Iskandar Beg Munshi, the Safavid court historian at the time, describes him as "one of the most powerful statesman to hold office under this dynasty", and a "man of great forbearance, modest and chaste".

[2] In 1589, he took part in the assassination of the powerful minister (vakil) and kingmaker Morshed-Kholi Khan Ostaglu, who was secretly condemned to death by Shah Abbas I.

In the same year, Shah Abbas I appointed him the governor of Fars, a move that made him the first gholam to attain equal status with the Qizilbash emirs.

This act also meant that the large provinces would no longer be administered by semi-autonomous and frequently self-minded Qizilbash emirs, but by officers appointed directly by the Shah.

From 1600 onwards, counseled by the English gentleman of fortune, Sir Robert Sherley, he reorganized the army and strengthened it by increasing the number of gholam troops from 4,000 to 25,000.

[1] Allahverdi Khan led the Persian armies in a number of successful campaigns on both the eastern and the western frontiers of the Safavid empire, including the 1601-2 conquest of Bahrain.

The Si-o-se-pol bridge across the Zayandeh River built by the architect Mir Jamal al-Din Muhammad Jabiri in Isfahan under Allahverdi Khan's patronage still bears the general's name.