Historical Reference |
Muhammad Shaybani Khan |
Muhammad Shaybani KhanMuhammad Shaybani Khan
Abu-l-Khayr overran Khwarazm and part of Turkestan ; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century his son Mohammad Shaybani, also known as Shah Beg, made himself master of Samarkand and Transoxiana, and was the first of the so-called dynasty of the Shaybanides. It is more than a mere coincidence that the appearance of the Uzbeks and Kazaks in Southern Central Asia was contemporaneous with Russia's liberation from the Tartar yoke. Shaybani Khan achieved the conquest of Transoxiana in A.H. 906 (1500),2 but soon after this event Zahir ud- Din Babur, then aged nineteen, entered that country and captured Samarkand, Soghd, Miyankul, Karshl, and other strong places; Bokhara alone remaining in the possession of the Uzbeks. However, in the following year, A.I I. 907 (1501), Shaybani Khan defeated Babur and regained the lost territory. By A.H. 911 (1 505), from which date historians reckon the commencement of his reign,3 he had made himself master of Transoxiana, Farghana, Khwarazm, and Hisar. His attention was now turned towards Khorasan, which was in the hands of Husayn Mirza, also called Sultan Husayn Baykara, a descendant of Timur's second son, 'Omar Shaykh. In A.H. 912 (1506) Babur, hearing of the Uzbek designs, marched northwards from Kabul to assist his relatives.4 But in the interval Mirza Husayn 2 Thus according to both the Tarikh-i- Timurt and the Tarlkh-i-Abu-l- Khayr, quoted by Howorth, op. cit. ii. 695. 3 There is in the British Museum a silver coin of Shaybani Khan, dated A.h. 910: Merv. 4 An account of this campaign will be found in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, p. died, and Babur, on his arrival in Khorasan, A.H. 913 (1507), found that the two sons of the late prince had instituted a dual government. So disgusted was he with their lack of definite policy and their mutual recriminations, that he returned to Kabul and left them to fight their own battles. In this year Shaybani Khan, entering Khorasan, defeated these ill-assorted colleagues and made himself master of the country. The next three years were passed in successful expeditions in the direction of Khorasan and India, and against the Kazaks. But in A.H. 916 (1510) his career of conquest was brought to a sudden close. Shah Ismail, the Safavi,— who eight years previously had overthrown the Turkmen dynasty of the " White Sheep " in Azerbaijan, and had set upon the conquest of all Persia,—now marched into Khorasan. Here he defeated and slew Shaybani Khan in the vicinity of Merv, thereby making himself master of the whole country.1 1 Lubb ut-Ta-wartkh, book III. pt. iii. chap. vi. |
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