Qara Qoyunlu

The Qara Qoyunlu, the Black Sheep Turkomans, were a Turkoman and culturally Persianate Muslim dynasty that ruled Azerbaijan, Armenia, north-western Iran, eastern Turkey and north-eastern Iraq from about 1374 to 1468. The name, those with black sheep, came apparently from the black sheep painted on their flags, though Rashid al-Din thought totemism unlikely among Turks who lived on mutton. The ruling family descended from the Baharlu, a subtribe of the Yiwa branch of the Oghuz Turks, who by the fourteenth century held lands north of Lake Van and Mosul. Their early years were spent under the Jalayirid sultans of Baghdad and Tabriz until Timur defeated them at the turn of the century, sending Qara Yusuf into exile with the Mamluks of Egypt. Restored after Timur left, the dynasty reached its height under Jahan Shah, but he fell at the Battle of Chapakchur in 1467 and by 1468 Uzun Hasan and the White Sheep Turkomans had taken Iraq, Azerbaijan and western Iran from them. It was under the Qara Qoyunlu that Shia Islam spread most widely in the region.