in 927/1520, was directed against the rebellious Lavand Beg, ruler of the Kakheti district (Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, pp. 211-12, 218, 225; ed. Seddon,p. 173).

In 930/1523 the wakīl Dīv Solṭān was appointed to the important office of amīr al-omarā, superseding Čāyān Solṭān (Eskandar Beg, I, p. 46, tr., I, p. 77; Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, p. 236, ed. Seddon, p. 181), or his son Bāyazīd Solṭān, the latter having died the previous year (Bodāq Monšī Qazvīnī, fol. 293b; Bedlīsī, II, p. 169). After the death of Shah Esmāʿīl (930/1524), Dīv Solṭān, by virtue of a testamentory disposition of the late shah, retained the office of amīr al-omarā and was made atābeg (guardian) of the young prince Ṭahmāsb, who succeeded his father at the age of ten and a half. Dīv Solṭān thus became the de facto ruler of the state. Less than a year later, he put to death the vizier Jalāl-al-Dīn Moḥammad Tabrīzī (Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, p. 240; Eskandar Beg, I, p. 159, tr., I, p. 251). He was initially supported by the Rūmlū, Takkalū and Ḏu’l-Qadar tribes, by most of the Šāmlū amirs, and by some Ostājlūs. However, the powerful Ostājlū amir Kopek Solṭān, the brother of the former amīr al-omarā Čāyān Solṭān, refused to swear allegiance to him at Lār. After a period of negotiation, a triumvirate was formed consisting of Dīv Solṭān Rūmlū, Čūha Solṭān Takkalū, and Kopek Ostājlū, but civil war broke out between rival qezelbāš factions in 932/1526. Kopek Solṭān was killed in 933/1526-27, and Čūha Solṭān succeeded in persuading Shah Ṭahmāsb that Dīv Solṭān was the cause of the discord. On 5 Šawwāl 933/5 July 1527, when Dīv Solṭān entered the divān, the Shah gave the signal for his execution by the royal guards (Ḥasan Rūmlū, ed. Navāʾī, pp. 245-54, 259-61, 268; Bedlīsī, II, pp. 172-73; for full details of the manoeuvrings of rival qezelbāš amirs for control of the state after the accession of Ṭahmāsb, and for a discussion of the complicated relationship between the offices of wakīl and amīr al-omarā, see Savory).

 

Bibliography:

(For cited works not given in detail see “Short References.”) Šaraf al-Dīn Bedlīsī, Šaraf-nāma, ed. V. Véliaminof-Zernof, St. Petersburg 1860-62.

Bodāq Monšī Qazvīnī, Jawāher al-aḵbār, Leningrad Library MS, Dorn 288.

Jahāngošā-ye Ḵāqān, ed. A. Możṭar, Islamabad, 1350 Š./1971.

R. M. Savory, “The Principal Offices of the Ṣafawid State during the Reign of Ṭahmāsp I (930-84/1524-76),” BSO(A)S 24, part 1, 1961, pp. 65-85; repr. in Idem, Studies on the History of Ṣafawid Iran, London, 1987.

(Roger M. Savory)

Originally Published: December 15, 1995

Last Updated: November 28, 2011

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