 Aq Qoyunlu

The Aq Qoyunlu or Ak Koyunlu, also called the White Sheep Turkomans ( "Āq Quyūnlū", also mentioned as Bayanduriyye), was a Persianate Sunni Turkoman tribal confederation that ruled parts of present-day Eastern Turkey from 1378 to 1501, and in their last decades also ruled Armenia, Azerbaijan, most of Iran, and Iraq.According to chronicles from the Byzantine Empire, the Aq Qoyunlu are first attested in the district of Bayburt south of the Pontic mountains from at least the 1340s, and a number of their leaders, including the dynasty's founder, Qara Osman, married Byzantine princesses.