Khalil Sultan

Khalil Sultan (; 13 August 1384 – 3 November 1411) was the Timurid ruler of Transoxiana from 18 February 1405 to 1409. He was a son of Miran Shah and a grandson of Timur. On Timur's death he took control of Samarkand and held it for four years, until he was displaced by his half-uncle Shah Rukh, who installed his own son Ulugh Beg in the city. Khalil Sultan was afterwards sent to Ray in central Iran, where he died.

Biography

Background Khalil Sultan was born at Herat on 24 Jumada II 786 AH (13 August 1384), the son of Miran Shah by Sevin Beg, called Khanzada, a daughter of Aq Husayn Sufi of the Qongirat and of Shakar Beg, a Jochid princess. His foster mother was Timur's senior wife Saray Mulk Khanum, and his atabak was Yahyaka, also called Yahya.

Sevin Beg had first been married to Timur's eldest son Jahangir; after Jahangir's death in 1376 Timur gave her in levirate marriage to Miran Shah, the earliest such union recorded within the Timurid family. Khalil Sultan was therefore a uterine half-brother of Muhammad Sultan, Timur's first designated heir, and of Yadgar Sultan. His full siblings were Muhammad Qasim, who died at the age of one; Biki Sultan, who married in turn Iskandar and Bayqara, both sons of Umar Shaikh; and Fatima Sultan, who died in infancy. Woods notes that although Khalil Sultan is presented in the genealogy compiled during his reign as a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Timur, his mother was not legally a Chinggisid, and he did not bear the title Kuragan that his father and grandfather held.

Khalil Sultan at the Wall, fighting rivals; Samarqand (probably), (Topkapi Sarayi Library, H. 2152, fol. 59b) Khalil Sultan struck coinage in his own name, and the Dastur al-vuzara of Khwandamir lists him first among those after Timur in whose names the khutba and sikka were performed.

Loss of Samarkand and death Meanwhile, Shah Rukh, who was ruling in Herat, also decided to press his claims. He advanced to the Oxus River against Khalil but turned back when Khalil's father Miran Shah, as well as his brother Abu Bakr ibn Miran Shah, marched from Azerbaijan in support. Nevertheless, Khalil's position began to weaken. He was unpopular in Samarkand, where the nobility despised his wife Shad Malik Agha. She is said to have had considerable influence over Khalil, convincing him to appoint people of so-called low birth to high positions at the expense of the nobility. A famine caused him to be even more despised. Woods cautions that this picture derives from a hostile narrative tradition: Taj al-Din Salmani laid the blame for Khalil's misjudgements and the loss of Samarkand entirely on Shad Malik's influence, and although Ibn Arabshah echoed that judgement, he did not repeat Salmani's rhetoric attributing her conduct to her servile origins. Khalil decided to return to the Ferghana Valley with his former mentor, Khudaidad Hussain, who went to Moghulistan (the realm of the eastern Chagatai Khans) in an attempt to win their support.

Khalil's rule in Samarkand finally ended when Shah Rukh entered the city unopposed on 13 May 1409. Transoxiana was then given to Shah Rukh's son Ulugh Beg. Khalil decided to surrender to Shah Rukh, who had captured Shad Malik. He received his wife back, and was appointed governor of Ray. He died there on 3 November 1411, aged 27.

By Jahan Sultan Biki Arlat:

Burgul, born 802 AH (1399–1400). He was named by Timur himself, after Timur's own paternal grandfather, as part of a wider revival of names drawn from the family's Mongol and Barlas ancestry. Muhammad Bahadur Kichik Agha, also called Shirin Beg Agha, who apparently died in infancy. She was fostered by Saray Mulk Khanum.

By Shad Malik Agha:

Muhammad Baqir, born 5 Ramadan 813 AH (1 January 1411), died 838 AH (1434–1435) at the age of 23 Sultan Badi al-Mulk, also called Sultanum, who married Ulugh Beg and was subsequently divorced by him. (The divorce is recorded in the Paris manuscript of the Muizz al-ansab, but the Aligarh and London manuscripts instead describe her as Ulugh Beg's honoured wife at the time of writing.) Saray Malik Agha, who apparently died in infancy. She was fostered by Shah Rukh.

By the unnamed Tuqmaq concubine:

Ali, who apparently died in infancy

Ancestry Khalil Sultan created an extensive Turko-Mongol genealogy in 1405–1409, which presented him as a descendant of both Genghis Khan, through his mother, and Timur, through his father (Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, H2152, detail).