Timurid Ruler Shahrukh Mirza dies

 

On this day, March 13, 1447, Timurid ruler of Persia and Transoxania, Shahrukh Mirza died in Rayy, Timurid Empire and buried in Gur-e-Amir, Samarkand, Uzbekistan. His father, the Central Asian conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), who founded the Timurid dynasty, was the Timurid emperor of the eastern part of the empire. Timur's fourth and youngest son, Shahrukh, was born to one of his Tajik concubines.

Following Timur's death in 1405, several tribes and rulers competing for authority over his realm. After the Black Sheep Turkmen took Baghdad in 1410, they effectively destroyed the western empire. But, in Persia and Transoxiana, Shahrukh was able to establish effective rule beginning in 1409. His empire was very rich because it controlled the main trade routes between East and West, including the legendary Silk Road.

The annihilation of Persia's great towns caused the empire's cultural centre to migrate to Samarqand in modern Uzbekistan and Herat in modern Afghanistan. Shahrukh selected Herat as his capital rather than Samarqand. While both towns profited from the riches and privilege of Shahrukh's court, which was a major supporter of the arts and sciences, this was to become the political centre of the Timurid Empire and the abode of his main successors.

Shah Rukh's wife, Gowhar Shad, financed the building of two remarkable mosques and theological institutes in Mashhad and Herat. In 1418, the Gowhar-Shad-Mosque was completed. The reigning dynasty's diverse ethnic roots resulted in a peculiar cultural worldview, which was a blend of Persian culture and art, Chinese borrowings, and Persian, Chagatay, and Arabic-language literature.

Shah Rukh commissioned Hafizi Abru to produce a variety of geographical and historical works. It was eventually included by its creator into bigger anthologies of "universal history," Majmuaye Hafeze Abru and Majma al-tawarik al-soltaniya.

Ghiyath al-din Naqqash writes in his diary, comparatively to the time of Timur and the Hongwu Emperor, who almost initiated a war, ties between the Timurid state and the Ming China of Yongle and his successors improved during Shah Rukh's tenure (which was averted only due to the death of Timur). Several times between 1414 and 1420, Chen Cheng led Chinese envoys to Samarqand and Herat. Between 1419 and 1422, Shah Rukh sent a large envoy to China.

Shahrukh passed away while travelling in Rey, Iran, and was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Taragai Ulug Beg, who served as viceroy of Transoxiana during his father's reign. The next year, Ulugh Beg took control of the city and ordered the exhumation of his father's remains before reburial beside Timur's at Samarqand's Gur-e-Amir.

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