An Analytical Study of the Relations of Local Guilani Rulers with Russian and Ottoman Empires

At the same time that Safavids rose to power in Persia, Russians’ and Ottomans’ attention drawn to Guilan. Ottoman sultans were interested in the region as well as in Azerbaijan. Russians too sought to usurp the monopoly of trades in the southern and western coasts of the Caspian Sea. The latter nurtured plans for developing and expanding ties with Persians in order to perpetuate their expansionism and reinforce their puissance, both political and military. Russians and Ottomans, therefore, cemented strong ties with the rulers in Guilan to take the region under their influence. Following Shah Abbas’s interest in the region ,however, Russians stopped supporting the rulers and Ottomans chose to keep their friendship with Safavids for the profit that would earn them, despite providing refuge for the Karkiya Khan. The findings suggest that notwithstanding the fact that Russians and Ottomans failed to achieve their political goals through the local rulers in the long term, they contrived, in the short term, to pave the way for the permeation of these empires in the northern and north-western Persia.