Abu Sa'id (Timurid dynasty)

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Abū Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Mīrānshāh b. Timūr
Monarch
Reign	Samarkand: 1451 - 1469 Herat: 1459 - 1469
Born	1424
Birthplace	Herat
Died	1469
Dynasty	Timurid dynasty

Abū Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Mīrānshāh b. Timūr (Herat, 1424 - 1469), was a Timurid Empire ruler in what is today parts of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan and member of the Timurid dynasty.

Abū Saʿīd was the great-grandson of Timur, the grandson of Miran Shah, and the nephew of Ulugh Beg. As a young man his ancestry made him a principal in the century long struggle for the remnants of Timur's empire waged between Timur's descendants, the Black Sheep Turkomans, and the White Sheep Turkomans (1405-1510).^[1]

He raised an army but failed to gain a foothold in Samarkand or Bukhara (1448-1449); established his base at Yasi and conquered much of Turkestan in 1450. In June of 1451, he captured Samarkand with the aid of the Uzbek Turks under Abūʾl-Khayr Shaybani Khān, thus securing rulership of the eastern part of Timur's Empire, Transoxiana.^[2] He fought an inconclusive war with Babur Ibn-Baysunkur of Khorasan in 1454; and took advantage of his cousin Jahan Shah's capture of Herat late in 1457 to capture it for himself in 1458, thus acquiring the rest of Timur's heartland and becoming the most powerful of the Timurid princes in central Asia. He defeated an alliance of three other Timurid princes at the Battle of Sarakhs in March 1459, and conquered eastern Iran and most of Afghanistan by 1461, agreeing with Jahan Shah to divide Iran between them; when the White Sheep Turkoman chieftain Uzun Hasan attacked and killed Jahan Shah, Abu Sa'id spurned Uzun Hasan's peace offer and answered Jahan Shah's son's request for aid.

Captured with a small force in the mountains of Azerbaijan during a campaign against the Ak Koyunlu (White Sheep) Turkomans, he was executed by Uzun Hasan in 1469.^[3]

A capable and conscientious ruler, he tried to recapture the glory and prosperity of Miran Shah. He did much to restore economic prosperity in his kingdom, by promoting well-planned irrigation, and a reasonable tax system for peasants.^[4] He was also a Sufi disciple, and worked closely with the Naqshbandi order, under shaykh Khwaja Ubaydallah Ahrar.^[5] He was also linked to Mawlānā Muḥammad Qāḍī, a shaykh in the Khwājagān, linked to the Naqshbandiyya.^[6]

Preceded by ‘Abdullah	Timurid Dynasty (in Samarkand) 1451–1469	Succeeded by Sultan Ahmad
Preceded by Ibrahim, then Interregnum (Black Sheep)	Timurid Dynasty (in Herat) 1459–1469	Succeeded by Yadigar Muhammad

[edit] References

1. ^ Jean Aubin, "Abū Saʿīd", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. I (1960), pp. 147-148.
2. ^ Soucek, Svat, A History of Inner Asia (2000), page 136.
3. ^ Jean Aubin, "Abū Saʿīd", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. I (1960), page 148.
4. ^ Soucek, page 137.
5. ^ Jean Aubin, "Abū Saʿīd", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. I (1960), page 148, quoting from V.V. Barthold, "Ulug Beg i ego vremya" [Ulugh Beg and his time], 1918.
6. ^ Muhammad Haidar, "Tarikh-i-Rashidi", 1928