At the time of the Safavid state, the entire territory of Azerbaijan was made up of four beylerbeydoms: Shirvan, Karabakh (or Ganja), Chukhursaad (or iravan) and Azerbaijan (or Tabriz).Rahmani A. A. Azerbaijan in the late 16th and 17th centuries (1590–1700). Baku,1981, pp. 87–89 These regions were headed by the shah’s governors-general who were called beylerbeys.

The first beylerbey of Karabakh was Shahverdi-Sultan from the Ziyad-oglu clan of the Azerbaijani Gajar tribe, who was appointed by Shah Tahmasib I in the 1540s. The nobility of the tribe was granted pastures and land plots in Karabakh. The power of the Karabakh beylerbey covered a vast territory – from the Georgian border near “Sinig Korpu” Bridge (currently “red Bridge”) to Khudafarin Bridge on the Araz river. The descendants of Shahverdi-Sultan were Karabakh beylerbeys with a khan’s title until 1736 when Nadir- shah took Karabakh proper from Ziyad-oglu, leaving him with Ganja and a county, which he and his heirs owned until 1804.