Azeri

The Azerbaijanis are a Shia Muslim Turkic people speaking an Oghuz language, centered on Tabriz and Ardabil in northwest Persia. The older Azaris spoke Old Azeri; eleventh-century Seljuk conquests brought Oghuz Turkoman tribes to the Iranian plateau, swollen by Mongol invasions. They Turkified the locals and gradually turned to Shia Islam; their legends survive in the dastan of Dede Korkut.

In 1337 the Ilkhanid realm was fragmenting, and Azerbaijan soon passed under the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu confederations. The Safavid order of Ardabil used Turkoman tribes as Qizilbash warriors and seized Persia in 1501, making Shia Islam the state faith; under Shah Abbas the Great Tabriz and its province formed one of the empire's richest cores.

After the Safavid collapse the Turkic Afsharids and Qajars ruled the Azerbaijanis until the Russo-Persian wars, ended by the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), split them between Persian and Russian rule.