Turkmen

The Turkmens are the Oghuz Turkic people of the southeastern Caspian shore and the Khorasan steppe. Known as Oghuz, they took the name Turkmen by the Middle Ages, and the Bayandur and Afshar tribes gave rise to the Aq Qoyunlu and later the Afsharid dynasties.

While many Oghuz moved west with the Seljuks, those around the Aral and Caspian seas kept a semi-nomadic life. They adopted Islam between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, largely through Sufi orders, often keeping older steppe customs. Around 1337 their clans grazed flocks from Gorgan to the Western Khorasan pastures around Bojnurd.

Their semi-nomadic structure let them weather the Mongol era, but Timur's campaigns later swept the region. After his death their lands were contested by the Safavids and Uzbek khanates; the Afshar Turkmen Nader Shah seized the Persian throne in the eighteenth century.