Aq Qoyunlu
Culture

The Aq Qoyunlu patronized Persian belles-lettres which included poets like Ahli Shirazi, Kamāl al-Dīn Banāʾī Haravī, Bābā Fighānī, Shahīdī Qumī. By the reign of Yaʿqūb, the Aq Qoyunlu court held a fondness for Persian poetry. 16th-century Azerbaijani poet Fuzuli was also born and raised under Aq Qoyunlu rule, writing his first known poem for Shah Alvand Mirza.

Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami dedicated his poem, Salāmān va Absāl, which was written in Persian, to Yaʿqūb. Yaʿqūb rewarded Jami with a generous gift. Jami also wrote a eulogy, Silsilat al-zahab, which indirectly criticised Yaʿqūb immoral behavior. Yaʿqūb had Persian poems dedicated to him, including Ahli Shirazi's allegorical masnavi on love, Sham' va parvana and Bana'i's 5,000 verse narrative poem, Bahram va Bihruz.

Yaʿqūb's maternal nephew, 'Abd Allah Hatifi, wrote poetry for the five years he spent at the Aq Qoyunlu court.

Uzun Hasan and his son, Khalil, patronized, along with other prominent Sufis, members of the Kobrāvi and Neʿmatallāhi tariqats. According to the Tarikh-e lam-r-ye amini by Fazlallh b. Ruzbehn Khonji Esfahni, the court-commissioned history of Yaqub's reign, Uzun Hasan built close to 400 structures in the Aq Qoyunlu region for the purpose of Sufi communal retreat.

In 1469, Uzun Hasan sent the head of the Timurid Sultan, Shāhrukh II bin Abu Sa'id, with an embassy to the court of the newly ascended al-Ashraf Qaytbay in Cairo. With these presents came a fathnama, in Persian, explaining to the Mamluk sultan the events leading up to the Aq Quyunlu—Timurid conflict approximately five months earlier, emphasizing in particular Sultan-Abu Sa'id's plans of aggression toward the Mamluk and Aq Quyunlu dominions—plans that were thwarted by Qaitbay's loyal peer Uzun Hasan. Despite the negative response from Qaitbay, Uzun Hasan's continued correspondence to the Mamluk Sultanate were in Persian.
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