Shaykh Ali Khan Zanganeh ( fa, شیخ علی خان زنگنه, died 1689), was an

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

statesman of

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

origin, who served as the

grand vizier Grand vizier ( fa, وزيرِ اعظم, vazîr-i aʾzam; ota, صدر اعظم, sadr-ı aʾzam; tr, sadrazam) was the title of the effective head of government of many sovereign states in the Islamic world. The office of Grand Vizier was first ...

of the

Safavid Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...

king (''

shah Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...

'') Suleiman I (r. 1666–1694) from 1669 to 1689. Due to his efforts in reforming the declining Iranian economy, he has been called the "Safavid

Amir Kabir Mirza Taghi Khan-e Farahani ( fa, میرزا تقی‌خان فراهانی), better known as Amir Kabir (Persian: ‎, 9 January 1807 – 10 January 1852), also known by the title of ''Amir-e Nezam'' or ''Amir Nezam'' (), was chief minister t ...

" in modern historiography.

Family

A native of the Kermanshah Province, Shaykh Ali Khan was the son of Ali Beg Zanganeh, and belonged to the Zanganeh tribe, a

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

Kurdish tribe, which was part of the

Qizilbash Qizilbash or Kizilbash ( az, Qızılbaş; ota, قزيل باش; fa, قزلباش, Qezelbāš; tr, Kızılbaş, lit=Red head ) were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman Shia militant groups that flourished in Iranian Azerbaijan, Anatolia, the ...

. Shaykh Ali Khan had two brothers named Najaf Qoli Beg Zanganeh and Shahrokh Sultan Zanganeh and also had several sons, whom were: Hossein Ali Khan Zanganeh, Suleiman Khan Zanganeh, Ismail Beg Zanganeh, Abbas Beg Zanganeh, Abbas Qoli Beg Zanganeh, and the most prominent one being

Shahqoli Khan Zanganeh Shahqoli Khan Zanganeh ( fa, شاه قلی خان زنگنه, died 1716), was a Kurdish nobleman, who served as the ''vizier'' of the Safavid king (''shah'') Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722) from 1707 to 1716. Family Shahqoli was the third son of ...

, who would also later serve as grand vizier of the country.

Biography

Shaykh Ali Khan's destiny is similar to that of many other Iranian grand viziers—from Hasanak under the

Ghaznavids The Ghaznavid dynasty ( fa, غزنویان ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, ruling, at its greatest extent, large parts of Persia, Khorasan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest ...

under the

Qajars The Qajar dynasty (; fa, دودمان قاجار ', az, Qacarlar ) was an IranianAbbas Amanat, ''The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896'', I. B. Tauris, pp 2–3 royal dynasty of Turkic origin ...

—and is owing, in an established sense, to the ambivalence of the grand vizier's position in the Iranian bureaucratic practice. Shaykh Ali Khan served as the commander of the empire's

musketeer A musketeer (french: mousquetaire) was a type of soldier equipped with a musket. Musketeers were an important part of early modern warfare particularly in Europe as they normally comprised the majority of their infantry. The musketeer was a pre ...

corps ('' tofangchi-aghasi'') from 1668 till June 1669.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * People from Kermanshah Iranian Kurdish people Grand viziers of the Safavid Empire History of Kermanshah Province Safavid governors Zanganeh 1610s births 1689 deaths Safavid generals Tofangchi-aghasi 17th-century Iranian politicians 17th-century people of Safavid Iran {{Kurd-bio-stub