Ibrahim Khalil Khan

Ibrahim Khalil khan Javanshir (1732–1806) was the Azeri[1][2] Turkic[3][4][5][6][7] khan of Karabakh from the Javanshir family, who succeeded his father Panah-Ali khan Javanshir as the ruler of Karabakh khanate.

In the 1780s, Ibrahim Khalil Khan emerged as one of the most powerful rulers in the eastern Caucasus. He aspired to bring most of the Muslim-ruled territory from the Caucasus mountains as far south as Tabriz under his sway, but eventually he had to curb his efforts in the face of the rising Qajar power in Iran. He was then allied with the Georgian king Erekle II of Kartli-Kakheti and the two interfered in the affairs of the Erivan khanate and made the Ganja khanate their puppet. The alliance waned after Erekle accepted the Russian protectorate in the treaty of Georgievsk in 1783. Ibrahim maintained contact with the Russian authorities, but did not sign any formal treaty.[8]

In 1795 the ruler of Iran, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, attacked the region to bring it again within the Iranian empire. The khans of Ganja, Nakhjavan, and Erevan submitted, but Ibrahim Khan did not. He was defeated in battle and retreated to the fortress of Shusha. After a prolonged siege, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar failed to take the fortress and left the region. In a verbal truce, Ibrahim Khan acknowledged Qajar supremacy and was permitted to continue to rule as Khan of Karabakh.

In 1796, following Agha Mohammad Khan's return to mainland Persia, Catherine the Great ordered her army to conquer the Caucasus. Ibrahim began negotiating with the Russian commanders and agreed to cooperate with them in exchange for maintaining his rule in Karabakh. Soon after Catherine the Great died, her successor, Paul, abandoned her plans for the region and recalled the Russian troops.

In 1797, Aga Mohammad Khan, angered by the betrayal of Ibrahim Khalil Khan and other khans in the Caucasus, attacked and captured Shusha. Agha Mohammad Khan was assassinated in Shusha five days after its capture. Ibrahim, who had fled to his in-laws in Dagestan, then returned to Shusha and gave Aga Mohammad Khan an honourable burial. In order to retain his position and ensure peaceful relations with the shah, he gave one of his daughters to Agha Mohammad Khan's successor to the throne, Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar.

During the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), General Tsitsianov promised that Russia would recognize Ibrahim Khan as khan and agreed that Ibrahim's elder son would succeed his father, and thus an agreement was signed between Russia and Ibrahim Khan on May 14, 1805. Tsitsianov then occupied Shusha and left a Russian garrison stationed there. Tsitsianov's death on 20 February 1806 and the breakup of the Russian offensive persuaded Ibrahim Khalil Khan, in the summer of 1806, to repudiate his allegiance to the Russians, and resubmit himself to the shah; he then asked the shah for aid in ousting the Russian garrison. As the Persian army approached Shusha, Ibrahim Khan left the fortress and camped outside. On 2 June 1806, the Russians, instigated by Ibrahim Khalil Khan's grandson and fearful of their own vulnerability, attacked the camp and killed Ibrahim Khan, one of his wives, a daughter, and his youngest son. To gain support from the local Muslims, the Russians appointed a son of Ibrahim Khalil, Mehdigulu Khan Javanshir, as khan of Karabakh.[9][10][11][12]

See also

References
  1. Although written in Persian, the work of Mirza Jamal Javanshir (1773/4-1853) is actually a product of Azeri historiography: its author being an Azeri noble of the Javanshir tribe, who began his lengthy career as a scribe in the service of Ebrahim, the Azeri khan of Karabakh. Robert H. Hewsen. Review of George A. Bournoutian, A History of Qarabagh: An Annotated Translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-e Qarabagh, in Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies: JSAS, 1995, p. 270
  2. Writing to his adviser Archimandrite Gaioz, Erekle informed him that he had received a communication from the new Shah ordering him to take part in a campaign against Ibrahim, the Azeri khan of Karabagh, who was also asserting his right to independence from Persia. Nikolas K. Gvosdev. Imperial policies and perspectives towards Georgia, 1760–1819. St. Martin's Press in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford, 2000. ISBN 0-312-22990-9, ISBN 978-0-312-22990-0
  3. This province was at that time the hereditary fief of the Turkish clan of Djewanshir (...) Its chiefs were called from father to son alternately Panah and Ibrahim Khalil; M. Th. Houtsma, E. van Donzel. E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936. BRILL, p. 727. ISBN 90-04-09790-2, ISBN 978-90-04-09790-2
  4. There were Bayat Turks at Maku, and a further branch of the Qajar in Erivan and Qarabagh, were the Javanshir Turks and the Karachrlu Kurd also lived. William Bayne Fisher, Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly. The Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge University Press, 1991, p.512. ISBN 0-521-20095-4
  5. In the following year Taymurazi took Shahverdi-Khan of Ganja under his protection; and defeated the truculent Sharji-Panah, a town crier fugitive from Persia, who had put himself at the head of the Jevanshir Turkomans and who was tyrannizing the Armenian meliks of Karabagh William Edward David Allen, Edward Denison Ross. A History of the Georgian People. Taylor & Francis, 1932, p. 197. ISBN 0-7100-6959-6.
  6. The late Panah Khan's lineage was of the Javanshir tribe of Dizak, of the clan of Sarujlu, which was a group within the Bahmanli tribe, and which in times past came from Turkestan. A history of Qarabagh: an annotated translation of Mirza Jamal Javanshir Qarabaghi's Tarikh-e Qarabagh. Transl. George A. Bournoutian. Mazda Publishers, 1994, p. 45. ISBN 1-56859-011-3.
  7. Originally a part of the khanate of Ganja, its territory was ruled by five families of Armenian meliks, local princes who had been assigned to the governorship of the territory by the Turkoman lord Jahan-Shah (1437–1467) when it was a frontier region of his empire. In 1747, Panah Javanshir, a local Turkoman chieftain, sized control of the region after the death of Nadir Shah. Hewsen, Robert H (2001). Armenia: A Historical Atlas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 155. ISBN 0-226-33228-4.
  8. Atkin, Muriel (Winter–Spring 1979). "The Strange Death of Ibrahim Khalil Khan of Qarabagh". Iranian Studies. 12 (1/2): 79–107. doi:10.1080/00210867908701551. JSTOR 4310310.
  9. BOURNOUTIAN, GEORGE. "EBRAHÈM KHALÈL KHAN JAVANSHER". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  10. "History of Azerbaijan" Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
  11. Abbas-gulu Aga Bakikhanov. Golestan-i Iram
  12. Bournoutian, George A. (2016). The 1820 Russian Survey of the Khanate of Shirvan: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of an Iranian Province prior to its Annexation by Russia. Gibb Memorial Trust. p. 4. ISBN 978-1909724808.
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