Allāh Virdī Khān - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
Matthee, Rudolph P.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Leiden
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Brill
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
(1,244 words)
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Allāh Virdī Khān (b. mid-tenth/sixteenth century, d. 1022/1613) was a member of the so-called ghulāmān-i khāṣṣa-yi sharīfa (slaves of the shah), the originally Christian Armenians and Georgians recruited by the Ṣafavids to counterbalance the Turkmen Qizilbāsh tribal forces. Reaching high rank under Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 995-1038/1587-1629), he was the first ghulām to be given control over territory converted to khāṣṣa (crown land) and arguably the most important representative of this new class whose members came to occupy many high positions