The Ottoman Turks had defeated the Iranian army of Shah Ismail I (r. 1502-1524) at the Battle of Chaldiran on August 23, 1514. In the disastrous aftermath of the ensuing Ottoman-Safavid wars, much of Iran’s Azarbaijan province (including its provincial capital Tabriz), Armenia (known as the Irvan Khanate in Medieval Iranian sources) and the Caucasus fell under the occupation of the Ottoman Turks.