Donboli (tribe)

The Donboli came from Bokhtan, a Kurdish region between Siirt and Cizre in what is now southeastern Turkey. The first ancestor was a certain Isa Beg, who became in 1378 the ruler of Sokmanabad. His descendant, Sheikh Ahmad Beg, entered service of the Turkmen Aq Quyunlu, and then the family held several posts in Persian administration. Ahmad Beg's son, Hajji Beg (Hajji Soltan), was the governor of Sokmanabad and Khoy under Tahmasp I of the Safavid dynasty who ruled as Shah of Persia 1501-1722. In 1530, the Donboli family could establish a semi-autonomous emirate in that area, including the regions of Churs and Salmas. In the time of Shah Abbas I the family spread into a line in Churs and in Khoy, sometimes fighting for superpower over the other. After the fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1736, the Donboli governors became the hereditary Khans of Khoy and Tabriz.[2] The Doboli clan reigned the Khoy Khanate as well as the Tabriz Khanate as semi-independent rulers for nearly fifty years between the death of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747 and the coronation of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar in 1796. They allied as well with three succeeding ruling houses, the Afshar dynasty, Zand dynasty and Qajar dynasty of Persia.

The first outstanding emir of this time was Najaf Qoli Khan. After Najaf Qoli Khan's father Shahbaz Khan I was killed in 1731 by his cousin Ayub Khan of Churs, he succeeded him as the governor of Churs and Salmas. In 1734, he entered the service of the later Nader Shah Afshar as chief musketeer. He followed the shah on his conquests to India and was made amir ol-'omara (lit. "commander of commanders) and later the governor of Khoy. In 1742, he became beglerbegi (lit. "governor of governors", i.e. governor-general) of Tabriz. In 1747, he became the ruling Khan of Tabriz and remained in this post also under Nader Shah's successor. In the war of succession between several pretenders to the Persian throne, Najaf Qoli Khan and his nephew Shahbaz Khan II joined in 1750 Fath Ali Khan Afshar-Arashlu of Urmia. The acting rule of Khoy and Salmas was commissioned to Shahbaz Khan II, Najaf Qoli Khan held Tabriz and Churs. After the death of Fath Ali Khan, the Donboli khans pledged their allegiances in 1757 to Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar, who made his minor son Agha Mohammad Khan the ruler of Tabriz and Najaf Qoli Khan the young prince's guardian. In 1762, they allied with Karim Khan Zand, who sent Shahbaz Khan and Najaf Qoli Khan's son Abdol-Razzaq Beg as hostages to Shiraz in 1763. While Najaf Qoli Khan stayed as the pacified ruler in his khanate and Shahbaz Khan remained de facto governor of Khoy in Shiraz, the real power in the Donboli domains was Shahbaz' brother Amir Ahmad Khan, who reigned from 1763 until his death in 1786 as the strongest Donboli ruler and an opponent to Agha Mohammad Khan's claims as the overlord of all Persia. Finally, in 1786, Ahmad Khan and his eldest son were killed by Shahbaz' sons, maybe on behalf of the Qajar shah. Ahmad Khan's second son Hossein Qoli Khan succeeded his father in 1786. In 1791, he arranged with Agha Mohammad Khan and his Qajar dynasty,and became the governor of Tabriz, Khoy and Ardabil. In 1792, Hossein Qoli Khan was entitled amir ol-'omara and beglerbegi of Azerbaijan. He also attended the shah's coronation on the Mughan steppe in 1792, where Agha Mohammad was proclaimed shahanshah and emperor of all of Iran. In 1793, he fell out of favor when he allied with Ibrahim Khali Khan Javanshir, the ruling khan of Karabakh, and married his daughter. But in 1797, he was reinstated in all posts by Fath Ali Shah Qajar, who married his son Mohammad Taqi Mirza to Hossein Qoli Khan's daughter. After Hossein Qoli Khan's death in 1798, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Jafar Qoli Khan, who rebelled against the central government with his 15.000 men, being defeated by the crown prince Abbas Mirza, and finally migrated to Russia in 1800. In addition with the two Russo-Persian wars this terminated the Donboli rule in 1809 and ended their regional dominance in 1827. But members of the family held several government posts in Azerbaijan and other provinces of Iran.

Another branch of the Donboli went to Kashan, and its most prominent member became Fath Ali Khan Saba Donboli "Malek al-Sho'ara", poet laureate and painter of Fath Ali Shah.[3]