Goharshad

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Akhangan tomb, where Goharshad's sister Gohar-Taj is buried. The architecture is a fine example of the Timurid era of Persia.

Goharshād (Persian: گوهرشاد meaning "joyful jewel" or "shining jewel"; alternative spelling: Gowharshād) was a Persian noble and wife of Shāh Rukh, the emperor of the Timurid Dynasty of Herāt. She was the daughter of Giāth ud-Din Tarkhān, an important and influential noble during Tīmur's reign. According to family traditions, the title Tarkhān was given to the family by Genghis Khan personally.

Along with her brothers who were administrators at the Timurid court in Herāt, Goharshād played a very important role in the early Timurid history. In 1405 she moved the Timurid capital from Samarkand to Herāt

Under her patronage, the Persian language and Persian culture were elevated to a main element of the Timurid dynasty. She and her husband led a cultural renaissance by their lavish patronage of the arts, attracting to their court artists, architects and philosophers and poets acknowledged today among the world's most illustrious, including the poet Jami. Many exquisite examples of Timurid architecture remain in Herāt today.

After the death of her husband in 1447 Goharshad maneuvered her favorite grandson to the throne. For ten years she became the de facto ruler of an empire stretching from the Tigris to the borders of China. When she was well past 80, she was executed on July 19th 1457 on the order of Sultān Abū Sa'īd.

According to legend, Goharshād once inspected a mosque and a religious school (madrasah) in Herāt accompanied by two hundred female attendants, after it had been cleared of its students, all of whom were male. One youth remained, having fallen asleep in his cell, and was discovered by an attendant and seduced. When Gawhar Shad found out, she ordered that all two hundred of her attendants be married to the students. This legend epitomizes the liberal Islamic tradition in Afghanistan stretching back centuries and whose symbol is Goharshād.^[1]

Goharshād's tomb is located next to the madrasah that she had built, of which the minaret remains until this day (see http://www.fao.org/afghanistan/Data/Mapsystem/Archeological_Sites/html/22.html)

A women's university in Kabul that opened in 2003 bears the name of Goharshād (see http://www.creatinghope.org/AIL%20GSU.htm)

Goharshād had a mosque ("Masjid-e Goharshād") built in 1418 in Mashad, Khorāsān. Her sister, Gohar-Tāj also has a tomb in Khorāsān.