Imam-Quli Khan (، Emāmqolī Khān) (died 1632) was an Iranian military and political leader of Georgian origin who served as a governor of Fars, Lar and Bahrain for the shahs Abbas I and Safi. Biography Imam-Quli Khan was the son of Allahverdi Khan (Undiladze), the celebrated Georgian general in the service of Iran’s Safavid dynasty. Imam-Quli Khan is first mentioned as governor of Lar in Fars in 1610. He succeeded his father as governor-general (beglarbeg) of Fars in 1615, but retained his position at Lar and was granted the rank of an amir of the divan by Shah Abbas I. In 1619-20, Imam-Quli Khan oversaw Abbas’s project to link the headwaters of the Karun and Zayandarud rivers in order to enhance the water supply of his capital, Isfahan. Shah Abbas placed complete trust in Imam-Quli Khan who grew in influence and prestige and became one of the wealthiest khans of the Safavid empire. One day, Shah Abbas even jokingly said to Imam-Quli: "I request, Imam-Quli, that you will spend one dirham less per day, that there may exist some slight difference between the disbursements of a khan and a king!" Imam-Quli built a madrasa and many palaces in Shiraz and the still standing bridge Pol-e Khan over the Kor at Marvdasht. Being in charge of the Safavids' southern possessions, Imam-Quli Khan continued his father’s policy of undermining the Portuguese positions in the Persian Gulf. In 1621, he persuaded the English East India Company to cooperate with the Persians by threatening to cancel the trading privileges that had been granted to the company by the shah in 1615. As a result, Imam-Quli Khan’s army aided by the English navy captured the strategic Portuguese fort on the island of Qeshm and laid a siege to Hormuz, which surrendered after a defence of ten weeks on 22 April 1622. The khan’s military exploits are commemorated in the works by the poet Qadri from Fars. According to the Safavid historian Fazli Khuzani, Imam-Quli Khan had 22 daughters, of which some were married to Safavid Georgian gholams of noble origin in 1622. In 1626, when Imam-Quli's daughter and son-in-law Anduqapar Amilakhori were captured by rebellious Georgians, Abbas I sent a large army in order to rescue them. Fall and death After the death of Abbas, Imam-Quli Khan found himself in disagreement with new favorites of Shah Safi, Abbas’s successor to the throne of Persia, and