Chapter 1 Historical and Cultural Contexts 1 The Timurid Empire In the 13th century Genghis Khan left the vast region of Transoxiana, Central Asia, to his second son, Chagatai. However, as the descendants of Chagatai grew weaker over successive generations, local tribes from Central Asia who accepted Islam grew more powerful. One such tribe was the Barlas, counting Timur Lang (1336–1405) as one of its clansmen. As an adult, Timur conquered Transoxiana, founding what was later to be called the Timurid dynasty.1 After establishing his capital at Samarkand, Timur set out on three campaigns in which he managed to bring under his control the provinces previously ruled by the Muzafarid and the Jalayirid, and to conquer some Ottoman and the Mamluk frontiers.2 After his victory over the Ottomans, Timur returned to Samarkand; not long after, at the age of sixty-nine, he set off for China for his last campaign. After a struggle following Timur’s death, one of his sons, Shāhrukh (1377–1458), grabbed the reins of power and succeeded in bringing the provinces under his control. Shāhrukh appointed his son Ulugh-beg (1394– 1449) governor of Transoxiana,3 while control over northwest Khurāsān was entrusted to another son, Bāysunghur (1397–1433), who spent most of his time in the capital, Herat, where he employed painters in his palace.4 The reign of Shāhrukh remained stable for about fifteen years, after which the princes once again started fighting among themselves and external forces attacked. These factors exhausted Shāhrukh and led to his early death in 1447,5 followed by renewed struggles for control over the Timurid Empire. While the Timurid court struggled to attain some stability, a new power was emerging—the Turkmen Qara-Qoyunlu tribal federation. Under Jahan-Shāh (died in 1467), the Turkmen were able to take on almost all Persia and Mesopotamia. However, the Timurids soon gathered around Abū Saʿīd (1424– 1469), grandson of Miranshāh, son of Timur, who managed to take control of the Khurāsān region, including its capital Herat, until he was defeated and 1 Roemer, “Timur,” 43–44. 2 Roemer, “Timur,” 64–80. 3 Roemer, “The Successors,” 98–101. 4 Manz, Power, 32–33. 5 Ibid., 34–35. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004398412_003 6 Chapter 1 killed by the Aq-Qoyunlu.6 After the death of Abū Saʿīd, land leased from Shāhrukh was divided into three parcels: the Turkmen Aq-Qoyunlu tribal federation headed by Uzun Ḥasan (r. 1453–1478) and his son Yaʿqūb (r. 1478– 1490) were given control of Persia, Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia, with Tabriz as its capital. The sons of Abū Saʿīd were to rule over western Turkistan and Transoxiana; the third region, to be ruled by Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā, combined Khurāsān, part of modern Afghanistan, and the regimes west of the Oxus.7 At the beginning of his reign, Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā of Khurāsān had to fight the Aq-Qoyunlu who managed to expel him from Herat for some months in 1470. However, Sultan Ḥusayn succeeded, with the help of his citizens, in regaining control of the city. After the expulsion of Turkmen troops from Herat, Uzun Ḥasan, the Aq-Qoyunlu leader, decided to maintain quiet on the eastern front—the boundary between the lands that were under his control and the properties controlled by Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā—because of Ottoman and Mamluk threats on the western side.8 The rise to power of Sultan Yaʿqūb in Tabriz took the Turkmen and Timurid into a peaceful phase. Their new relationship was expressed in contacts that Ḥusayn Bāyqarā and some of the members of his court, especially the poet ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, made with the Turkmen court in Tabriz.9 Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā also sent two delegations to Tabriz in order to strengthen relations.10 Less peaceful relations existed between the Timurid court and the Uzbeks (or the Shaybanids), who were of Mongol origin and named after the founder of the dynasty Muḥammad Shaybānī (d. 1510), who conquered Samarkand in 1501. Despite the great power of Muḥammad Shaybānī in Transoxiana, Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā chose not to confront him, and this ultimately led to the conquest of Herat by the Shaybanids, who crossed the Oxus River and occupied Khurāsān soon after the death of Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā in 1506.11 6 Ibid., 113–117. 7 Ibid., 118. 8 Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 112–114. 9 Jāmī dedicated his poem Salāmān and Absal to Sultan Yaʿqūb, who on his side sent a generous gift to the poet, see Minorsky, Persia, 59–60. For more about the relationship between Jāmī and Yaʿqūb, see Lingwood, Politics, Poetry and Sufism, 107–110. 10 The first delegation met Sultan Yaʿqūb in 1487 after the birth of one of Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā’s sons; the second in 1489, see Minorsky, Persia, 59, 98. 11 Roemer, “The Successors,” 122–125..