The campaign of Shaykh Djunayd Ṣafawī against Trebizond (1456 AD/860 H)

Abstract

Trebizond, on the southern coast of the Black Sea is separated by the distance of nearly one thousand kilometres from Ardabīl, the native town of Safawids, situated not far from the Caspian Sea. Despite that, in the midst of the 15th century fate amazingly brought together two royal families: the Grand Komnenoi of Trebizond and the Safawids of Iran. Shāh Ismācīl (1501–1524), the founder of the Safawid state was born in 1487/892 of Halima-begum, the daughter of the Trepezuntine despoina Theodora and the Aq Quyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan (1457–1478). Shaykh Djunayd Ṣafawī (d. 1460), the grandfather of Shāh Ismācīl, had nearly seized the city of Trebizond, about thirty years before the birth of his famous grandson. The Trapezuntine nobles left their sovereigns, the emperor John IV (1429–1459) and, likely, his sister Theodora, the future wife of Uzun Ḥasan and grandmother of Ismācīl. Trebizond remained unprotected and, if shaykh Djunayd were more persistent in his attempts to capture the city, who knows what would be the future of both celebrated dynasties.