The title is of Turkish origin, meaning "beg of begs" (commander of commanders).Шаблон:Sfn Under the Safavids, it meant governor-general.Шаблон:Sfn
The title first appears in 1543/44, when the Safavid ruler Tahmasp I (Шаблон:Reign) issued a decree that referred the governor of Herat as beglerbegi.Шаблон:Sfn The title was created to distinguish more important governors from less important ones.Шаблон:Sfn As a result, starting in the 1540s, governor-general (beglerbegi), senior-governor (hakem-khan), and junior-governor (hakem-soltan) were one of the titles that would be given to a emir governing a province or smaller administration.Шаблон:Sfn
Other beglerbegis soon appear in records, such as the beglerbegi of Astarabad in 1548, and the beglerbegi of Kerman in 1565. According to Willem Floor: "This, and the fact that beglerbegis also were at the same time emir al-omara of their jurisdiction, contradicts the view that the term beglerbegi was simply a Turkish translation of the title emir al-omara." Beglerbegi was only applied to governors of large administrations in the second half of the 16th-century. The title was more commonly employed in the latter part of the 17th century, even for lesser administrations. Several khans and soltans were subject to the beglerbegi.Шаблон:Sfn
Herat and Kerman, which were among the first provinces to be administered by a beglerbegi, are not included in the list. This is due to not all of these administrations would continue to be governed by a beglerbegi after the 1630s. After the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639, the Safavids lost Baghdad to the Ottoman Empire. Between 1632 and 1722, a vizier oversaw the administration of Fars.Шаблон:Sfn
