Panah Ali Khan
Panah Ali Khan Javanshir (; ; 1693 – 1759 or 1763) was the founder and first ruler of the Karabakh Khanate under Persian suzerainty. Ancestry Panah Ali Khan was from the Sarijali branch of the clan of Javanshir, who with their associate clan of Otuz-Iki (meaning thirty-two in Azerbaijani) had for long been rivals of the Yirmi-Dört (meaning twenty-four in Azerbaijani) and Ziyadoghlu Qajars of Ganja, whose chiefs had been official rulers of Karabakh since Safavid times. His father's name was Ibrahim Agha Javanshir but information on his further ancestry is quite complicated. According to Mirza Adigozal bey, Panah Ali's paternal great-grandfather and namesake Panah Ali bey served at the headquarters of the governors (beglarbegs) of the Karabakh-Ganja province in the early 17th century, at the time when the region was directly controlled by the Safavid Empire of Iran. He soon retired, married a woman from the Javanshir clan of Karabakh and had a son by the name of Ali (nicknamed Sarija Ali). They lived in their estate located in Arasbar (Arasbaran) but also owned land in Tartar and the northern shores of the Aras River. The Arasbar estate was rebuilt into a castle during Sarija Ali's son Ibrahim Khalil's lifetime and has been known as Ibrahim Khalil Galasi since. However, the aforementioned information is contested by different sources, namely Mir Mehdi Khazani who names Panah Ali khan's grandfather as Ibrahim Sultan (head of tribe ) and great-grandfather as Budagh Sultan (head of tribe ). Azerbaijani historian E. B. Shukurzade proposes Panah Ali Agha (I) as his grandfather and Ibrahim Khalil Agha (I) as his great-grandfather. However, in all versions his father is the same. Panah Ali had two brothers, elder Fazlali bey, and younger Behbud Ali bey. Early life After the dethronement of the Safavids in 1736 by Nader Shah, the landed classes of Ganja and Karabakh (including the Javanshirs) gathered in Mughan and decided to oppose the new shah and agreed to try to restore the Safavids to the throne. When this news reached Nader Shah, he ordered all Muslim landowners of the region and their families deported to Khorasan (northeastern Iran) as punishment. Panah Ali was among the deportees. His elder brother and former master of ceremonies () of Nader, Fazlali bey, was murdered c. 1738. This was when Panah Ali found himself displeased with Nader Shah's attitude towards him. In 1747, having gathered many of those previously deported from Karabakh in 1736, Panah Ali returned to his homeland. The shah sent troops to bring back the runaway, but the order was never fulfilled, as Nader Shah himself was killed in Khorasan in June of the same year. The new ruler of Persia, Adil Shah, issued a firman (decree) recognizing Panah Ali as the Khan of Karabakh. Reign Adil Shah's murder in 1748 left Panah Ali virtually independent. He campaigned against the Five Melikdoms of Karabakh as part of his plan to solidify his rule in Karabakh. He forged an alliance with new Melik of Varanda, Melik