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The Muzaffarids and the Ilkhanate Successors. When the last Ilkhan died heirless in 1335, his empire shattered into a patchwork of successor states - and for half a century Iran was fought over by a dozen dynasties. In the west, the Jalayirids held Baghdad and Tabriz; in the northeast, the Sarbadars of Sabzevar - a remarkable radical republic of craftsmen and dervishes; in Khorasan, the Kartids of Herat, Ilkhanid vassals turned independent; and in the south, the two strongest: the Injuid house of Shiraz and Isfahan, and the Muzaffarids.
The Muzaffarids (1314-1393) had begun as Arab military settlers of Khorasan under the Ilkhans. Mubariz al-Din Muhammad Muzaffar, their energetic founder, took Yazd and Kerman, then in 1353 destroyed the Injuids and seized Isfahan and Shiraz, making the family masters of southern and central Iran. His court at Shiraz briefly made the city the refuge of Persian letters - the great poet Hafez lived and wrote in Shiraz under Muzaffarid rule, protected from orthodox censors by the enlightened minister Shah Shuja.
Shah Shuja (r. 1358-1386), who imprisoned his own father, was the dynasty's most capable ruler: a patron of Hafez and the historian Nizam al-Din Shami, he held Shiraz against repeated family revolts and against Timur's first advance, buying survival with tribute. But the Muzaffarids were ruined by their own ferocious family politics - Mubariz al-Din was blinded by his son, and blinding and fratricide became the dynasty's internal habit - and by Timur's rise.
In 1387 Timur took Isfahan, massacring its people after they killed his collectors, and in 1393 he extinguished the Muzaffarids, blinding or executing the princes. The other successor houses fell the same way: the Kartids and Sarbadars had already submitted or been crushed, and the Jalayirids held Baghdad until Timur and then the Turkmen confederations overwhelmed them. Out of the wreckage rose Timur's empire - and later, the Safavids.
Encyclopaedia Iranica: Mozaffarids
World History Encyclopedia: Ilkhanate
Encyclopaedia Iranica: Qara Ketay