Muhammad Shaybani

Muhammad Shaybani
Predecessor	Abu'l-Khayr Khan
Full name
Abu 'I-Fath Muhammad
House	Shaybanids
Born	1451 Central Asia
Died	2 December 1510 Merv
Religion	Islam

Muhammad Shayabak Khan Uzbek (Persian: شایبک خان ازبک, Uzbek: Muhammad Shayboniy), known in later centuries as Abul-Fath Shaybani Khan (c. 1451 – 2 December 1510), was a khan of the Uzbeks (from 1500) who continued consolidating various Uzbek tribes and laid foundations for their ascendance in Transoxiana. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan through his grandson Shayban and considered the Timurids as usurpers of the Genghisid heritage in Central Asia. His native Turkic name was Shabaq/Shebaq (wormwood, whence Shaibak, thence Shaybani--a pseudo-authentication of a common Turkic name into a more prestigious Arabic tribal name of Shayban.

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 Empire. 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.

Shah Ismail I from the Safavid dynasty of Persia 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.

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.

External links

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

Preceded by Haider Sultan	Khan of the Uzbeks 1500–1510	Succeeded by
Preceded by Badi' al-Zaman	Ruler of Persia 1507–1510	Succeeded by Ismail I