Saray Mulk Khanum

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Saray Mulk
Empress consort of the Timurid Empire

Tenure 1370 - 1405
Spouse Amir Husayn of Balkh
Timur
Full name
Saray Mulk
House House of Borjigin (by birth)
House of Timur (by marriage)
Father Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur
Born 1343
Died 1406 (aged 62-63)
Samarkand, Timurid Empire
Religion Islam

Saray Mulk Khanum (c. 1343 – 1406) was the Great (or Grand) Empress of the Timurid Empire as the chief consort of Timur, also known as Tamerlane the Great, the founder of the Timurid Empire as well as the Timurid dynasty.[1][2][3] By birth, she was a princess of the Chagatai Khanate as a daughter of Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur and was a member of the House of Borjigin, the most renowned family clan in Eurasia.[4]

She was also a descendant of Genghis Khan.

Family

Saray Mulk Khanum was born a princess of the Chagatai Khanate in c. 1343 to Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur, the last Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Saray's grandfather was Khan Yasa'ur, her father's predecessor and a great-great-grandson of Chagatai Khan. She was therefore, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the Great Khan (Emperor) and founder of the Mongol Empire. By birth, Saray was also a member of the House of Borjigin, the most renowned family clan in Eurasia.[4]

Being the daughter of a Khan, Saray held the title of Khanum ("daughter of a Khan or princess") by birth.

Marriage to Timur

Before her marriage to Timur, Saray had been previously married to her husband's predecessor, Amir Husayn of Balkh. When in 1370, Timur defeated and thereafter executed Husayn after the Siege of Balkh, he seized the harem of his predecessor and took to himself the latter's wives, one of whom was Saray Mulk Khanum, daughter of Khan Qazan and a Turko-Mongol princess. Saray was five years younger than Timur. As the daughter of a Khan and a descendant of Genghis Khan, Saray enjoyed the status of Timur's senior wife, although in her first husband's harem the chief wife was a daughter of Khan Tarmashirin, who after Husayn's fall was married to the Jalayir Khan Bahram.[5]

Through his marriage to Saray, Timur acquired the right to the surname Gurgan ("son-in-law") of Qazan Khan which figures on his coins and appears very often in the Mamluk sources. The title of gurgan was very important for Timur because it was vindictive of his relations with the family of the Chughtai.[6][7] In 1397, Timur married Tukal-Khanum, a daughter of the Mongol Khan Khizr Khoja, who skipped over several other wives due to her exalted lineage and took the second place in the harem becoming second in status only to Saray. Saray, therefore, held the position of being Timur's chief consort until his death.

Little is known of Saray and Timur's relationship,[8] apart from the fact that she was his confidante and one of his closest advisers,[9] but it is clear that she wielded great influence in the Empire and over her husband. She is also cited by all sources to have been Timur's "favourite" and his beloved wife. Saray also sometimes acted as regent during Timur's absences from Samarkand as a result of his western campaigns and wielded great authority at Court.[10] As Timur's chief consort, Saray additionally held the title of "Great Empress" similar to the title held by Genghis Khan's chief wife, Borte. The Spanish ambassador, Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, who was sent by Henry III of Castile to visit Timur's court in 1405, called Saray, "The Grand Khanum".[11]

In appearance, Saray was said to be very beautiful and sometimes described as possessing "surpassing" beauty.[12] She did not have any children with Timur,[13] though she is sometimes referred to as the mother of her husband's youngest son, Shahrukh Mirza, who was actually born of a concubine. Even if Saray had any children with her husband, they did not survive, and neither did Tukal-Khanum's, and yet their power and influence were well noted by foreign visitors to the Court. It was the two Chingisid princesses' personal qualities and pedigree that allowed them to develop a prestigious dynastic position since with Timurid consorts maternity was not in itself a path to power.[14] Nonetheless, upon the birth of Shahrukh's eldest son, Ulugh Beg in 1394, he was placed in Saray's care and grew up under the supervision of the Empress.

In May 1394, Saray along with Timur's other wives followed her husband with the ughruq to Armenia and Transcaucasia where Ibrahim was born. In September, they returned to Sultaniya, but some time later were again summoned to join Timur. In the spring of 1395, both the Saray and Tukal with the children were sent to Samarkand, where Shahrukh had been staying since the autumn of 1394. In 1396, they were all in Khuzar, meeting Timur on his return from his "Five Years" campaign. During the Indian campaign, Saray Mulk Khanum and Ulugh accompanied Timur only as far as Kabul. In August 1398, Timur sent them back to Samarkand from the neighbourhood of Kabul.

Clavijo's account of the Empress

Ruy González de Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador who was sent by Henry III of Castile to the Timurid imperial court at Samarkand

Although the Spanish ambassador, Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, probably did not intend it, his description of "Cano" (The Great Khanum), Timur's chief wife, as she entered the great pavilion serves as a potent metaphor for much that he witnessed during his sojourn in Samarkand, the capital of Timurid Empire, between 8 September and 20 November 1404. As the ambassador of Henry III of Castile, Clavijo enjoyed great generous access to the life and ceremony of the Timurid imperial court and left one of the most detailed and lengthy accounts of their settings. "Cano" identifiable as Empress Saray, had come to join her husband, Timur, for a great feast, one of the several arranged at the Khan-i-Gil (lit. Mine of clay) meadow located outside Samarkand.[15]

Clavijo offers an expanded description of Saray's procession into the pavilion and of what she was wearing. Joined by fifteen servants to carry her train, eunuchs, and a male servant carrying a "shade" (sombra), Saray Mulk Khanum was dressed in red silk, her face covered by a white veil. She wore a complex headdress, fashioned from red fabric ornamented with pearls, rubies, turquoise, feathers, and held together with gold wire.[16]

Clavijo estimated about 300 hundred attendants making up her royal suite. Her doubly-screened face — one screen a cloth veil, the other a thick layer of applied make-up — concealed her true identity.[17] The face that dimly showed beneath her veil was so thickly covered with white lead, put on for protection from the Sun, that it looked as if it was made of paper.[18]

Patronizing education

One of the most important buildings of the late 14th century in Samarkand was the Khanum madrasa, opposite the great mosque of Timur. The madrasa was commissioned by Empress Saray in c. 1397 as she was interested in patronizing education and was built by her orders at the capital of the Timurid Empire: Samarkand. Saray had commissioned many other buildings, but only the Khanum madrasa remains intact to this day.

References

  1. ↑ Renard, ed. by John (1998). Windows on the House of Islam : Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life. University of California Press. p. 246. ISBN 9780520210868. 
  2. ↑ Lal, Ruby (2005). Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge University Press. p. 217. ISBN 0521850223. 
  3. ↑ Belozerskaya, Marina (2012). Medusa's Gaze : the Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese. Oxford University Press. p. 99. ISBN 9780199739318. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Humphrey, Caroline; Sneath, David (1999). The End of Nomadism ? : Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia. Duke University Press. p. 27. ISBN 9780822321408. 
  5. ↑ Vasilii, Vladimirovitch Barthold (1956). Four Studies on the History of Central Asia. E.J. Brill. pp. 24–25. ISBN B0007J9IR0 Check |isbn= value (help). 
  6. ↑ Sonbol, Amira El-Azhary (2005). Beyond the Exotic : Women's Histories in Islamic Societies (1. ed. ed.). Syracuse Univ. Press. p. 340. ISBN 9780815630555. 
  7. ↑ Shterenshis, Michael (2002). Tamerlane and the Jews. RoutledgeCurzon. p. 28. ISBN 9780700716968. 
  8. ↑ Time-Life Books (1989). The Age of calamity : Time Frame AD 1300-1400. Time-Life Books. p. 83. ISBN 9780809464418. 
  9. ↑ Bingham, Marjorie Wall (2005). An Age of Empires, 1200-1750. Oxford University Press. p. 34. ISBN 9780195178395. 
  10. ↑ Tokhtakhodjaeva, Marfua (1995). Between the slogans of communism and the laws of Islam. Shirkat Gah Women's Resource Centre. p. 20. 
  11. ↑ Veit, edited by Veronika (2007). The Role of Women in the Altaic World : Permanent International Altaistic Conference, 44th meeting, Walberberg, 26-31 August 2001. Harrassowitz. p. 149. ISBN 9783447055376. 
  12. ↑ Tucker, Jonathan (2003). The silk road : art and history. Philip Wilson Publishers. p. 261. ISBN 9780856675461. 
  13. ↑ Crompton, Samuel Willard (1999). 100 Military leaders Who Shaped World History. Bluewood Books. p. 43. ISBN 9780912517339. 
  14. ↑ Balabanlilar, Lisa (2012). Imperial identity in the Mughal Empire : memory and dynastic politics in early modern South and Central Asia. I.B. Tauris. p. 102. ISBN 9781848857261. 
  15. ↑ Brummett, p. 113
  16. ↑ Brummett, p. 114
  17. ↑ Brummett, p. 114
  18. ↑ Marlowe, Christopher (1976). Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 & 2. Taylor & Francis. p. 13. 

Bibliography

  • Brummett, Palmira Johnson (2009). The 'Book' of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, and Pilgrimage, 1250-1700. BRILL . ISBN 9789004174986.
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