Muhammad Shaybani

Muhammad Shaybani محمد شیبانی
Predecessor	Abu'l-Khayr Khan
Successor	Jan Wafa Mirza
Born	1451 Central Asia
Died	2 December 1510 Mary, Turkmenistan
Spouse	Mihr Nigar Khanum Khanzada Begum
Full name Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad
House	Shaybanids
Dynasty	Shaybanids
Religion	Islam

Muhammad Shaybani Khan (Uzbek: Muhammad Shayboniy, Persian: شیبک خان ‎‎) also known as Abul-Fath Shaybani Khan or Shayabak Khan or Shahi Beg Khan (c. 1451 – 2 December 1510), was an Uzbek leader who consolidated various Uzbek tribes and laid the foundations for their ascendance in Transoxiana and the establishment of the Khanate of Bukhara. He was a descendant of Shiban (or Shayban), the fifth son of Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son.

Shaybani was initially an Uzbek warrior leading a contingent of 3000 men in the army of the Timurid ruler of Samarkand, Sultan Ahmed Mirza under the Amir, Abdul Ali Tarkhan. However, when Ahmed Mirza went to war against Sultan Mahmud Khan, the Khan of Moghulistan, to reclaim Tashkent from him, Shaybani secretly met the Moghul Khan and agreed to betray and plunder Ahmed's army. This happened in the Battle of the Chirciq River in 1488 C.E., resulting in a decisive victory for Moghulistan. Sultan Mahmud Khan gave Turkistan to Shaybani as a reward. Here, however, Shaybani oppressed the local Kazakhs, resulting in a war between Moghulistan and the Kazakh Khanate. Moghulistan was defeated in this war, but Shaybani gained power among the Uzbeks. He decided to conquer Samarkand and Bukhara from Ahmed Mirza. Sultan Mahmud's subordinate emirs convinced him to aid Shaybani in doing so, and together they marched on Samarkand.^[1]

Continuing the policies of his grandfather, Abul-Khayr Khan, Shaybani ousted the Timurids from their capital Samarkand by 1500. He fought successful campaigns against the Timurid leader Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. In 1505 he recaptured Samarkand and in 1507 also took Herat, the southern capital of the Timurids. Shaybani conquered Bukhara in 1506 and established the short-lived Shaybanid Dynasty of the Khanate of Bukhara. In 1508–09, he carried out many raids northward, pillaging the land of the Kazakh Khanate. However he suffered a major defeat from Kazakhs under Kasim Khan in 1510.

The battle between Shah Ismail I and Muhammad Shaybani in 1510.

Shah Ismail I was alarmed by Shaybani's success and moved against the Uzbeks. In the Battle of Marv (1510), Muhammad Shaybani was defeated and killed when trying to escape. Ismail had Muhammad Shaybani's body parts sent to various areas of the empire for display and had his skull coated in gold and made into a jeweled drinking goblet which was drunk from when entertaining.^[2]

At the time of Shaybani's death, the Uzbeks controlled all of Transoxiana, that is, the area between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers. After capturing Samarkand from Babur, Shaybani married Babur's sister, Khanzada Begum. Babur's liberty to leave Samarkand was made contingent upon his assent to this alliance. After Shaybani's death, Ismail I gave liberty to Khanzada Begum with her son and, at Babur's request, sent them to his court. For this reason Shaybani was succeeded not by a son but by an uncle, a cousin and a brother whose descendants would rule Bukhara until 1598 and Khwarizm (later named Khiva) until 1687. From the accounts of Babur, i.e. , the Baburnama, we came to know that, the then Shah of Persia beheaded Shaibani, bleached his scull, bejeweled it and made the scull a drinking cup and later sent it to Babur as a goodwill gesture. While his rest of the body was put on a spike at the main gate of Samarkhand.

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Muhammad Shaybani.

• Babur's capture and loss of Samarkand (1501)
• Babur meeting Khanzada Begum